The Alternative

In 2019, Amazon announced the Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, ten years ahead of the UN Paris Agreement goal. Since then, the retailing juggernaut, which now has about 1.5 million employees, has claimed to have made huge strides toward this goal. But there’s a big catch: the company only accounts…

Our economy isn’t headed in the right direction. Despite the visibility of labor organizing at companies like Starbucks and Apple, participation in unions is at roughly 10%, half of what it was in the early 1980s. Meanwhile, about one in eight Americans lives in poverty, while the richest Americans see their fortunes grow. In fact, in 2018, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett had more wealth than the poorest half of Americans — and since then, wealth inequality has only intensified. Could we do better?