Alexandros Giannakitsidis
Dr. Kolozsvary
ENVA 015
September 28, 2019
Amazon Accelerates Efforts to Fight Climate Change
Amazon is a global company and an industry leader. Their new pledge to meet the Paris climate agreement 10 years ahead of schedule and be carbon neutral by 2040, 10 years ahead of schedule. The issue that is highlighted in this article is climate change and how Amazon is fighting climate change. They are planning to invest into 100,000 electric trucks by Rivian. This is in response to an employee walk out planned the day after the announcement had been made. Employees had been lobbying Amazon to be more aggressive in achieving its climate goals. The employees wanted to push Amazon to address three important issues. The company should have zero emissions by 2030, stop offering custom cloud computing services that help the oil and gas industry find and extract more fossil fuels, and to stop giving campaign donations to politicians who deny climate change is happening. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, denied many of the initiatives employees were pushing for. He said that cloud computing services would still be offered to companies in the gas and oil industry, but said that they would do a better job at screening companies in this industry. In regards to the funding of politicians, Bezos said that they would look into the facts, but failed to comment further on the issue. As a whole Amazon is moving in the right direction to fighting climate change even if the issue may have been forced upon them by their employees.
The issue of climate change relates to our ecology class because we are measuring the effect of humans on the environment. We are at an ecological tipping point. We may have no way back soon if we don’t make an effort to change the course that many scientists believe will come true. Humans have the greatest impact on our environment and if we want change we must do it ourselves. Sustainability is a key issue in ecology and is meeting the current need for natural resources without harming the need for future generations. We need to limit our ecological footprint by being more conservative with our use of natural resources and our use of everyday goods like water, food, and electricity. All of these goods, if overused, can cause an ecological deficit. The use of cloud computing by gas and oil companies is a factor in why our C02 levels are increasing and climate change is happening. Our ozone layer is being depleted because of the increase of absorption of heat. The article highlights climate change, which can have detrimental effects to several ecosystems if it is not addressed. Many species may die out or lose their home because of climate change and sea levels would rise. Climate change is an issue and needs to be addressed effectively.
I believe that this is the right step forward to fighting climate change, even if Amazon may have been reluctant to participate in the efforts. With Amazon trying to reach zero carbon emissions by 2030 accompanied by their effort to go electrical with their delivery systems, I believe that these actions will help benefit the greater community. The article does paint Bezos as a reluctant participant as well as Amazon, but the fact that the company is actually making the effort matters. Other large corporations can learn from Amazon and together we can help better our environment and reverse the course we are heading. With the actions the problem of climate change can be addressed and steps can be taken to help preserve our natural capital as well as becoming sustainable.
References
Mccabe, David, and Karen Weise.“Amazon Accelerates Efforts to Fight Climate Change.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/technology/amazon-carbon-neutral.html?searchResultPosition=6
Image Credit - Emma Howells, New York Times, 2019
I think this it is pretty cool that the bigger companies are taking the incentive to combat climate change. I think it could set the precedent for other companies to do the same.
ReplyDeleteGreat initiative by one of the biggest companies in the world. It shows that we shouldn't just rely on the government and the U.N to protect the Earth. Its our planet and we need to save it!
ReplyDelete