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Apple Issues $1 Billion Green Bond After Trump's Paris Climate Exit (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple offered a $1 billion bond dedicated to financing clean energy and environmental projects on Tuesday, the first corporate green bond offered since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. The offering comes over a year after Apple issued its first green bond of $1.5 billion -- the largest issued by a U.S. corporation -- as a response to the 2015 Paris agreement. Apple said its second green bond is meant to show that businesses are still committed to the goals of the 194-nation accord. "Leadership from the business community is essential to address the threat of climate change and protect our shared planet," said Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives.
I thought the Paris accord was the worst of virtue signaling pointless politics, but will happily buy into this green fund bond which is actually something real to support.
Widespread use of solar power especially is inevitable, so supporting it makes a great deal of sense.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sooner or later it's all going to get rammed down your throat. How much do you want to pay for house insurance? How much do you think your taxes will go up to pay for remediation or repair of damaged infrastructure? You're not immune from the costs of AGW, and actuaries are already pricing it into insurance.
There are things that nation states are supposed to do; things that private organizations or sub-national jurisdictions can't expect to do or could never afford to do. Your ideology is getting in the way of seeing the big picture. The physical laws of the universe don't give a flying fuck about your ideology. It is utterly meaningless. CO2 has the properties it has, and shouting "STATIST FUCKS" is simply the cry of stupidity and impotence.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So you think the "Right" isn't paying for climate change? Ever heard of the insurance industry?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Call him all the names you want. He's uniting people left and right on a common goal. And companies are spending their own money on things the taxpayers were before.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I would be more impressed if apple gave a portion of their profits to green initiatives and in each product sold provided a small factoid book about climate change and the environment by stating facts. Then all the people that don't believe that it is "real" that buy Apple products will be inundated with facts. What would be better is if all tech giants did this together. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Dell, etc.
Brilliant.
So what?poor apple.
Perhaps you missed this incident a few years where Tim Cook defended Apple's use of renewable energy?
For the better part of the last decade, Apple has taken on a number of sustainability projects and adopted practices to reduce waste and carbon emissions. In 2012, it broke ground on a data center in Oregon in order to take advantage of low-cost renewable energy and has plans to make all of its facilities reliant on green energy. It generally scores highly with EPEAT, a federal environmental group that keeps a registry of "green" digital devices. And in May 2013, it hired Lisa Jackson, who formerly ran the Environmental Protection Agency, to help Apple with sustainability.
https://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/03/at-apple-shareholders-meeting-tim-cook-tells-off-climate-change-deniers/
They're not coughing up money. They're borrowing 1 billion dollars by issuing bonds on the promise of spending it on green tech. And I can't find anywhere in the article where it mentions what rate of return the bond is paying.
YEAH! Better that they should do NOTHING instead of something!
And you sir, you dedicated what fraction of your wealth to green projects?
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Why?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
A company that willingly manufactures the VAST majority of it's products using Chinese coal and slave labor decides to cough up a billion dollars to do what?
Undo what it has wrought?
If Apple was sincere it would move its manufacturing to the USA where we actually have clean air standards.
Caution: Contents under pressure
I'm thinking that this might be a scam to repatriate some of the money without paying taxes.
1. Apple can use their overseas money to buy their Green bond.
2. The then get to use the money in the US and they can pay themselves interest which will go back to the overseas account.
3. Profit (for Apple, not so much for US taxpayers).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Well, I bought lettuce and celery this morning to make a salad for dinner. Does that count?
#DeleteFacebook
We're so environmentally friendly! Now quick, throw out your year old iPhone 7 because YOU MUST buy the iPhone 8! It's almost exactly the same, but it's the latest model! You don't want to be seen at Starbucks with a phone that's over a YEAR OLD do you?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I would be more impressed if apple gave a portion of their profits to green initiatives and in each product sold provided a small factoid book
What would this action cause to increase Apple's profits? I expect management to fulfill their obligation to maximize Apple shareholders' investment returns, otherwise offenders are subject to getting sued and ejected.
I'll help Apple fight global warming! I'm sending them a 12-pack of ice cubes right away!
#DeleteFacebook
Apple is soliciting other peoples' wealth, rather than spend any of the gold in their money bin that they like to roll in.
Let's give a high 5 to the Invisible Hand!
Citation: Wikipedia
Mmmmmm Saaaaalaaaaddd!
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Let's remember that Apple is legally obligated only to do things which are in the interest of its shareholders. This is not some altruistic act. I bet a good deal of the money they're borrowing will be spent on their own automated vehicle efforts (which, in theory, could *also* be good for the environment), improvements in data centre cooling efficiency, power savings, etc. I imagine the bulk of the benefit to shareholders is simply as a marketing ploy, to keep their customer base happy and coming back for more, tricking them into believing that Apple is a "good" corporation and shares their values.
Honestly, this is disgusting. The last thing we need is the business community trying to steer environmental efforts in order to benefit them. We need fucking deplorables to pull their heads out of their asses. That's it.
Unlike the inefficient red states, we blue cities are investing in more efficient cheaper energy.
Like this.
Have fun being left in the dust!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They're not coughing up money.
If Apple and their artistic tax attorneys brewed up this scheme, you can be guaranteed that there is a financial advantage for them. This reminds me of Mark "Sugar Mountain" announcing that he was donating all of his fortune to charity.
Oh, wait, he's not donating it to charity . . . he's donating it to an investment vehicle that he completely controls. If an investment fails . . . he gets to write it off on taxes. If an investment turns a profit . . . well, he keeps that, tax-free.
Privatize profits, socialize losses.
If I tried shenanigans like this on my tax return for my ranch, the IRS would char-broil my balls. Not that my vast herds of armadillos and rattlesnakes are worth much to anyone anyway.
Oh, but I did implement a fix for the socket layer "Thundering Herd" problem ages ago . . . that's another story, but the IRS would tax me for that if they could . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Try living on Venus and tell me how CO2 is working out there.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
That's funny because for the most part (Texas being the exception), red states are financially supported by the blue ones.
But you're right about the "idiotic left." The left are idiots for giving welfare to the red states. It's time to cut the red states off and let them try to support themselves financially. Self-reliance is still a conservative value, isn't it?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
The Spicer must flow.
Only 2 people so far have understood what the fuck this means.
They're ISSUING A BOND. That means someone can GIVE APPLE MONEY and get a BOND which will, in theory, earn interest over time.
Someone could then CASH THAT BOND and Apple would have to pay them the face value of the bond plus any accrued interest.
What is the interest rate?
When does it fully mature?
What is the money going toward?
Are there guarantees? (Typically there are with a bond.)
What will Apple do with the money?
What other little gotchas are there?
Lets look at the 2016 eligibility:
We selected projects that represent the breadth of environmental work we are
undertaking at Apple. A broad range of teams submitted projects for an allocation
of Green Bond proceeds. The Green Bond Project Review team selected projects
based on the following criteria:
Alignment with eligibility criteria
Refection of our three environmental priorities
Measurability of environmental benefts
Magnitude of environmental benefts
Feasibility to track and audit project expenditure
Sounds great! is this available to any global team deemed worthy?
Nope, this money goes to apple and its own internal green projects. I.E. Apple just gave themselves 1 bn to develop money saving and "green" tech that mostly just applies to them.
I have no problem with them developing what they want with their own money....but let's call a spade a spade....this is tax evasion, pure and simple.
Unless a switch to "Green energy" makes economic sense, it doesn't make any sense. I could decide to heat and cool my home and power everything in it without any fossil fuels being burned at all if I got funding for a mini nuclear power plant in my back yard. But it'd NEVER make any real economic sense to do it (even if you assume all the safety issues are handled far better than today's reactors handle them).
I'd be better served by Apple cutting prices on its products, rather than financing the latest politically-correct or trendy Green energy initiative that wasn't able to justify its existence to any traditional lenders. But no ... Instead, we're supposed to pay $129.99 each for the new Apple wireless keyboards (with non-replaceable rechargeable batteries inside them). What a value, right?
That of course would mean that Apple nees to violate their mission statement:
"Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices."
"Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings."
Nice try, but the idea of Red State Socialism (Republican states get more federal spending than they pay in federal taxes) is well supported.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I have yet to see the experiments where they quantify CO2's absorption at different concentrations and in the presence of different concentrations of other gasses.
Did you go to college? Did you study any STEM field? The experiments that you describe are routine first year undergraduate chemistry that should be a prerequisite for any STEM degree.
Seriously? Are you a fucking retard? The absorption and emission properties of CO2 have been known for over a century. I have to assume you are indeed a complete fucking moron.
http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EA...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Also, a nice try, but read the article. "Red states" may get more federal funding, but not all of the people in each state are "red" or "blue". In fact, in most states the difference between Democrat and Republican voters is less than 10%. So, if the Democrats in a state are disproportionately receiving a large share of federal largesse, it says nothing about the Republicans in that state.
All part of the defense of the country. That's a tenet of conservatives - defense of the country is one of the most legitimate responsibilities of the federal government.
From your articles:
Although ENIAC was designed and primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory,[5][6] its first programs included a study of the feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon.[7]
The Bell Labs work on the transistor emerged from war-time efforts to produce extremely pure germanium "crystal" mixer diodes, used in radar units as a frequency mixer element in microwave radar receivers.
ARPANET was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.
By today's "Democrat" standards, the idiotic right set the foundations of what just allowed you to type out that idiotic message on a magical box and send it through the magical intertubes.
Hoist by your own petard, it would seem.
Thanks for finally coming back to the same conclusion liberalism had 150 years ago.
Signed, -Libertarians.
"His name was James Damore."
...
I suppose someone reading down through the thread may be confused by this response. See, above, I supported pulling out of the accord.
Now, down here, I am telling you that I encourage everyone to learn some basic science. No, AGW is real and CO2 is one of the causes of this. The planet is pretty good at regulating itself, until you knock it so far out of balance that it can't correct itself quickly. And yeah, AGW is pretty much the definition of a self-correcting problem. The planet will fix itself. We may not survive, as a species, but ol' Mr. Earth is gonna be just fine, given enough time.
And yes, I still fully support pulling out of the accord.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
If the interest on their current assets is greater than the interest charged for a loan, it makes sense to borrow the money. This is like rule #7, if you want to be in the 1%. You're welcome.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That of course would mean that Apple nees to violate their mission statement:
Maximizing profit is not in conflict with their mission statement.
Doing all of those things listed in their mission statement have proven extremely profitable.
Let's not get into hypotheticals. The important point is that red states tend to get more federal funding than they pay in federal taxes, while blue states tend to pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal funding. So the Democratic states subsidize the Republican ones.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Screaming doom and blathering spittle-flecked hyperbole is why we got Trump.
I quoted that from a previous post for context.
The planet will fix itself. We may not survive, as a species,
Given the adaptability of the human species, and the huge variation of climates in which we already survive quite well, I would call the claim that AGW will lead to the extinction of the human species to be a bit hyperbolic. Don't you?
For example, I think the human species can survive quite well even if Florida is three feet under water (Schipol Airport has a reported elevation of between 9.8 and 11 feet below MSL; Amsterdam is close to 7 feet below). This applies to every coastal area.
People already live where is it ungodly hot. They already survive hurricanes and tornados. None of those would be mass extinction events.
Will we need to adapt to GW (whether you believe it is A or N)? Sure. Can we adapt to GW? Of course. Can we adapt to GC? Of course. The common thread to all of those questions is "can we adapt?", and the answer is always "yes".
Try living on Venus and tell me how CO2 is working out there.
So you would force Goldilocks to eat the bowl of porridge that is too hot because she thinks one of the bowls is just right? If she says she thinks porridge is good, she should eat the "too hot" to prove it to you?
According to the ORNL data from 2013, the US doesn't make it into the top 10 of per capita CO2 emissions.
Even Eurostat's 2012 data lists Luxembourg as higher CO2 emissions per capita than the US.
The US can and should improve, but we're not the worst by the metric you've selected. And the numbers I found imply that there are some real hypocrites over in Europe.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How about the last 10000 year? See https://xkcd.com/1732/.
Apple's Lisa Jackson says they are working to "protect our shared planet".
This is a common misconception. Our goal should be to maintain the planet's ecosystem compatible with human life. The planet will perfectly cope with our removal because we do not fit anymore.
Apple should make their products repairable, provide replacement parts, publish maintenance manuals, and stop releasing new models every year. That would do way more for the environment and drastically lower carbon footprint and e-waste than a billion dollar PR stunt does.
"... in 2003, the average Republican man paid about 48 percent ($5,100) more than his Democratic counterpart in total Federal taxes, including FICA contributions. The average Republican woman paid about 34 percent ($3,400) more than her counterpart."
http://wallstreetpit.com/89671... [wallstreetpit.com]. From the article:
"Hardly surprising, we see that in a two-party split, 60-80% of welfare recipients are Democrats, while full time Workers are evenly divided between parties.
"You have similar results in this recent NPR-Poll. Among the Long Term Unemployed, 72% of the two-party support goes to Democrats.
Great, way to link to a paper that doesn't actually provide what I stated was needed. I know CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. I stated that already. Nice attempt at deflection though.
https://www.google.com/search?...
Well HELL son, why don't we just run that experiment! We can dump, say 50 billion tons a year into the planet that we all live on and see what happens! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
LMAO, you're fucking stupid. Please refer to my above post where I clearly state CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. I'm not asking for verification of that fact. We know that. However, our atmosphere is not 100% CO2. So do you want to take another stab at finding the info I said was needed, or are you just going to continue being an obtuse moron?
You are right about one thing, I am kind of stupid for continue this conversation. You are at the level of a flat-earther. I should let you go about your ignorance, because your arguments are actually your own side look worse.