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Amazon Employees Pledge to Walk Out as Part of Global Climate Strike

160 points by jbegley 7y ago

atonse 7y ago
Good for them. So much focus on "what we can do" with the climate crisis puts the onus on individuals, instead of industry. I like that they go further than just "use EVs to deliver packages" – but instead also calling on AWS to not enable or help accelerate Oil and Gas company extraction. Although I'm sure this one will fall flat, because there's too much money involved.
- mc32 7y ago
  >”...to not enable or help accelerate Oil and Gas company extraction.” I don’t think that makes any more sense than say “not selling goods and services to individuals who own ICE propulsion cars”. Or won’t sell items manufactured in Chine due to dirty energy and lax enviro controls in manufacturing.
  - deleted 7y ago
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GoodJokes 7y ago
941 people! Wow! If Amazon employees truly were concerned they wouldn’t be working for a company that is a cornerstone of consumerism and waste. Good luck getting amazon to not do contracts with fossil fuel companies or donate to fossil fuel paid politicians. I would spend time trying to unionize. Also maybe walk out more in regards to amazon providing tech to ICE?
pinewurst 7y ago
941/647,500 (the 2018 Amazon employee total)
- milquetoastaf 7y ago
  Make that 942 as i plan on walking as well
- mc32 7y ago
  Probably because if they reversed the numbers in the article, it wouldn’t sell. “646,000 out of 647,500 Amazon employees will not pledge to join protest!”
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  What else could you get .1% of the employees to agree on? The earth is flat? Jews control the world?
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  If it's anything like the Google walkout, the number of participants could be greater than the number of signatories. And the number of supporters will be greater than the number of participants.
privateSFacct 7y ago
Be interesting to see if Amazon supports the employee strikes as much as google - I think with google a lot of the strikes and walkouts were supported by management and/or no consequence. So it was a "strike" but everyone got paid still. Is Amazon this progressive as well? Ie, will it pay everyone if an employee was needed but unavailable?
- kevin_b_er 7y ago
  Amazon seems far far more cutthroat than Google. They'll get PIP'd and thrown into the pressure cooker as punishment until they quit.
  - cheeze 7y ago
    Antecdotally - the folks who have organized internal things like this at Amazon generally continue to work there. The folks who did the same at google seem to have gotten fired.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - giaour 7y ago
    Managers at Amazon are arguably under more competitive pressure than their reports; no one is going to fire their top performer for participating in a climate awareness march. It's far, far more likely that the "strike" will be ignored than that it will result in anyone be disciplined or terminated.
- sp332 7y ago
  Google wasn't completely supportive. Four months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19802057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19802057 and today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918941
- on_and_off 7y ago
  I am not a googler so I don't have a deep knowledge but some employees are also speaking of retaliations because of these strikes (mainly the leaders).
rwoodley 7y ago
Great! The more people strike, the more we'll get the kind of change we need.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
>The employees are also asking for zero contracts with fossil fuel companies that use Amazon’s AI technology to help them accelerate oil and gas extraction, This type of stuff will be the bane of large companies migrating to cloud. A lot of large companies are involved in defense initiatives, law enforcement, fossil fuel extraction, mineral extraction etc. If they have to worry about what latest moral crusade will try to get you kicked off the cloud platform, they will be a lot more reticent about migrating to cloud. In addition, if you were a fossil fuel or car company that makes gas burning vehicles, how confident are you that one of those people that is walking out to try to get you kicked off the platform, won't try to be a "hero" and use their insider access to try to sabotage your operations or leak confidential data? I mean if the cause is worthy enough, all sorts of activities that would be illegal are considered justified. I mean if a person thinks they are literally saving the planet from destruction, sabotaging an oil company's cloud infrastructure seems like something that they would at least seriously consider doing. I think Amazon and the other cloud companies need to come down hard and state unequivocally that cloud services are not fodder for political crusades, and they will allow all companies that are conducting legal business activities, to be able to use their cloud.
- thepaperone 7y ago
  get woke go broke
- esotericn 7y ago
  I think that's precisely the point. You've conflated a few different ideas there under the banner of 'moral crusades'. Law enforcement and climate change issues have very little in common. Your initial quote calls out "oil and gas extraction" - we're not talking about like, making more efficient cars, we're talking about literally pulling more carbon out of the ground so that someone can chuck it into the air. The distinction is between "something that someone probably should care about" and "something that everyone must care about".
- whatshisface 7y ago
  >I think Amazon and the other cloud companies need to come down hard and state unequivocally that cloud services are not fodder for political crusades, and they will allow all companies that are conducting legal business activities, to be able to use their cloud. HN, please don't turn the following in to a flame war. That said... How does this fit in with companies that de-platform organizations that they see as promoting extremism? There have been some high-profile cases where services like Patreon, CloudFlare and YouTube have banned people who weren't breaking the law, but were doing something management found politically unacceptable. This is interesting because YouTube is run by Google, who also offers cloud services.
tempsy 7y ago
I’m not sure what the research says but is buying something online (+ one day shipping) more or less environmentally friendly than going to a store?
- pimmen 7y ago
  It depends, where is this hypothetical person living? I live in the middle of a city, the store close to me serves the thousands of people living in my square kilometer. Because of scale, the truck that transports new goods to the store has a low carbon emission per customer. I have friends who live way out of town. If they have a store it serves maybe twenty people. Instead of dividing the truck’s emissions by thousands of people you just divide it by twenty.
  - caseyohara 7y ago
    There's also the consideration that by living in a city you likely live closer to an airport or transportation hub, so the last leg of any shipped goods (in a semi truck and/or delivery vehicle) is going to be shorter as well.
  - robryan 7y ago
    If someone has to get in their car at all to go to the shops I would say it is likely to be more carbon intensive than a delivery service with high utilisation. A shopping center in general would be generating a lot more emissions per product than a warehouse. On the other side often things bought online come with a lot more packaging. I think Amazon is trying to cut down on this by having suppliers where possible use a box for a product that is durable enough for shipping without having to put it in another box.
  - samtheprogram 7y ago
    I don't think it's that simple, because the frequency of the shipments and amount of goods shipped would also decrease (although not linearly) since there are less people to account for. If both systems are equally optimized, would there be a difference? That said, in practice the "economy of scale" argument still applies and the inner-city store will overwhelming produce less carbon, besides the fact that a rural area may imply an increase in the distance good are shipped.
smpetrey 7y ago
However unlikely it is, it would be awesome to see the Amazon warehouse workers join in solidarity.
Postosuchus 7y ago
I assume, the whole narrative is above such insignificant details as direct and indirect costs of producing "green energy?"
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  Why are you assuming that?
- bcheung 7y ago
  Not sure what you mean but Amazon is doing a lot of research into things like drone deliveries and robotic vehicles which can be powered from renewable energy. Fuel costs money. Ultimately delivery efficiency is better for business and for the environment. They also are encouraging all deliveries to happen on a given day of the week so they can be batched up and logistically planned better. Seems like things are moving in the right direction.
oh_sigh 7y ago
Amazon's entire retail business model is built upon oil(specifically drivers moving individual packages to consumer's homes).
hirundo 7y ago
If I were their manager I'd want to handle it like any other absence. If an employee has a history of unscheduled ghosting, whether for protesting, watching soap operas or whatever, treat them the same. If it is scheduled or otherwise arranged with a supervisor, no problem. Politics need not enter into it.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > arranged with a supervisor what part of the word strike do you not understand?
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  That sort of misses the point of protest via a walk out. You can’t have civil disobedience without the disobedience.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    What are your thoughts on immigration policy right now? Specifically, what do you feel about Amazon's position on H1Bs and other mechanisms they might use to break up potential union-ish activities?
- lopmotr 7y ago
  Even without legal protection for industrial action, the whole point of striking is that the employer can't handle it in the normal way because there are too many of them. Do they all get a written warning and then fired next day they do it? How does the company operate with an important part of its workforce suddenly gone? That's why strikes are a thing, they overwhelm the protections that exist against isolated absences. I'm not sure 941 Amazon workers globally are that powerful though.
perfunctory 7y ago
They should also join the Extinction Rebellion on October 7 https://rebellion.global/events/2019/07/30/rebel-without-borders/ https://rebellion.global/events/2019/07/30/rebel-without-bor...
efitz 7y ago
In other news, Amazon announces over 900 new job openings.
michannne 7y ago
Is this a Silicon Valley thing? People becoming far too attached with what their company is doing. Even if I had been working there for 5 years, I would never bat an eye at anything my company did in it's own name -- I'm my own person and have my own beliefs, why should I expect a multinational enterprise to buckle to my feelings? If at any point I felt like my company was doing something that went morally against what I believe is right, then I would straight up leave. The thought that I'd get up and go to my manager to complain at how the executives could do something as atrocious as go against my moral compass sounds impossibly childish. Then, on top of that, virtually skipping work so I can complain even further, I'm surprised no one gets fired on the spot. 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.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
  >Is this a Silicon Valley thing? I think it's more a "I don't want my children to suffer through average 50C summer days" thing...
  - michannne 7y ago
    It's very hot in Florida where I live, but I have 0 expectations that the company I work at could have any measurable impact on a global issue of this magnitude, and Amazon doesn't get much closer.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      Amazon definitely could. Silicon Valley, as a whole? Definitely absolutely could.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - gfisher 7y ago
      I disagree. If everybody held the opinion that their actions wouldn't amount to anything, nothing would ever change. Climate change is the single largest event that will occur in our lifetimes, and we all need to help pitch in to stop the raise in global temperatures.
sremani 7y ago
Protest at Amazon? fine .. but walk the walk first spend a week in winter without heaters in your home .. to show the damn commitment and then protest, you will have my respect! Let the world see your personal sacrifice and prove your worth.. otherwise - another group of virtue signalers nothing more! #skininthegame
- vzidex 7y ago
  This is a very cynical take - even if the employees that will be going on strike aren't following best practices for reducing their environmental impact, at least they're doing something (never mind that many are likely taking other action to reduce their environmental footprint).
  - alacombe 7y ago
    I wonder how many of these 941 employees will go out of the office with an unrecyclable plastic lined cardboard coffee cup, documenting their exploit and "activism" on all the major social media with their brand new iPhone 11... At this point, "doing something" is most likely worst than doing nothing at all.
  - sremani 7y ago
    No Sir, some of the protestors by virtue of their socio-economic stature have carbon footprints that are comparable to african villages. All I am asking is, if you are vilifying an entity in order to save the world, where is your personal sacrifice.. how many of them are willing to forgo climate control for themselves and their family to "save the world". I will take the bet that 10% of them would not put themselves through a week of North Western winter making their sacrifices.
deleted 7y ago
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axiom92 7y ago
This (unfortunately paywalled) article from the Economist raises a lot of points discussed in this thread: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/22/what-companies-are-for https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/22/what-companies-...
Pfhreak 7y ago
There's something really interesting going on with the flagging in this post. There are several on topic, polite discussions that have been flagged to death. (Along with some replies which, rightly, have been flagged to death.) Maybe it's just folks expressing political views with the flag button, but it's interesting to see it used so dramatically here. Edit: Either someone did something or a bunch of vouching happened, because a lot of comments have come back.
- apacheCamel 7y ago
  I was about to say the same thing. I was in mid-reply to someone as I saw their post was flagged and has since been taken away. I am not really sure what is going on.
- chongli 7y ago
  Maybe it's just folks expressing political views with the flag button I would hope said individuals would lose their flagging privileges if they demonstrate a pattern of inappropriate flagging. The purpose of flagging is to report posts in violation of the site guidelines, not to express disagreement; that's what down-votes are for.
  - mehhh 7y ago
    Posts can't be downvoted on HN iirc, only comments. Those that flag these types of posts are often the first to scream about their right to free speech, while loving places that bootstomp it like /r/The_Donald, freespeechextremist, smugglo, pleroma.social, etc. In those communities, there are tons of posts and comments along the lines of "if I'm wrong about x debate me!". When you reply citing multiple research papers, you will get banned. There is no room for challenging views on these caustic sites.
- avip 7y ago
  Per HN guidelines, if you think there's some kind of organized abuse, you should report it to moderators [instead of discussing it here]. My humble opinion is many people here are fed up with climate discussions, and see them as off-topic. On the other hand, a vocal group (which as a disclaimer, I belong to), seems to believe not talking about climate change is currently akin to a Jewish family in 39` Germany not talking about the National-Socialist party. The two groups communicate with each other almost as effectively as my 3 and 5 yo kids.
lacampbell 7y ago
Walk out into the car park to drive home?
panic 7y ago
It's worth emphasizing that these Amazon employees aren't acting on their own -- they're taking part in a global climate strike: https://globalclimatestrike.net https://globalclimatestrike.net. Even if each person or company acting individually can't change anything, a large enough movement like this may make change possible.
rfbrowne 7y ago
Not sure that walking out is the best way to accomplish this, but I think something needs to be done.
body12 7y ago
I would love to know the organizers' opinion on whether these various uses of AWS "accelerate oil and gas extraction," i.e. whether they would be allowed on AWS: -The engineering of drill bits or other equipment that could be used for oil wells, but also for water or geothermal wells -A business consulting firm running payroll, marketing, or accounting for an oil company -Personal internet services for offshore oil workers -Telemetry for drilling or pipeline monitoring equipment -Geology research by a university that is likely to be used by oil companies
tracker1 7y ago
Do these people really think there is no environmental impact to creating these "zero emission" vehicles? That the materials aren't destructively being mined for the minerals used in the batteries and solar cells? That the engines and vehicles aren't themselves shipped multiple times huge distances by cargo ships using carbon burning engines? That the sunk environmental impact of existing vehicles is worth throwing away? That natural gas shouldn't even be considered? I mean, a lot of these "green new deal" types of initiatives are short sighted at best, and harmful at worst. Wind, solar and nuclear power should all be on the table. Why aren't we talking about desalinization and water pipelines for hydrogen fuel?
- michannne 7y ago
  >Why aren't we talking about desalinization and water pipelines for hydrogen fuel? Because for these types of people, the goal isn't to enact any measurable change on their own. It's to make others feel guilty for not coming up with a solution.
lovemenot 7y ago
It's remarkable to me that in the original article and in all these comments so far, there's no mention of energy use by AWS. AWS is market leader in public cloud, which is probably the fastest growing class of energy consumer. Already overtaking traditional industrial energy consumers such as steel. Assuming this market trend will continue, what can AWS realistically do to mitigate their impact?
- embedded 7y ago
  AWS, like google and like Azure and every other cloud provider already does everything they can to minimize energy consumption because it is in their economic interest to do so. In fact I would think the best thing industry can do to reduce energy consumption is to move their data to a cloud provider. It takes far less energy to cool one large room with servers from a dozen companies than it does to cool a dozen server rooms with private on-prem servers.
  - lovemenot 7y ago
    This all seems correct, but insufficiently proactive, at least not enough to satisfy activists. For instance, though it may not currently be economic, how about pre-cooling using renewable energy. Locating data centers next to hydro / geothermal sources? Larger UPS? Load balancing across DCs with available renewables? Other mitigations to get ahead of the issue?
GhostVII 7y ago
> The employees are also asking for zero contracts with fossil fuel companies that use Amazon’s AI technology to help them accelerate oil and gas extraction To me, it seems like activists spend too much time focusing on the producers of things like fossil fuels, and not enough time on the consumers. I have nothing against companies which are producing fossil fuels, in general, since they are usually producing a product that has at least some genuine value in many cases. If everyone stopped drilling for oil immediately, it would certainly have incredibly negative consequences. I do have a problem with people who are excessively using these types of products, since they are creating waste that damages the environment - if everyone stopped driving their car everywhere and instead biked when they were able to, it would certainly have a very positive effect.

160 points by jbegley 7y ago

Good for them. So much focus on "what we can do" with the climate crisis puts the onus on individuals, instead of industry. I like that they go further than just "use EVs to deliver packages" – but instead also calling on AWS to not enable or help accelerate Oil and Gas company extraction. Although I'm sure this one will fall flat, because there's too much money involved.

mc32 7y ago
>”...to not enable or help accelerate Oil and Gas company extraction.” I don’t think that makes any more sense than say “not selling goods and services to individuals who own ICE propulsion cars”. Or won’t sell items manufactured in Chine due to dirty energy and lax enviro controls in manufacturing.
- deleted 7y ago
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- deleted 7y ago
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GoodJokes 7y ago

941 people! Wow! If Amazon employees truly were concerned they wouldn’t be working for a company that is a cornerstone of consumerism and waste. Good luck getting amazon to not do contracts with fossil fuel companies or donate to fossil fuel paid politicians. I would spend time trying to unionize. Also maybe walk out more in regards to amazon providing tech to ICE?

pinewurst 7y ago

941/647,500 (the 2018 Amazon employee total)

milquetoastaf 7y ago
Make that 942 as i plan on walking as well
mc32 7y ago
Probably because if they reversed the numbers in the article, it wouldn’t sell. “646,000 out of 647,500 Amazon employees will not pledge to join protest!”
oh_sigh 7y ago
What else could you get .1% of the employees to agree on? The earth is flat? Jews control the world?
Pfhreak 7y ago
If it's anything like the Google walkout, the number of participants could be greater than the number of signatories. And the number of supporters will be greater than the number of participants.

privateSFacct 7y ago

Be interesting to see if Amazon supports the employee strikes as much as google - I think with google a lot of the strikes and walkouts were supported by management and/or no consequence. So it was a "strike" but everyone got paid still. Is Amazon this progressive as well? Ie, will it pay everyone if an employee was needed but unavailable?

kevin_b_er 7y ago
Amazon seems far far more cutthroat than Google. They'll get PIP'd and thrown into the pressure cooker as punishment until they quit.
- cheeze 7y ago
  Antecdotally - the folks who have organized internal things like this at Amazon generally continue to work there. The folks who did the same at google seem to have gotten fired.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- giaour 7y ago
  Managers at Amazon are arguably under more competitive pressure than their reports; no one is going to fire their top performer for participating in a climate awareness march. It's far, far more likely that the "strike" will be ignored than that it will result in anyone be disciplined or terminated.
sp332 7y ago
Google wasn't completely supportive. Four months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19802057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19802057 and today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918941
on_and_off 7y ago
I am not a googler so I don't have a deep knowledge but some employees are also speaking of retaliations because of these strikes (mainly the leaders).

rwoodley 7y ago

Great! The more people strike, the more we'll get the kind of change we need.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

>The employees are also asking for zero contracts with fossil fuel companies that use Amazon’s AI technology to help them accelerate oil and gas extraction, This type of stuff will be the bane of large companies migrating to cloud. A lot of large companies are involved in defense initiatives, law enforcement, fossil fuel extraction, mineral extraction etc. If they have to worry about what latest moral crusade will try to get you kicked off the cloud platform, they will be a lot more reticent about migrating to cloud. In addition, if you were a fossil fuel or car company that makes gas burning vehicles, how confident are you that one of those people that is walking out to try to get you kicked off the platform, won't try to be a "hero" and use their insider access to try to sabotage your operations or leak confidential data? I mean if the cause is worthy enough, all sorts of activities that would be illegal are considered justified. I mean if a person thinks they are literally saving the planet from destruction, sabotaging an oil company's cloud infrastructure seems like something that they would at least seriously consider doing. I think Amazon and the other cloud companies need to come down hard and state unequivocally that cloud services are not fodder for political crusades, and they will allow all companies that are conducting legal business activities, to be able to use their cloud.

thepaperone 7y ago
get woke go broke
esotericn 7y ago
I think that's precisely the point. You've conflated a few different ideas there under the banner of 'moral crusades'. Law enforcement and climate change issues have very little in common. Your initial quote calls out "oil and gas extraction" - we're not talking about like, making more efficient cars, we're talking about literally pulling more carbon out of the ground so that someone can chuck it into the air. The distinction is between "something that someone probably should care about" and "something that everyone must care about".
whatshisface 7y ago
>I think Amazon and the other cloud companies need to come down hard and state unequivocally that cloud services are not fodder for political crusades, and they will allow all companies that are conducting legal business activities, to be able to use their cloud. HN, please don't turn the following in to a flame war. That said... How does this fit in with companies that de-platform organizations that they see as promoting extremism? There have been some high-profile cases where services like Patreon, CloudFlare and YouTube have banned people who weren't breaking the law, but were doing something management found politically unacceptable. This is interesting because YouTube is run by Google, who also offers cloud services.

tempsy 7y ago

I’m not sure what the research says but is buying something online (+ one day shipping) more or less environmentally friendly than going to a store?

pimmen 7y ago
It depends, where is this hypothetical person living? I live in the middle of a city, the store close to me serves the thousands of people living in my square kilometer. Because of scale, the truck that transports new goods to the store has a low carbon emission per customer. I have friends who live way out of town. If they have a store it serves maybe twenty people. Instead of dividing the truck’s emissions by thousands of people you just divide it by twenty.
- caseyohara 7y ago
  There's also the consideration that by living in a city you likely live closer to an airport or transportation hub, so the last leg of any shipped goods (in a semi truck and/or delivery vehicle) is going to be shorter as well.
- robryan 7y ago
  If someone has to get in their car at all to go to the shops I would say it is likely to be more carbon intensive than a delivery service with high utilisation. A shopping center in general would be generating a lot more emissions per product than a warehouse. On the other side often things bought online come with a lot more packaging. I think Amazon is trying to cut down on this by having suppliers where possible use a box for a product that is durable enough for shipping without having to put it in another box.
- samtheprogram 7y ago
  I don't think it's that simple, because the frequency of the shipments and amount of goods shipped would also decrease (although not linearly) since there are less people to account for. If both systems are equally optimized, would there be a difference? That said, in practice the "economy of scale" argument still applies and the inner-city store will overwhelming produce less carbon, besides the fact that a rural area may imply an increase in the distance good are shipped.

smpetrey 7y ago

However unlikely it is, it would be awesome to see the Amazon warehouse workers join in solidarity.

Postosuchus 7y ago

I assume, the whole narrative is above such insignificant details as direct and indirect costs of producing "green energy?"

happytoexplain 7y ago
Why are you assuming that?
bcheung 7y ago
Not sure what you mean but Amazon is doing a lot of research into things like drone deliveries and robotic vehicles which can be powered from renewable energy. Fuel costs money. Ultimately delivery efficiency is better for business and for the environment. They also are encouraging all deliveries to happen on a given day of the week so they can be batched up and logistically planned better. Seems like things are moving in the right direction.

oh_sigh 7y ago

Amazon's entire retail business model is built upon oil(specifically drivers moving individual packages to consumer's homes).

hirundo 7y ago

If I were their manager I'd want to handle it like any other absence. If an employee has a history of unscheduled ghosting, whether for protesting, watching soap operas or whatever, treat them the same. If it is scheduled or otherwise arranged with a supervisor, no problem. Politics need not enter into it.

perfunctory 7y ago
> arranged with a supervisor what part of the word strike do you not understand?
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
That sort of misses the point of protest via a walk out. You can’t have civil disobedience without the disobedience.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  What are your thoughts on immigration policy right now? Specifically, what do you feel about Amazon's position on H1Bs and other mechanisms they might use to break up potential union-ish activities?
lopmotr 7y ago
Even without legal protection for industrial action, the whole point of striking is that the employer can't handle it in the normal way because there are too many of them. Do they all get a written warning and then fired next day they do it? How does the company operate with an important part of its workforce suddenly gone? That's why strikes are a thing, they overwhelm the protections that exist against isolated absences. I'm not sure 941 Amazon workers globally are that powerful though.

perfunctory 7y ago

They should also join the Extinction Rebellion on October 7 https://rebellion.global/events/2019/07/30/rebel-without-borders/ https://rebellion.global/events/2019/07/30/rebel-without-bor...

efitz 7y ago

In other news, Amazon announces over 900 new job openings.

michannne 7y ago

Is this a Silicon Valley thing? People becoming far too attached with what their company is doing. Even if I had been working there for 5 years, I would never bat an eye at anything my company did in it's own name -- I'm my own person and have my own beliefs, why should I expect a multinational enterprise to buckle to my feelings? If at any point I felt like my company was doing something that went morally against what I believe is right, then I would straight up leave. The thought that I'd get up and go to my manager to complain at how the executives could do something as atrocious as go against my moral compass sounds impossibly childish. Then, on top of that, virtually skipping work so I can complain even further, I'm surprised no one gets fired on the spot. 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.

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
>Is this a Silicon Valley thing? I think it's more a "I don't want my children to suffer through average 50C summer days" thing...
- michannne 7y ago
  It's very hot in Florida where I live, but I have 0 expectations that the company I work at could have any measurable impact on a global issue of this magnitude, and Amazon doesn't get much closer.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    Amazon definitely could. Silicon Valley, as a whole? Definitely absolutely could.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - gfisher 7y ago
    I disagree. If everybody held the opinion that their actions wouldn't amount to anything, nothing would ever change. Climate change is the single largest event that will occur in our lifetimes, and we all need to help pitch in to stop the raise in global temperatures.

sremani 7y ago

Protest at Amazon? fine .. but walk the walk first spend a week in winter without heaters in your home .. to show the damn commitment and then protest, you will have my respect! Let the world see your personal sacrifice and prove your worth.. otherwise - another group of virtue signalers nothing more! #skininthegame

vzidex 7y ago
This is a very cynical take - even if the employees that will be going on strike aren't following best practices for reducing their environmental impact, at least they're doing something (never mind that many are likely taking other action to reduce their environmental footprint).
- alacombe 7y ago
  I wonder how many of these 941 employees will go out of the office with an unrecyclable plastic lined cardboard coffee cup, documenting their exploit and "activism" on all the major social media with their brand new iPhone 11... At this point, "doing something" is most likely worst than doing nothing at all.
- sremani 7y ago
  No Sir, some of the protestors by virtue of their socio-economic stature have carbon footprints that are comparable to african villages. All I am asking is, if you are vilifying an entity in order to save the world, where is your personal sacrifice.. how many of them are willing to forgo climate control for themselves and their family to "save the world". I will take the bet that 10% of them would not put themselves through a week of North Western winter making their sacrifices.

deleted 7y ago

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axiom92 7y ago

This (unfortunately paywalled) article from the Economist raises a lot of points discussed in this thread: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/22/what-companies-are-for https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/22/what-companies-...

Pfhreak 7y ago

There's something really interesting going on with the flagging in this post. There are several on topic, polite discussions that have been flagged to death. (Along with some replies which, rightly, have been flagged to death.) Maybe it's just folks expressing political views with the flag button, but it's interesting to see it used so dramatically here. Edit: Either someone did something or a bunch of vouching happened, because a lot of comments have come back.

apacheCamel 7y ago
I was about to say the same thing. I was in mid-reply to someone as I saw their post was flagged and has since been taken away. I am not really sure what is going on.
chongli 7y ago
Maybe it's just folks expressing political views with the flag button I would hope said individuals would lose their flagging privileges if they demonstrate a pattern of inappropriate flagging. The purpose of flagging is to report posts in violation of the site guidelines, not to express disagreement; that's what down-votes are for.
- mehhh 7y ago
  Posts can't be downvoted on HN iirc, only comments. Those that flag these types of posts are often the first to scream about their right to free speech, while loving places that bootstomp it like /r/The_Donald, freespeechextremist, smugglo, pleroma.social, etc. In those communities, there are tons of posts and comments along the lines of "if I'm wrong about x debate me!". When you reply citing multiple research papers, you will get banned. There is no room for challenging views on these caustic sites.
avip 7y ago
Per HN guidelines, if you think there's some kind of organized abuse, you should report it to moderators [instead of discussing it here]. My humble opinion is many people here are fed up with climate discussions, and see them as off-topic. On the other hand, a vocal group (which as a disclaimer, I belong to), seems to believe not talking about climate change is currently akin to a Jewish family in 39` Germany not talking about the National-Socialist party. The two groups communicate with each other almost as effectively as my 3 and 5 yo kids.

lacampbell 7y ago

Walk out into the car park to drive home?

panic 7y ago

It's worth emphasizing that these Amazon employees aren't acting on their own -- they're taking part in a global climate strike: https://globalclimatestrike.net https://globalclimatestrike.net. Even if each person or company acting individually can't change anything, a large enough movement like this may make change possible.

rfbrowne 7y ago

Not sure that walking out is the best way to accomplish this, but I think something needs to be done.

body12 7y ago

I would love to know the organizers' opinion on whether these various uses of AWS "accelerate oil and gas extraction," i.e. whether they would be allowed on AWS: -The engineering of drill bits or other equipment that could be used for oil wells, but also for water or geothermal wells -A business consulting firm running payroll, marketing, or accounting for an oil company -Personal internet services for offshore oil workers -Telemetry for drilling or pipeline monitoring equipment -Geology research by a university that is likely to be used by oil companies

tracker1 7y ago

Do these people really think there is no environmental impact to creating these "zero emission" vehicles? That the materials aren't destructively being mined for the minerals used in the batteries and solar cells? That the engines and vehicles aren't themselves shipped multiple times huge distances by cargo ships using carbon burning engines? That the sunk environmental impact of existing vehicles is worth throwing away? That natural gas shouldn't even be considered? I mean, a lot of these "green new deal" types of initiatives are short sighted at best, and harmful at worst. Wind, solar and nuclear power should all be on the table. Why aren't we talking about desalinization and water pipelines for hydrogen fuel?

michannne 7y ago
>Why aren't we talking about desalinization and water pipelines for hydrogen fuel? Because for these types of people, the goal isn't to enact any measurable change on their own. It's to make others feel guilty for not coming up with a solution.

lovemenot 7y ago

It's remarkable to me that in the original article and in all these comments so far, there's no mention of energy use by AWS. AWS is market leader in public cloud, which is probably the fastest growing class of energy consumer. Already overtaking traditional industrial energy consumers such as steel. Assuming this market trend will continue, what can AWS realistically do to mitigate their impact?

embedded 7y ago
AWS, like google and like Azure and every other cloud provider already does everything they can to minimize energy consumption because it is in their economic interest to do so. In fact I would think the best thing industry can do to reduce energy consumption is to move their data to a cloud provider. It takes far less energy to cool one large room with servers from a dozen companies than it does to cool a dozen server rooms with private on-prem servers.
- lovemenot 7y ago
  This all seems correct, but insufficiently proactive, at least not enough to satisfy activists. For instance, though it may not currently be economic, how about pre-cooling using renewable energy. Locating data centers next to hydro / geothermal sources? Larger UPS? Load balancing across DCs with available renewables? Other mitigations to get ahead of the issue?

GhostVII 7y ago

> The employees are also asking for zero contracts with fossil fuel companies that use Amazon’s AI technology to help them accelerate oil and gas extraction To me, it seems like activists spend too much time focusing on the producers of things like fossil fuels, and not enough time on the consumers. I have nothing against companies which are producing fossil fuels, in general, since they are usually producing a product that has at least some genuine value in many cases. If everyone stopped drilling for oil immediately, it would certainly have incredibly negative consequences. I do have a problem with people who are excessively using these types of products, since they are creating waste that damages the environment - if everyone stopped driving their car everywhere and instead biked when they were able to, it would certainly have a very positive effect.