This Friday, September 20th, Specialized will join the Global Climate Strike by closing our website leading a group ride from our global headquarters to support the youth activists driving this movement. All teammates are encouraged to ride their bikes and participate in Global Climate Strike events taking place on September 20th. I’ll be riding to Morgan Hill City Hall to join students in our community and other demonstrators, let’s ride together.



Bikes are a huge part of the solution, and together, we will pedal the planet forward. — Mike Sinyard

These halls will be empty on Friday as Specialized staff are encouraged to ride or take part in the Strike.

Specialized have announced that they will temporarily close their website in support of the Global Climate Strike on Friday, September 20th. The strike builds on "Fridays for Future" strikes, which have mostly involved students up to this point, but the Global Climate Strike is open to all and is taking place in over 150 countries around the world. Specialized's website landing page reads "Friday isn't business as usual. We hope that you’ll join us by participating in your local community, and show that together, we can pedal the planet forward." An internal memo from founder Mike Sinyard encourages employees to participate.16-year-old Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, will lead the global movement in New York City on Friday. The second round of protests is scheduled for September 27th with an International Earth Strike. According to the website for the Earth Strike, the date of September 27th was picked because it is the anniversary of the bookwhich was a catalyst in the environmentalist movement.Hopes are that the protests will send a message to world leaders set to meet Monday, September 23 for the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit taking place in New York that policy needs to be implemented to combat climate change. According to Vox, the summit on the 23rd is a meeting ahead of the UN General Assembly, where countries are expected to "ramp up their ambitions to curb greenhouse gases under the 2015 Paris climate agreement."The UN states, "global emissions are reaching record levels and show no sign of peaking. The last four years were the four hottest on record, and winter temperatures in the Arctic have risen by 3°C since 1990. Sea levels are rising, coral reefs are dying, and we are starting to see the life-threatening impact of climate change on health, through air pollution, heatwaves and risks to food security. The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere and are having very real consequences on people’s lives. Climate change is disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow. But there is a growing recognition that affordable, scalable solutions are available now that will enable us all to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies."New York City schools, including their 1.1 million public school students are officially allowed to attend the strike without being penalized for their absence, according to the New York Times. Other companies, including Patagonia, Burton, and Specialized will be observing the day, with their websites and web stores redirecting customers to the Global Climate Strike website. Burton brick and mortar stores will serve as gathering places for those marching in protest both before and after local marches. Employees at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are also planning on taking the day away from work in protest.According to the UN, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling on all leaders to come to New York on 23 September with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.