We probably, at this stage, need to approach this issue with a certainly level of moderated-panic, and attempt to address it on al lines across all levels.
It stands to reason that if the general population can influence corporate decision making that might have a knock-on effect to cause companies to influence government decision making.
I'd hazard a guess that Jeff Bezos ability to influence government policy far exceeds mine by orders of magnitude.
What does this mean? I have been hearing the terms "global warming" and "crisis" for almost 20 years now, yet it is almost always followed up with talk -- talk about how others could change their lifestyle choices, talk about how organizations can change how they function, talk about how we can talk even more to the right people. Very rarely have I ever seen a plan -- a formulated, step-by-step guide on what people or organizations must sacrifice in order to bring about a better future, and even less so people who actually act on that plan instead of simply reiterating it to anyone within earshot.
I would absolutely not be surprised if this event, which some consider to be "necessary" on any level, does nothing to impact Amazon to change anything to improve the climate situation -- as far as they can see from my perspective, they see 900+ employees, some of whom are probably part-time and not getting paid anyways, with no actual plan of how global warming should be solved with respect to Amazon, but want to feel good for a time, feel as though they are making some level of actionable change on the world, until their time is over and they go back to work while they patiently wait for
>one of the most innovative companies[0]
to come up with a plan themselves. I've seen it time and time again, it solves nothing, achieves nothing. And I'd bet it all on black that this earns them nothing but contempt from their supervisors/managers.
[0]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1joUIg5O5pRS_R2OqXoJzbuCX...
I'd have to say what you're doing here is having a few magnitudes of order less impact on climate change.
Perhaps you've heard of the Green New Deal?[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal#Models_for_impl...
What, then, is your comprehensive alternative?
Perhaps my earlier comments were too harsh, given I definitely feel defeated with regards to climate change. My current approach is to simply not care, as the added stress of caring didn't help and didn't do any favours to my general well being.
It's all looking like a lot of too little too late. But, fortunately, at my age, I'll probably miss the worse of it.
We probably need to simultaneously drastically limit carbon emissions and draw down atmospheric carbon / remove CO2 from the oceans. And I can't see how that's going to happen prior to things getting a lot worse.
Having said that, we did act collectively to implement the Montreal Protocol[1], so there's a bit of a precedent for acting at this scale... but there were fairly straightforward alternatives to ozone depleting gas.
Everyone knows of global warming, I don't want to see more talks, more protests and more blame, I want to see plans being enacted, laws being enforced, the world actually improving, but that's not what I see in this Amazon spectacle.
(For what it's worth, I didn't down vote any of your comments. I typically up vote anything I engage in, and usually only down vote comments that are shallow or abusive).
1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-15/students-walk-out-of-...
No. It's part of the planed 20/9 global CC strike, that was initiated by kids outside of US.
I believe it would actually be illegal to fire employees for this. US employers generally cannot legally punish employees for striking.
Given the severity and near-certainty of climate change, it makes sense to try and drive multinational enterprises to do better. Should they just instead give up and go, "Eh, fuck the planet up, whatever"? Do you have a better alternative for driving large entities to make a positive change?
Many times one works for a company whose values partially align with theirs. Maybe they have good charitable work, or they are engaged with open source. But they also have things that you disagree with -- maybe they don't treat their workers well in some way or another, maybe their parental leave policy is poor.
So, you try to change the company as step one -- let's get a better parental leave policy! Then, if you aren't getting traction, and your labor is valuable, you have leverage and can continue to try and invoke change. If change still won't happen, then you can walk.
It's better, I think, for people to provide a moral compass to the companies they work for, then to ignore it and hope that the behemoth will just make a good decision.
If you dislike fossil fuel companies, build one that obsoletes their business model (e.g. Tesla). If you dislike mining operations for employee mistreatment, start a company based on fair trade products (e.g. Fairphone). And if you care about these causes, support them with your wallet and evangelize them.
People say these companies are too big to compete with, but they used to say the same thing when these companies are created. Feel free to strike, but remember you can also vote to your feet, your wallet, and your labor.
I'm not concerned with whether or not this was sanctioned or expected, or if these people will lose their jobs or not, I just can't connect with this idea of assimilating my personal views into a corporation's identity.