CLIMATE PLEDGE - One benefit that Amazonhas provided society with is a reduction in shopping-related violence.
The once legendary fights over low-priced electrical items have moved online, and the fight is now between who has the fastest fingers and the fastest internet connection. Black Friday, however, continues to supercharge an already hyper-consumerist society and push us closer to climate breakdown. Extinction Rebellion (XR) decided to call out the major online retailer on its most profitable day by blocking fifteen fulfillment centers in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. The fulfillment centers blockaded account for 50% of Amazon deliveries in the UK. In all, more than thirty arrests were made as the environmental group brought attention to Amazons wasteful business practices, tax avoidance and worker exploitation.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) decided to call out the major online retailer on its most profitable day by blocking fifteen fulfillment centers in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.
While XRs detractors claim businesses are being affected in tough economic times, one man who has certainly not been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. As people around the world hunkered down in their homes due to the deadly virus sweeping the planet, Amazon shares soared 8% as people switched to online shopping as bricks and mortar shops remained shuttered. In a single day in July 2020, the worlds richest man added $13 billion to his already burgeoning fortune. His net worth rose from $113 billion in March 2020 to over $200 billion today.
Now, many will counter that Mr. Bezos deserves his wealth because he had the foresight to start Amazon back in the early days of the internet and he is a hardworking benign genius. Its easy to understand this thinking, especially for dedicated followers of Ayn Rand, but on closer inspection, Mr. Bezos and his online empire have benefited from a broken system that he and his billionaire chums would like to stay broken. Amazon has put the nail in the coffin for many high street retailers, and modern-day high streets may be unrecognizable when the pandemic finally ends. Shops that once provided society with tax revenues to pay for education and health care have been replaced by a global behemoth that in 2018 had revenues of $233 billion and a market value approaching $1 trillion and yet paid no federal income taxes and actually got a tax refund of $129 million.
Wherever and whenever Amazon can avoid taxes, it does. In Europe, it transfers 90% of its operating profits to Luxembourg where it pays 7.25% instead of 29%. Its easy to see how Amazon is able to provide its products so cheaply and undercut its brick-and-mortar competitors when it doesnt need to play by the same rules as brick-and-mortar shops.
In addition to legal tax avoidance, Amazon is also infamous for its inhumane working conditions where workers routinely complain of being treated like robots and being denied even basic bathroom breaks. Workers complain of being fired for taking sick days during the pandemic and drivers tell of urinating and defecating in bottles and bags as they cannot afford to stop to use a bathroom.
To counter his increasingly negative reputation, Bezos announced a $10 billion pledge to help fight the climate and biodiversity crises. Again, kudos to Mr. Bezos, but lets remember that he paid four times as much money to make his ex-wife happy, and that he made more in a single day in 2020 than he is providing humanity in its fight for survival. In 2020, Bezos named the first recipients of his Earth Fund with $791 million going to sixteen organizations focussed on conservation. In the same year, he invested $1 billion in his vanity space project, no doubt hoping that he will have a Plan B should our ecosystems and societies collapse. Thats not the worst of it because Amazon is one of the biggest polluters in the U.S. His operation not only encourages wanton consumerism, which is the driving force behind the planetary collapse we are witnessing, but also produces more than 44 million metric tons (MMT) of fossil fuel waste. To put this into perspective, Amazons carbon footprint is more than those of the nation-states of Switzerland (38.95 MMT), Ireland (36.92MMT), Norway (39.8MMT) and Denmark (37.45MMT). In early 2019, 8,000 Amazon employees wrote a letter to Bezos asking him how the company was planning to address pollution and in September, 3,000 tech workers in Seattle walked out in protest at the companys inaction on the climate crisis. Additionally, the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice claim more than 1,800 employees in over 25 cities and 14 countries walked off the job in protest.
As more and more people move online to do their shopping, companies like Amazon will be able to slash their prices even further due to tax avoidance and unethical working conditions, and rampant consumerism will be encouraged even more. Maybe its time we join the members of XR and Amazon workers themselves in calling out the company, and maybe we could even go one step further, or a few more than that, and actually walk into the town center to buy things we really need from a real person in a real shop. By continuing to fund Bezos mission to Mars, we are ensuring that he leaves an inhospitable planet mired in climate chaos behind him.
(Simon Whalleyis a writer for CommonDreams, an educator in Japan, the co-founder ofExtinction Rebellion Japanand the author of the upcoming book,Dear Indy: A Heartfelt Plea From a Climate Anxious Father.)
See more here:
This Is How Amazon Is Fueling the Climate Crisis - City Watch
- Objectivism Q&A with Ben Bayer and Dan Schwartz - New Ideal - August 2nd, 2022
- Book Banning Is Wrong Unless It Gets Me Out of Helping My Kid With His Homework - The Hard Times - August 2nd, 2022
- THE TEACHER'S DESK: Breaking the Rules | Opinion | thetimestribune.com - Times Tribune of Corbin - July 21st, 2022
- If Big Ten didnt just add lucrative programs like USC but trimmed stragglers, whod get the boot? | Jones - PennLive - July 21st, 2022
- A high point of our time in southern Alberta, Canada - Patheos - July 21st, 2022
- The Banality of Putin and Xi - New Ideal - June 30th, 2022
- 4 Pillars of The Illusion | C. Don Jones - Patheos - June 30th, 2022
- The Philosophic Case for the Absolute Right to Abortion - New Ideal - June 26th, 2022
- R2AK: Will monohulls sweep the podium? - Scuttlebutt Sailing News - June 26th, 2022
- Bill Maher Addressed an Eventful Political Week on Real Time - InsideHook - June 26th, 2022
- Ayn Rand v Donald Trump? - Daily Kos - June 22nd, 2022
- Letter: The rules of life are very simple - Detroit Lakes Tribune - June 22nd, 2022
- The Banality of Putin and Xi | Yaron Brook and Elan Journo - IAI - June 22nd, 2022
- American culture is destroying itself, and the planet, says leading activist Bill McKibben - Yahoo Philippines News - June 22nd, 2022
- Is Discussing the Consequences of Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Fun? - Science Based Medicine - June 3rd, 2022
- O'Donnell: Will the NBA's new red-light camera calls ruin The Finals for ABC/ESPN? - Daily Herald - June 1st, 2022
- The Strange and Terrifying Ideas of Neoreactionaries Current Affairs - Current Affairs - June 1st, 2022
- Martin Scorsese, Objectivism, Relativism, and How We Read Cinema - No Film School - June 1st, 2022
- Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and COVID - Science Based Medicine - May 25th, 2022
- Ayn Rand vs. Classical Economists - The Objective Standard - May 25th, 2022
- Opinion | Demolishing the Demonic Plans of Our Enemy, and Can We Get An Amen - Common Dreams - May 20th, 2022
- Ayn Rand's We the Living: Back on the Silver Screenand Better Than Ever - The Objective Standard - May 17th, 2022
- Congress revival: Time to break free of family - The Hans India - May 17th, 2022
- The Financial Dark Ages Are Ending Thanks To Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine - May 17th, 2022
- Marital rape: How understanding context rather than just focusing on consent will help resolve the issue - Firstpost - May 13th, 2022
- Deadly Class Season 2: Is a Release Date or Rumor in the Offing on Netflix? - Federal Regulations Advisor - May 13th, 2022
- The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, May 9, 2022 - FlaglerLive.com - May 13th, 2022
- Victory at San Jacinto liberated the individual | Opinion | jacksonvilleprogress.com - Jacksonville Daily Progress - April 20th, 2022
- RUSH's GEDDY LEE Says NEIL PEART 'Didn't Want Anyone To Know' About His Illness: 'He Wanted To Keep It In The House' - BLABBERMOUTH.NET - April 20th, 2022
- The Alternative Meat Industry Wants Solar Power Style Mandates And Subsidies - Science 2.0 - April 20th, 2022
- diSConnected: Is Ayn Rand or Mother Teresa better for protecting South Carolinians with disabilities? - South Carolina Public Radio - April 15th, 2022
- Did the John Birch Society Win in the End? - The Bulwark - April 15th, 2022
- Boris Johnsons Covid bravado insults the NHS and the public - The Guardian - April 15th, 2022
- Science Fiction in a Time of Crisis - Filmmaker Magazine - April 15th, 2022
- The criticism facing Rishi Sunak has nothing to do with race, and all to do with greed - iNews - April 15th, 2022
- Zack Snyder's Star Wars-Themed Movie Recruits The Princess Bride Star - Giant Freakin Robot - April 11th, 2022
- Debate sparked after University of Bristol students try to 'cancel' controversial speaker - Bristol Live - April 11th, 2022
- Rishi Sunak is a terrible bloke, regardless of his wife's finances - JOE.co.uk - April 11th, 2022
- Understanding the Roots of the New Inflation: With Rob Tarr - New Ideal - April 6th, 2022
- First Wind Film Development To Adapt Rick Bleiweiss Blackstone Novel Pignon Scorbion And The Barbershop Detectives For TV - Deadline - April 6th, 2022
- 'My jagged path to cap and gown': Reflections from a 23-year-old expectant high school graduate - Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel - April 6th, 2022
- Don't Believe The Hype: The Left Wish They Ran Cancel Culture Like This - Above the Law - April 6th, 2022
- Who is John Malone, the 'Cable Cowboy' and GB News backer who could buy Channel 4? - Left Foot Forward - April 6th, 2022
- Frank Lloyd Wright Left 660 Unbuilt Designs And an Innovative New Project Brings Three of Those to Life - InsideHook - March 17th, 2022
- American Familia: David Morales on Grit, Self-Reliance, and the American Dream | Kerry McDonald - Foundation for Economic Education - March 17th, 2022
- Top 10 buildings in fiction - The Guardian - February 17th, 2022
- Trump can now count on Thiel, the hi-tech billionaire who finances his revenge Corriere.it - D1SoftballNews.com - February 17th, 2022
- Objectivism Q&A with Ben Bayer and Mike Mazza - New Ideal - February 15th, 2022
- Leftists And So-Called Christian Leaders Embrace Abortion As 'Sacred' - The Federalist - February 15th, 2022
- A Companion to Ayn Rand Now in Paperback - New Ideal - February 11th, 2022
- Happy birthday to the great Ayn Rand Daily Breeze - February 7th, 2022
- The Fountainhead - AynRand.org - February 7th, 2022
- Randy Alcorn: Whats Wrong with America? - Noozhawk - February 7th, 2022
- Happy birthday to the great Ayn Rand - OCRegister - February 3rd, 2022
- Letter to the editor about Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. - Fillmore County Journal - February 3rd, 2022
- Why Are Members of Congress Allowed to Trade Stocks? - The Atlantic - February 3rd, 2022
- Anthem Quotes by Ayn Rand - Goodreads - January 19th, 2022
- The Fountainhead Reading Group with Andrew Bernstein - The Objective Standard - January 19th, 2022
- Bice: U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson blames LBJ and Great Society for high percentage of out-of-wedlock births - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - January 19th, 2022
- Who is Ray Epps? Who is John Galt? - Washington Times - January 19th, 2022
- Nancy Perkins to discuss: The British Mystery, 200 Years of Murder Most Foul - PenBayPilot.com - January 9th, 2022
- Robert Reich has the perfect answer to Trumpism - Salon - January 9th, 2022
- Advice: Im a woman of color often overlooked at work until people realize I outrank them - The Boston Globe - January 9th, 2022
- Seahawks vs Texans Week 14 Picks and Predictions: Learning To Fly Again - Covers - December 10th, 2021
- Philosophy - AynRand.org - December 7th, 2021
- Book Review | Peter Thiel, tech and power - newframe.com - December 7th, 2021
- The Remnant, The Parasite And The Masses - Bitcoin Magazine - December 7th, 2021
- Column: Infusion of Trillions in Funding Has Consequences - Southern Pines Pilot - December 3rd, 2021
- 15 Higher Education Stories Worth Investigating - Republic Report - December 3rd, 2021
- TCS country head: 'Ireland is a great place to do business' - Siliconrepublic.com - December 3rd, 2021
- Craig Wright, Satoshi Nakamoto and why people ridicule the greats in their lifetimes - CoinGeek - December 3rd, 2021
- Breaking News - A&E Delves Into the Psyche of Dennis Rader in "BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer" Featuring New Never-Before-Heard Conversations with... - December 3rd, 2021
- Ideas and Dubious Consequences - Splice Today - November 17th, 2021
- Forza Horizon 5s amazing intro shows why its a huge hit on Game Pass - Polygon - November 17th, 2021
- Armstrong: Learning to live with Covid Complete Colorado Page Two - Complete Colorado - November 17th, 2021
- Celeb Shelf: Instead of scrolling through my phone I read a book, shares actor-turned-author Jugal Hansraj - Free Press Journal - November 9th, 2021
- Inside Final Days of Jane Fonda's Brother Peter Who Was Also an Actor & Suffered Tragedy at 10 - AmoMama - November 9th, 2021
- Jenny Turner We must think! Hannah Arendt's Islands LRB 4 November 2021 - London Review of Books - November 9th, 2021
- A Meditation on the Golden Rule | James Ford - Patheos - November 9th, 2021
- New from Ayn Rand University: Bacon's Philosophy of Science - New Ideal - November 5th, 2021