#activsm

Here’s the promo poster for the panel discussion that I mentioned earlier (found through @bad_dominicana‘s timeline) 

More importantly, here is A LINK FJ’S LIVESTREAM of the event. 

I recommend you watch 

This document lays out a roadmap for setting up Community Defense Zone campaigns in local communities. We know that many people are doing different kinds of work right now, but we also have heard from many that templates are needed for where to start under the new reality of the Trump Era.

Over 6,000 Amazon employees...

That’s how many employees signed an open letter to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, urging the company to transition completely fossil fuels and formulate a plan that is reflective of climate change. 

With climate change becoming a bigger issue each year, more businesses are evaluating methods that can reduce their carbon footprint and impact on the environment. However, Amazon has been one of these businesses not to adapt their operations in light of environmental concerns – until April 2019 that is.

The letter calls for Amazon Web Services (AWS) to stop aiding the oil and gas industry getting more “climate-wrecking” fuels out of the ground. Whilst this may seem to be a traditional form of activism, a new front known as shareholder activism has risen; where Amazon employees have used their company’s stock to pressure top executives into implementing environmental policies and procedures.

In response, Amazon have “promised” to turn over a new leaf by disclosing their carbon footprint for the first time. Whilst this is a great step in the right direction, other global businesses have already been doing this for decades – with Microsoft, disclosing their carbon emissions in 2005.

This may suggest that Amazon wants the media to believe that they are making an active move about these concerns, but in reality, they haven’t achieved anything new. Such ideals could be supported by Amazon’s 2018 “secret”, where the company kept its worsening environmental harms a secret from the public eye.

Amazon has been proud of showcasing their contributions to renewable energy. Their most known contribution was back in October 2017, where Jeff Bezos christened a Texas wind farm whilst harnessed to the top of a 300-foot-tall wind turbine on Twitter.

However, when discussing Amazon’s increasing use of ‘dirty energy’ such as coal and game, the company was tight lipped until KUOW, a Seattle public radio service, obtained internal company documents that exposed Amazon’s emission levels of almost 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Whilst Amazon may be attempting to aid the environment by utilising renewable energy, Amazon is ultimately thriving where the grid is primarily ‘dirty’ such as Virginia, USA, where Amazon has more data centres than anywhere else. This delineates how Amazon isn’t fazed by their employees’ act of shareholder activism – but rather are being selective of what real action occurs.

Big businesses such as Amazon need to be kept in check! Otherwise we may continue to face the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

…That’s this week’s reaction in the realm of Activism.

USEFUL LINKS