International aid is slowly starting to reach the devastated port city of Derna as an inquest starts into how as many as 20,000 people might have perished when Storm Daniel hit the northern coast of Libya on Saturday night.

Corpses still litter the street, and drinkable water is in short supply. Whole families have been wiped out by the storm and with the remoteness of some villages and the rudimentary nature of municipal government, it will take time for the death toll to be confirmed.

Meanwhile:

‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20,000 | The Guardian

@Denny I don’t like this dunk. She was a tech focused news reporter and people post first-world problem tweets all the time. Now, if you had contrasted with the homepage of BBC news or another outlet and how their news coverage, that would be fair game. It’s absolutely fair to critique how focused on new tech people can while there are major issues going on in the world, but it’s not fair to take a single person’s tweet or post about tech and use it to suggest this is why we don’t care.
If you disagree, maybe I should take your next post on the iPad and then tell you off for not posting about some other important issue instead.

I may have missed the point of your post or the goal of your post so please correct me if so.

Honestly, I was unaware of what had happened in Derna but of course have posted about the iPhone event so I may be defending my own actions rather than actually discussing the issue.

@ChrisJWilson There were quite a few posts dunking on Apple’s focus on climate and environment as though they were either spending too much time on the issue or that they were greenwashing. In my view we are truly in a climate crisis and Apple has made it a priority to communicate it’s concern and the actions it’s taking. It’s their responsibility to express their concern and actions.

In general we continue to act as though it’s not a crisis. Believe me, anytime I share a non-climate post I feel an accompanying sense of guilt. My iPad posts are trivial in real world context. Future humans will look back at our time and shake their heads wondering why we cared anything about the camera features of a new gadget as we burned the planet down. It’s all trivial as we truly are in the midst of an existential crisis.

Perhaps it’s just human nature to just want to carry on with day-to-day normalcy. On some level I get that. Nervertheless, we will correctly be judged harshly by future humans for our inattention and inaction in the midst of a crisis. We joke about first world problems but it’s a meaningful statement about how far we’ve fallen that we are so casual about our cruelty. In my view social and ecological justice should be a much higher priority in the wealthy nations of the world. Given the context of climate emergency I would suggest it should be the highest priority.

@jasonekratz It’s irresponsible to separate out the products from the full and actual costs which includes more than the monetary cost. The journalists, podcasters, pundits, etc are there to cover an Apple event. One aspect of that is the tech details. Another is the monetary cost. And yet another is the environmental/climate costs. Apple made it a part of the show with good reason.

Those wealthy enough to be in the top 10% can more easily crack first world jokes because we’re more responsible for the creating the problem and less affected by them. Hence the whole need for the term “climate justice”. I’m less concerned with the feelings of privileged journalists from developed nations than I am the damage, pain and suffering they and we all are doing to our fellow humans and the other species which share the planet with us.

What’s not fair is the damage, pain, suffering and death our lifestyles are causing.

I’ve got no sense of humor about it.

@Ddanielson @numericcitizen @pratik

@Denny very good retort and I understand your point far better now. I didn’t see the climate connection because 1. I didn’t watch the keynote and was unaware of when what part was. 2. I ignorantly didn’t connect the Libya situation with the climate situation (partially justifying your point).

There’s a thing on the internet I hate where someone says something banal like “I like lemonade” and then people jump on them because they don’t like cola or they didn’t say they like fair trade environmentally friendly lemonade. I know this is an exaggeration but that’s how I viewed your critique hence my comment.

As for Apple’s environmental efforts. I’m glad they are keen to do them and glad they boast about them. I have seen some people question whether it’s greenwashing and I’d love better evidence either way. I know that some carbon neutral things are really just accounting tricks and some carbon capture can actually be more harmful for the environment.

While I do believe Tim Cook really is a believe in being green, I also can’t help but notice these all started after they were slated for the practices of their manufacturers in China back in the late 2000.

I hope it’s not greenwashing.

@jasonekratz @Denny Apple have been talking about their environmental commitments for decades. Perhaps ‘most’ are, at last, starting to listen.

@ChrisJWilson I mant to come back to this the other day! But the two points I would make about the timing of Apple’s environmental efforts and possible greenwashing, you’re right about Apple taking a more active role on environmental issues after the ciriticisms back in the early 2000s. Greenpeace was notably vocal in their criticisms but Apple didn’t do much to respond on environmental specific issues until after Tim Cook took over after Steve passed. Which is to say, I think their efforts on the environment have more to do with Tim Cook than previous criticisms. Steve didn’t seem to care much about Apple making statements or becoming involved in social or environmental issues. Tim changed that.

A second point, I would say that when Apple responds to criticisms by changing behavior that it’s likely a good thing. Sometimes they do so begrudgingly, but in the case of climate and environment my observations are that they actually do care. If you’ve never had a chance I’d suggest checking out apple.com/environme… They’ve gone quite deeply in how they address their environmental impact with annual reports dedicated to the efforts.

I think it’s understandable that so many are skeptical. In general capitalism as an economic system has failed miserably at social and environmental responsibility. The focus is always maximizing short term profits via increasing growth. It’s exceptionally rare for companies to take a real position and action on the environmental impact of their operations. But looking at these annual reports what I see is a company that is actually making real and substantial efforts. If there’s another company on the planet making this kind of effort I’d love to see it pointed out.

All that said, I still don’t think capitalism is capable of actually addressing the myriad ecological crises that we find ourselves in. Largely these crises are, in fact, the result of capitalism as a system that requires perpetual, endless growth and consumption. That’s not compatible with long-term balance with a finite planet and fragile ecosystems. Even Apple with its efforts is still a company that perpetuates constant consumerism. They’re doing far more than most to ensure re-use, recycling and better, socially-ecologically responsible sourcing but it’s within the framework of constant growth.