Not surprisingly, people who wish “woke” to die are now enraged by the “clean energy charging” feature Apple has installed by default in its recent iPhone operating systems, apparently appalled that this “globalist” tool uses electricity much less wastefully [“An iPhone charging feature touts ‘clean energy.’ But it’s generating blowback.,” Business, March 12]. These same people — not caring that a 60-watt incandescent lightbulb consumed as much electricity as a modern refrigerator — howled at regulations that took that energy hog off the grid. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — apparently mindful that emissions from charging the nation’s 118 million iPhones are equivalent to about 85,000 new cars on the road — says that she has turned the iPhone feature off “to increase my carbon footprint.”
With apologies to H.L. Mencken, who defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy,” these anti-woke warriors seem to live in dread that someone, somewhere, might be acting rationally and graciously. When the stupidity of all this is explained to voters, it might not be too much to hope that the 2024 election will be where anti-wokeness goes to die.
Vincent J. Canzoneri, Newton, Mass.