this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 122 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have 7 trees on my property. If you pay me $700 I’ll promise not to cut them down for five years, and you can subtract 35 tons of CO2 from your environmental balance sheet.

That’s how carbon offsets work. They’re bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Sometimes carbon credits are sold off trees that weren't going to be cut down anyway 😂😂

Wendover has a really great video on carbon offsetting on YouTube and nebula

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

A true arbon neutral watch would cost the same but there'd be no profit left for the brand if they really did donate to companies that would plant trees or would lock away carbon dioxide

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm an Apple user and think their attempts reduce the environmental footprint of their product's manufacturing is pretty good, however this is unequivocally good news.

Purchasing carbon offsets to claim your product is carbon neutral isn't good practice in my opinion and I'm quite glad to see the EU is thinking of outlawing it. Of course Apple needs to get its arse into gear about expandability and repairability if it is serious about reducing eWaste

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

Carbon offsets are modern day letters of indulgence. It’s complete bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Get it's ass in gear? Apple has been actively fighting RtR and expandability in every way and only 'supported' the last RtR bill in Cali because they already had a circumvention in place using versioning. This is the exact same thing, PR gets to say they're carbon neutral while they pump the exact same amount of CO2 into the air each year. It's not just bad practice it's deceitful.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t think so. If you look at the manufacturing of the latest watch, they clearly have taken steps to reduce the carbon emissions. But not enough to claim carbon neutral.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I don’t see why you’re being downvoted - whilst a significant portion of Apple’s claimed ‘carbon neutrality’ can indeed be attributed to carbon offsets, they have also made changes in other areas. Here’s a graph from Apple’s climate report that shows the supposed change in emissions between last year and this year’s watches.

Source

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The absolute most important thing is the ability for end users to replace their batteries and displays. Storage expansion is somewhat moot by now thanks to cloud and NAS storage options coupled with 5G speeds.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Personally, I think there is absolutely no reason why in something like the iMacs, HD and RAM shouldn’t be user replaceable and upgradable.

They always used to be until Jonny I’ve got his thinness bug.

If Apple went for it and introduced a new aesthetic where there were small visible screws which became a symbol for cate about the environment, they could probably push the industry in that direction

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Storage and RAM not being user upgradable is an environmental nightmare for sustainability.

Not having internal slots for storage and relying on USB or NAS is not an appropriate alternative for professionals regardless of what their leadership says is what professionals want.

We’ll never know, but RAM being part of the SoC is probably contributing substantially to their performance capabilities compared to competition. The only real way to know that probably requires being an engineer at Apple. I’d wager $3.50 that they’d get a substantial performance deficit from switching to DIMMs, and that terrifies them since that would further push everyone to x86 workstations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Perhaps. But they started removing upgradable RAM in the Intel era. It’s not a new thing that came with the M1

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I think there is absolutely no reason why in something like the iMacs, HD and RAM shouldn’t be user replaceable and upgradable

Simple: user-replaceable RAM is too slow. Apples M-series SoCs combine the CPU and GPU and both share the same memory. This has massive performance advantages, especially for GPU-compute tasks. Performance of GPU code is very dependent on memory bandwidth. You cannot have high-bandwidth memory on a user-replaceable module, you have to have the memory chips physically close to the processor. This is the reason there are no user-replaceable RAM modules on GPUs either.

With GPU compute becoming more and more important, I expect the PC world to get rid of user replaceable RAM and GPUs as well in the future.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That doesn't really explain why they removed the ability in the Intel Macs. But that's very informative, thank you.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

In similar news, a local hit man's claims of being "death neutral" are facing increasing scrutiny. Edward Dennyson, known professionally as The Cobra says he has deals with dozens of local conservative Catholic families to have more children. As a result of those deals he can account for 34 births, which can be used to offset the lost lives that are an unfortunate and unavoidable requirement to the operation of his business.

The death-neutral aspect of his business has been a major differentiator, attracting interest from more ethically conscious consumers of his services. However, some voices have been critical. Some, like community organizer Juan Ramirez have wondered if these conservative Catholic families might already have planned to have those children that The Cobra claims. The News reached out to Mr. Ramirez for a comment for this story, but unfortunately he had recently been killed.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

Carbon neutral my ass. They have a policy against wfh for full-time employees. That says it all

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Carbon credits are bullshit and carbon neutral isn't even good enough anymore.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Apple could use Coca Cola's defence on the vitamin water lawsuit.

"no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage."

No reasonable customer should believe their products is carbon neutral.

Unless the product is fucking logs found in the woods.

Great thing we actually have organizations to shit down this shenanigans.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If Apple actually invested in some new offshore windfarms and/or solar farms to offset., I think that’s reasonable. Buying credits from some other outfit - not so much.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Apple faces scrutiny from European environmental and consumer groups over its claims that its latest devices are “carbon neutral,” a term that Brussels proposes to ban in corporate marketing because it is “misleading.”

But the US tech giant’s decision to rely on credits to cancel out the 7-12 kg of greenhouse gas emissions behind each new Watch prompted a sharp reaction from consumer groups in the wake of a long-trailed clampdown by the EU on “greenwashing.”

“The EU’s recent decision to ban carbon neutral claims will rightly clear the market of such bogus messages, and Apple Watches should be no exception.”

The debate over Apple’s claims highlights the problems facing companies that are trying to follow environmentally sound policies, while seeking to make marketing statements to tout their green credentials.

The European Parliament and Council, two decision-making bodies, reached a political agreement in September to ban “misleading advertisements,” including “claims based on emissions offsetting schemes that a product has neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment.” This accord is yet to be formally adopted.

Climate campaigners have also questioned whether tracking carbon emissions provided a thorough assessment of the environmental impact of small electronic devices such as smartwatches and wireless earbuds, which can be difficult to repair and often end up as e-waste.


The original article contains 451 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gods I watched the event thing because I was curious about the new pro model phones, and their constant blabber about carbon neutral became a meme we’re still mocking in my household.

The entire masturbatory skit about “mother Earth” is a perfect example of corporate cringe.

I know the word cringe is overused but no word fits it better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shameful? Mortifying? Awkward? Humiliating? Dastardly? Disgraceful? Reprehensible? Ignominious? Outrageous? Inglorious?

I can think of many other words that fit it better.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Shameful, mortifying, dastardly, and outrageous are a bit too heavy. Inglorious is a bit dated. Awkward, disgraceful, reprehensible, and ignominious are good fits. Pathetic works as well.

I’ve no idea who came up with it, and who signed off on it thinking it was a good idea. They must have paid their actors a lot to appear in that segment. I know I’d charge a lot for it.