“Were gonna strike cause the waters are rising, we’re gonna strike cause people are dying,” an Amazon organizer sang into a bullhorn in front of a crowd of around 3,000 at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle on Friday. Behind him, the Amazon spheres — two geodesic domes reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller’s failed experiment — glinted in the sunlight. Someone held a sign in front of the spheres reading: “Spheres are cool. Don’t wanna live in one.”

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 company’s climate activists refused to take “no” for an answer.

The Amazon climate strike took place on Friday in solidarity with the global youth climate strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” movement. “We’re here because of the bravery of a young girl named Greta,” 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 — a decade ahead of the deadline laid out in the Paris climate agreement. But employees say that’s 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. “We’re out here with the students and what they’re telling us is they really care about the future and their planet’s future,” he said. Of the company’s new climate plan, he said, “It’s good that we’ve got a response finally from Bezos.” He thinks the climate change resolution inspired the company’s CEO to take more decisive action.

“It’s been super exciting,” 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. “This has been the culmination of a lot of work from a lot of employees so it’s just been so energizing and so inspiring being here.” 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 company’s cloud computing contracts with the fossil fuel industry. “We 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,” she said.

Han thinks Bezos’ 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. “Getting to the Paris Agreement 10 years ahead of time will not put us on the right track to a liveable world,” she said. “We’re not doing enough. The climate plan needs to be more comprehensive.”

Zoya Teirstein is a staff writer at Grist.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate
Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

You've just read your article on Z this month.

DOES Z'S SURVIVAL MATTER?

You keep coming back for a reason: serious political analysis, movement reporting, and debate beyond the priorities of corporate media. Today, Z is in a precarious financial position. If Z is part of how you understand the world, help keep it going. The readers who give monthly are the reason this work survives between fundraisers.

Z is in a precarious financial position. If it’s part of how you understand the world, help keep it going.

Number of donors716
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Z is in the most precarious financial position in its history.

Z is a place to think beyond the limits of the present.

For decades, Z has brought together political analysis, movement reporting, debate, and visions of a different future from writers and activists around the world. That work is more than journalism. It is movement infrastructure: movements need places to develop ideas, test arguments, learn from experience, and imagine what comes next.

In the first two days of this fundraiser, 19 donors and 8 new monthly sustainers stepped up. Help us reach 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone.

For decades, Z has published the analysis, debate, and visions movements need, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. If that work should continue, Z needs your support now.

Number of donors716
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version