By Joseph Menn and Jeffrey Dastin
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Hundreds of workers fromGoogle, Amazon and other technology companies on Friday joinedclimate-change marches in San Francisco and Seattle, sayingtheir employers had been too slow to tackle global warming andneeded to take more drastic action.
While students set the global agenda and led local marches,U.S. West Coast tech workers said they turned out in support andcalled on makers of software and hardware as well as providersof services such as cloud data storage to do more.
The marches cap a week in which Alphabet Inc'sGoogle said it had increased its wind and solar energy deals bymore than 40%, and Amazon.com Inc pledged to use onlyrenewable energy by 2030.
"We're out on the streets because we want them to do more,"said Danilo Quilaton, 34, a product designer for Amazon's videostreaming subsidiary Twitch. He called Thursday's pledge by hiscompany a big win.
"Amazon promised some things, but we still have to hold themliable," said Quilaton, who held a sign that read, "I work atAmazon. I want zero deals with oil & gas" companies.
The number of people carrying signs referring to techcompanies and shouting tech-related slogans on the streets ofSan Francisco and Seattle numbered in the hundreds or lowthousands, a fraction of the tech workforce. But their presencewas bigger than in past protests and represented a change in anindustry whose engineers have often focused on their work,rather than social issues.
"Amazon, let’s raise the bar not the temperature," read oneprotester's sign outside the glass domes at Amazon'sheadquarters in Seattle known as the Spheres, local symbols ofthe industry's wealth.
"Tech is having an awakening," said Google business analystMarie Collins in San Francisco. "Tech workers are realizing theyhave to take collective action."
One sign with the hashtag #techwontbuildit called for zeroemissions by 2030, no deals to provide technology to oil and gascompanies and zero corporate sponsorships of groups that denyclimate change, echoing internal petitions at the big companies.
The coordination across various companies paralleled recentjoint efforts by staff to oppose work on military contracts,support immigrants and other issues.
Tech workers by late morning joined youth-led marches, whichfilled a dozen blocks of San Francisco's Market Street. InSeattle, hundreds of tech workers gathered at Amazon'sheadquarters and marched to join bigger groups.
The companies have signaled sympathy with workers onaddressing climate change. But Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezoson Thursday said it would be a bad idea to leave the cloudcompany's oil and gas customers with outdated tools as they aretrying to evolve their businesses.
'HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE'
An Amazon spokeswoman on Friday said the company understandsthat some employees feel strongly about climate change and sodoes Amazon. Google, which on Thursday announced its cleanenergy deals, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Though much of the public thinks of technology as a cleanindustry, unlike transportation or mainstream manufacturing, theemployees said soaring electricity consumption for the datacenters used in cloud computing was a major problem.
“We are the ones who build the products,” said an organizerwho asked to be identified only as Steven. “We are the ones whohave the power to hold them accountable.”(Additional reporting by Lindsey Wasson in Seattle and KateMunsch in San Francisco; writing by By Peter Henderson; Editingby Cynthia Osterman)