Mega-polluter Apple doesn't want you unless you're green

If you don’t believe we’re destroying the planet through global warming then Apple doesn’t want your money. That was the message from CEO Tim Cook at a recent shareholders meeting. Cook told so-called climate denier investors that if they didn’t like the company wasting money on “green” initiatives they “should get out of this stock.”

Cook said Apple does many things that have nothing to do with return on investment because, “We want to leave the world better than we found it.” Really? Apple has been repeatedly singled out by environmental groups as being a huge polluter in China. And not

of CO2, which is not a pollutant, but of real pollution. Apple suppliers throughout China often “fail to properly dispose of hazardous waste,” according to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing. 

At one factory that makes iPhone screens, 137 workers were seriously injured by toxic chemicals used to make the product. Apple has been urged to move its factories back to the United States but it’s doubtful many of these factories could pass EPA standards.

One iPhone supplier, Pegatron, has been criticized for all sorts of problems including improper disposal of waste, poor working conditions and excessive hours for its employees as well as crowded living conditions. One Apple supplier had to put netting around the top of its plant because workers were jumping to their deaths to escape the horrid working conditions.

Oh, yeah, Tim. You’re leaving the world better than you found it.

I had an Apple “genius” at the Apple store inform me sometime back that Apple was bigger than Exxon Mobil. I thought big corporations were evil. That’s what Occupy Wall Street folks were telling us through Twitter tweets and postings on Facebook on their Apple computers while sipping their lattes from Starbucks. These occupiers are walking advertisements for big corporations. I’m sure they Googled how evil Big Business is.

So, somehow Apple is “green” because it wastes money on green energy projects that lose money. It’s the carbon offsets mentality. Put your money in some so-called green venture and you get to pollute all you want. It’s time we called them on it.

I love Apple products. I’m bringing you this column courtesy of the MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone as do my kids. Hypocritical? Perhaps, but Samsung is just as bad. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any phone that’s not made in China. Now, I could join the Amish and give up electronics altogether (which, quite frankly, sounds very appealing sometimes) or I can continue to rail on China as I have been for the last 20 years.

China is the common denominator in all of this. There is no EPA in China. There’s no Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act. The communist Chinese don’t give a damn about the people or the environment and corporations have taken the path of least resistance. It’s time they took the path of coexistence, as they’ve been preaching with those annoying bumper stickers. It’s time the electronics industry cleaned up its act and Apple is in a perfect position to lead the way. They made almost $42 billion last year. We hear liberals all the time saying corporations don’t need to make that much. They chastise McDonald’s for not raising the minimum wage, asking how much does one company really need to make. McDonald’s made $5.4 billion. Apple made 7 times the profit of McDonald’s and McDonald’s is the villain?

The last time I checked people weren’t throwing themselves from the rooftops of McDonald’s.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Climate censors: Not up for debate

The danger of media bias is not in what they tell you. It’s in what they don’t tell you. Those on the left preciously guard their positions by desperately trying to keep the truth at bay.

That was never more clearly demonstrated than during my recent trip to Charlottesville for a screening of our documentary, An Inconsistent Truth, at the University of Virginia. What I told the students there is the same thing I tell students at any university stop we make. Challenge everything. I told them that there are people who will go to any lengths to keep them in the dark on the issue of global warming with ad hominem attacks on people like me or anyone who dares challenge their worldview that humans are destroying the planet.

Right on cue came Thomas Forman II the Monday morning after my weekend visit. Mr. Forman scolded the UVA College Republicans for even inviting me, as if I had soiled the

hallowed grounds with my presence. He then proceeded to call me and anyone who dares disagree with the propaganda that he and others have been spewing “scientifically illiterate.”

Forman didn’t even have the decency to attend the screening, which is typical of people on his side of the issue, especially in academia. I suspect Mr. Forman knows the truth. How could he not? None of what Al Gore predicted in his movie has come true. The earth’s temperatures are not rising. The polar bears are not dying off. Sea levels are not rising. Hurricanes are not getting more vicious and more frequent. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Most important in this discussion, there most certainly is not a consensus on the issue of global warming or climate change or whatever these hysterics are calling it on any given day.

Unlike Gore’s movie, which is all about Gore, our movie features scientists who study the climate on a daily basis. One of the scientists we interviewed is Dr. Fred Singer. Dr. Singer is not only one of the foremost experts on the issue of climate change, he is an emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, the very university where Mr. Forman works. Surely he knows this. Surely he doesn’t believe that he is more qualified in this field than the man who was a pioneer in weather satellites and a former deputy assistant administrator of policy at the EPA.

Mr. Forman’s display of arrogance is breathtaking. His description of anyone who disagrees with him on climate change as being scientifically illiterate is the kind of scorched-earth policy the proponents of manmade global warming employ when they sense the truth is knocking down their door.

Commentator George Will summed it up best. He said when anyone claims the debate is over you can count on two things. First, the debate is still raging and, second, they are losing.

Mr. Forman and his fellow travelers are most assuredly losing the debate. Carbon dioxide levels have increased substantially over the past 15 years but global temperatures have remained steady. In short, there is no correlation between the two.

The recent snow storms that have pounded much of the country only serve to drive that point home. I’m certainly well aware that weather is not climate. I’m also aware that theory is not science. The scientific method demands proof. The global warming alarmists have no proof so they fall back to climate models. There are 72 major climate models that have been predicting temperature since 1979. All of the climate models - like Mr. Forman - have been dead wrong.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

My e-mail to Eric Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder is asking for tips to go after George Zimmerman on Civil Rights charges.  I felt compelled to send my own tip to Mr. Holder.  Below is my e-mail to Eric Holder.

Subject: Zimmerman Tip

Eric,

For the love of God, man, this case is closed.  The FBI has determined there was no racial motivation.  The only racist involved was Trayvon Martin who referred to Zimmerman as a "creepy-ass cracker."  Why don't you concentrate on something useful like addressing black-on-black crime.  Over 90 percent of black victims were killed by other black folks.  It might have something to do with nearly 75 percent of black babies born today being born out of wedlock.

You keep looking for a white person to blame.  Look in the mirror.  You and Obama continue the denial in this country.  Racism is not the problem with Black America today.  These are self-inflicted wounds and you do nothing to heal them by diverting attention away from them.

Sincerely,

Phil Valentine
Host, The Phil Valentine Show
http://PhilValentine.com