Climate Week NYC is an annual series of events organized by Climate Group. This year, climate leaders and activists gathered around the theme, “It’s Time,” which goes fittingly with Third Act’s “No Time to Waste!” Urgency was in the air. Third Actors from the surrounding area joined events from Citibank to Kathy Hochul’s office, ending the week with a chant down the river. Read what Third Actors Deborah Popper, Siu Li, Marcia Annenberg, and Rachel Makleff, had to say about some of the week’s events.
Monday: Citi Standoff: Come Down or Shutdown
“When is it not Climate Week for Third Actors? But the week of September 23rd was especially filled with events. On Monday I headed to Citi’s headquarters to support the Gulf South and Global South event, a follow-up from the Summer of Heat. The two groups had been writing requesting a meeting with CEO Jane Fraser. The reply: after summer.
On September 23, a group of us assembled in the plaza. To no one’s surprise, Citi executives hadn’t slotted a meeting on their calendars. But the morning’s organizers were well-prepared. They brought out a table and kept calling for Citi to join them. There were signs, speakers, and chants. A woman dressed in a beautiful sari led chanting and then sat down next to me, shaking, worried she hadn’t been forceful enough and that someone might spot her and find ways to harm her. Yet she was here. We all were.
The group eventually moved to Citi’s doors and it didn’t take long for the police to begin their warnings. Summer of Heat had prepared us. We committed to our roles: move and keep supporting, or stay and get arrested. Thirty-one chose arrest. The police, too, knew their role. The arrests were simply executed, plastic strips replacing handcuffs, and the protesters walked to the corrections buses waiting for them. The chants continued.
I was part of the jail support team, making sure to keep the count, get everyone’s name and ensuring they were treated with respect. Once the buses were loaded and off to the precinct, my fellow Third Actor, Siu Li, and I headed to a gallery and then Chinatown before ending up at Luna Pizza, a wonderful place near the 1st precinct that had welcomed us all summer, opening a tab that allowed us to keep the pizzas coming and protesters hydrated. Jail support greeted those arrested upon release, cheered and thanked them, and made sure the summons went to a lawyer.
We waited. The first arrestee came out at 2pm, and the last at 5:30. Best outfit? The big round globe worn by a young woman, her top of the northern hemisphere and pants of the southern hemisphere. The benefit of doing jail support for me was the time spent with others—all ages, and while mainly New Yorkers, numbers from across the country—so committed to addressing climate change. It gives you hope.”
– Deborah Popper
Tuesday: TIAA-Divest! Rally & Action
“On Tuesday I went to TIAA headquarters for a TIAA divest protest. There were familiar faces as well as new people with whom to connect. To me, it seems preposterous that TIAA has not made divestment a main priority. Retirement funds should be forward oriented. Moreover, its clients—and I’m one of them—have spent our lives in professions like teaching. We want a decent return on our money, but not at the expense of the planet and our fellow humans.
The event organizer spoke and then turned to a contingent from Phillips County, Arkansas, who were feeling the impacts of TIAA’s investment in nearby agricultural land where practices featured heavy drifts of pesticides and whose water budget depleted their own. These speakers were followed by three from Brazil’s cerrado where TIAA’s investments were also threatening people’s health and livelihoods. I’ve been to both areas. Life was never easy in either, but now it’s harder.”
– Deborah Popper
Tuesday: Petition Delivery at Gov. Hochul’s Office
“At 11 am we joined the protest at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office. A two storey large banner reading “Gov. Hochul Sign or Sink! Make Polluters Pay!” was dropped off a building across from her office. It demanded that she sign the Climate Change Superfund Act still sitting on her desk. Local youth activists whose communities have been affected by superstorms and hurricanes spoke eloquently about the need to make the fossil fuel companies pay for the damage they have caused, not NY tax payers. Bill McKibben spoke, and the activists then presented symbolic boxes containing the 182,000 petition signatures collected.”
– Siu Li GoGwilt
Wednesday: The Language of Climate Politics in the 2024 Election
“Dr. Genevieve Gunther’s panel at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, TheLanguage of Climate Politics in the 2024 Election, was illuminating and educational. Her presentation was based on her recently published book, The Language of Climate Politics, published by Oxford University Press.
She was introduced by NYSEC leader, Monica Weiss, who briefly discussed the history of the organization. The other panelists included Kendra Pierre-Louis, climate reporter at Bloomberg, Amy Westervelt, Editor-in- Chief, Drilled Media and author and environmentalist, founder of 350.org and Third Act, Bill McKibben.
Dr. Gunther spoke first reading from the introduction to her book. She approached the panel from the viewpoint of the use of language as a form of misinformation about the climate crisis which prevents civic action. Five words – Alarmist, Cost, Growth, India and China, Innovation and Resilience–form the core of a strategy of disinformation which can deflect the urgency of the climate crisis. Do the oil, gas and coal industries pursue money at the expense of a livable planet?
Bill McKibben reminded us that our summer saw the hottest temperature in 125,000 years. He asked: ‘How will we re-freeze the Arctic? We must drive down emissions by half by 2030 in order to try to stay under 1.5 degrees. The question is, will we?'”
– Marcia Annenberg and Rachel Makleff
In addition to the above, volunteers attended Debt for Climate at Blackrock, listened to Bill McKibben in conversation with Alex Honnold at the MoMa, sailed on Pete Seeger’s Sloop, Clearwater, on the Hudson, sang and chanted, and joined the Mindful Rebels for their weekly meditation at the JPMorgan Chase Headquarters. It was a week full of actions, community gatherings, and joyous energy.
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