Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), a “self-described” conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., happens to be a shareholder in Apple. NCPPR has not been happy with Apple’s environmental initiatives. According to Chris Taylor (Mashable), Apple has made great improvements “in its use of renewable energy” since Tim Cook took over as CEO. Taylor said, “More than three-quarters of the company’s facilities worldwide, including all of its data centers and its Cupertino HQ, now run on solar, wind, geothermal or hydro power, up from about a quarter under Jobs.” Just last year, Cook hired former EPA head Lisa Jackson “to lead the company’s sustainability efforts.”
In a written statement prior to Apple’s recent annual shareholder meeting, NCPPR’s general counsel Justin Danhof said, “We object to increased government control over company products and operations, and likewise mandatory environmental standards. This is something [Apple] should be actively fighting, not preparing surrender.” According to Fortune, NCPPR “was pushing a shareholder proposal that would have required Apple to disclose the costs of its sustainability programs and to be more transparent about its participation in ‘certain trade associations and business organizations promoting the amorphous concept of environmental sustainability’…” Bryan Chaffin (The Mac Observer) said that the NCPPR proposal was “rooted in the premise that humanity plays no role in climate change.” He also noted that there was language in the proposal that “advanced the idea that profits should be the only thing corporations consider.” During the shareholder meeting, NCPPR urged Apple CEO Tim Cook and the board “to pledge that Apple wouldn’t pursue any more environmental initiatives that didn’t improve its bottom line.”
According to Chris Taylor, Cook’s response to NCPPR was “blistering.” Bryan Chaffin said it was the only time he could recall that Cook appeared angry. Chaffin said Cook “categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR’s advocacy.” The Apple CEO insisted that the company’s environmental efforts make “economic sense.” He added that Apple does “a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive.” Cook said that there were many things the company does “because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.” Cook said that when the company works on “making devices accessible by the blind,” he doesn’t “consider the bloody ROI.”
Cook continued, “We want to leave the world better than we found it.” But Cook didn’t stop there. He suggested that anyone who had a problem with what the company was doing should sell their shares in Apple. “Get out of the stock,” he said.
Evidently, NCPPR was not too pleased with Cook’s response to its objections, advice, and shareholder proposal. Following the meeting, the think tank released a statement saying, “After today’s meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change. The only remaining question is: how much?”
Good question. How much should companies/corporations invest in looking for ways to combat climate change?
And imagine this: The CEO of a big company who is concerned not only about the “bottom line”—but who also cares about doing things that are “right” and “just and that will leave the world a better place. If only his condition was infectious.
NOTE: NCPPR’s proposal was rejected by Apple’s shareholders. It received just 2.95 percent of the vote.
~ Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
SOURCES
Apple CEO: Climate Change Deniers Should Take Their Money Out Of Apple Stock (ThinkProgress)
Tim Cook to Climate Change Deniers: Get Out of Apple Stock (Mashable)
Right Wing Think Tank Wants Apple to Disclose Sustainability Costs (The Mac Observer)
Tim Cook Soundly Rejects Politics of the NCPPR, Suggests Group Sell Apple’s Stock (The Mac Observer)
I just want links to that Wind farm spill
======================================
the whole town was blown away 🙂
i was just reading about some guy trying to stop wind farms in Britain because it is threatening to “desecrate our landscape”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2381610/GRIFF-RHYS-JONES-crusade-stop-wind-farms-solar-panels-wrecking-favourite-landscapes.html
i don’t understand how windmills are less a part of the landscape than fenced off squares with cows in them.
p.s.
Those maintenance costs can be passed on to the consumer!
Imagine THAT!
Imagine your local power company pays YOU to produce power for the grid!
… Or at least issues you credits toward your next bill!
What can be so wrong with cleaner power and less cost, or even credits?
Fossil Fuel is on it’s way out…
… Don’t expect it to go out without a fight!
IGotBupkis,
So, are you essentially saying that the manufacturing of wind turbines is bad because… the CO2 produced acquiring the necessary materials?
So, brill baby, drill. Instead?
An ounce of prevention is too much…
… Bring on the pound of pollution, instead?
Wouldn’t the continued burning of fossil fuels, sans the extraction process, be worse than, say, less burning fossil fuels to light your lamp because now, it’s light from the wind turbine?
Did you know it costs less to maintain per year, too?
… Less than coal, gas/oil OR nuclear. Maintenance costs alone!
solar panel construction.wmv
IGotBupkis,
“But people like you add vastly to that pollution by paying them to take on your own wasteful activities which cannot — would not — pay for themselves if you were forced to do them here.”
Now you blame me… with that broad brush of ad hominem.
My fault!
I never was behind outsourcing.
I believe in BUY AMERICAN!
FACT:
The outsourced manufacturing has contributed to CO2 out put because the Federal regulations in this Country would have ensured less pollution output, NOT MORE, like in China where regulations are very low.
IGotBupkis,
“Groundwater ALREADY long known to contain methane, and be randomly flammable, due to naturally occurring methane pockets nearby.”
Link it or you’re lying.
The pre-existing flammable water from local wells sans fracking.
I have news for you, Max…. you need to learn what ad homonym means.
ad ho·mi·nem [ad hom-uh-nuhm -nem, ahd‐]
adjective
1. appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason.
2. attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument.
To date you have appealed to my ignorance… And called me as much.
O.K. ad homonim away…
IGotBupkis,
Are my feelings supposed to be hurt?
No, the biggest line of BS is you claiming you know ANYTHING about the process of power generation, and have ANY clue about why one method might or might not be better than another under any given circumstance.
‘Cause they aren’t.
Call me names all you want, I just want links to that Wind farm spill that poisoned the local community for generations to come… I’ll patiently wait those links.
Yeah, max is busy citing examples of the exact crap I pointed out. Groundwater ALREADY long known to contain methane, and be randomly flammable, due to naturally occurring methane pockets nearby.
But of course, because someone with deep pockets is fracking nearby, the ONLY possible explanation (even though most of the cases have multiple known examples of it occurring for the last several decades, long before anyone was fracking) it can ONLY be due to the fracking.
}}} Max-1
}}} IGotBupkis, Or, do you prefer ad homonym’s as your retort?
I have news for you, Max…. you need to learn what ad homonym means.
If I say you are ignorant, and then stop talking, then THAT is ad homonym.
But if I say you are ignorant, and then list off the REASONS why you are ignorant, then I have not done anything of the sort. I’ve more than amply shown you to be ignorant. You claim wind and solar are clean, whereas I’ve pointed out that all you’ve done is put the pollution out of sight into another nation far, far away. This is not an improvement for anyone but YOU.
The Chinese, and the Japanese, and the Koreans will be paying for your folly for CENTURIES as they try and clean this crap back up. Their children will get cancers they would not have had, if we had kept our power generation where it belonged. They will have thousands of EARLY DEATHS due to your foolish notion that wind and solar are “clean”, just because YOU don’t see the pollution.
China would probably create a lot of pollution on its own as it bootstraps itself up to modern industrial capacities, and gets wealthy enough in the process to actually do things to clean up the waste products of its industrial power.
But people like you add vastly to that pollution by paying them to take on your own wasteful activities which cannot — would not — pay for themselves if you were forced to do them here.
Well we could get fried by a massive solar flare. 😉
annie,
It appears that maybe your iPad can’t learn if beyond the io5. Sorry.
My I phone is that way. I have the red squiggles that tell me of a word issue and I hit the (x) to clear it. It doesn’t learn. I have to wait for an update.
There are dictionary apps that do learn for iBooks and iNotepad.
Hope this helps.
IGotBupkis,
Link to the Solar spills, PLEASE!
Thanks Max.
annie,
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15307160#15307160
Or their wells?
annie
Oklahoma earthquake spike likely linked to fracking boom
http://rt.com/usa/oklahoma-earthquakes-fracking-wells-826/
Was it her well?
Max, dictionary settings, hmmm ok I’ll go try to find them, where should I start?
}}} Why haven’t the Mark V reactors in the USA been shut down?
Fukushima proves they are a Pinto. They go BOOM!
With ZERO containment…
Dude, Fukishima took THREE — count ’em THREE “once in a century” events — simultaneously — to take the freaking thing down
FIRST it takes an earthquake of a particularly high order of magnitude. STILL no problem.
SECOND, it takes a tsunami high enough to breach walls predicted to handle the worst tsunami expected within a century. STILL no problem.
THIRD, it requires a failure of pumping systems which are flooded by the tsunami. AND THEN — and only THEN — is it finally noted that the POWER system for replacement pumps that could be flown in DO NOT USE THE SAME CONNECTORS, and are hence useless.
Any ONE of those three things does not happen, NOTHING happens at Fukishima.
How much do you want to bet that, within 5 days of Fukishima, that that connector issue was being addressed, and that, within 8 weeks, there was a temporary fix available for every reactor in the western world, and that there was a requirement put in place for a permanent fix within a year or so?
And we are talking about a reactor designed — as I pointed out but you attempt to completely blow off — in the 1960s.
We’ve learned a few things about both engineering and plant design since then.
}}} Biggest line of B.S. EVER!!!
No, the biggest line of BS is you claiming you know ANYTHING about the process of power generation, and have ANY clue about why one method might or might not be better than another under any given circumstance.
IGotBupkis,
Wait till I get to oil pipelines…
You do know that 398 teens were arrested today?