āWere gonna strike cause the waters are rising, weāre gonna strike cause people are dying,ā an Amazon organizer sang into a bullhorn in front of a crowd of around 3,000 at Amazonās headquarters in Seattle on Friday. Behind him, the Amazon spheres ā two geodesic domes reminiscent of Buckminster Fullerās failed experiment ā glinted in the sunlight. Someone held a sign in front of the spheres reading: āSpheres are cool. Donāt wanna live in one.ā
Amazon employees have been organizing in the name of climate change for months now. Earlier this summer, more than 7,500 employees backed a climate change resolution that called on the tech giant to adopt an aggressive climate plan. Shareholders voted the resolution down. But the companyās climate activists refused to take ānoā for an answer.
The Amazon climate strike took place on Friday in solidarity with the global youth climate strikes inspired by Greta Thunbergās āFridays for Futureā movement. āWeāre here because of the bravery of a young girl named Greta,ā another Amazon speaker said to loud cheers from the crowd.
On Thursday, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled an ambitious climate plan aimed at reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 ā a decade ahead of the deadline laid out in the Paris climate agreement. But employees say thatās not enough.
Henry Lai, a 26-year-old software development engineer who has been with the company for two years, participated in the strike on Friday because he believes in the cause. āWeāre out here with the students and what theyāre telling us is they really care about the future and their planetās future,ā he said. Of the companyās new climate plan, he said, āItās good that weāve got a response finally from Bezos.ā He thinks the climate change resolution inspired the companyās CEO to take more decisive action.
āItās been super exciting,ā said Cat Han, a 30-year-old software developer at Amazon and one of the main organizers of the climate efforts taking place internally at the company. āThis has been the culmination of a lot of work from a lot of employees so itās just been so energizing and so inspiring being here.ā Han hopes the strike will bring more awareness to the climate crisis. From Amazon, she wants strong commitments to global climate leadership, including an end to the companyās cloud computing contracts with the fossil fuel industry. āWe have to address a lot of the dealings that we have with oil and gas companies and the funding that goes into the lobbying groups that support climate denial,ā she said.
Han thinks Bezosā new climate plan is a step in the right direction, but she wants to see company leadership take much stronger action to address climate change. āGetting to the Paris Agreement 10 years ahead of time will not put us on the right track to a liveable world,ā she said. āWeāre not doing enough. The climate plan needs to be more comprehensive.ā
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate