In My Third Act: Lawrence MacDonald on What Boomers Owe to Future Generations

In our latest edition of In My Third Act, Jane Fleishman writes about her conversation with Lawrence MacDonald of Third Act Virginia and Third Act Faith. MacDonald speaks about his international experience in journalism and climate activism, and why the boomer generation has an integral role in fighting for the planet.

What do we owe those who come after us? What torch are we passing to future generations? Lawrence MacDonald’s third act is an eloquent reply to these questions. He is a co-facilitator of Third Act Virginia and DMV (DC, Maryland, & Virginia), and active in Third Act Faith and the Third Act NVDA (Non-Violent Direct Action) Network. In late 2023 he published a book, Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomer’s Guide to the Climate Crisis, which the Financial Times named one of the five best new books on climate change.

“I’ve long thought that those of us in the boomer generation have a unique responsibility to get in the fight for a livable planet,” says MacDonald.  “We knew about the consequences of burning fossil fuels decades ago and yet our generation supported U.S. policies that have been one step forward and two steps back, never really addressing the problem. In retirement, I’m trying to make up for that in my small way.”

I think it’s very important for us to show up for young people when they organize actions, and to be respectful, to listen.

MacDonald’s activism was shaped by being born midway in the boomer generation. The hippies and activists of the civil rights and anti-war movements, his older peers, inspired him.  Born in Chicago and raised in California by politically progressive parents, MacDonald says he “got a chip on my shoulder” towards the rich and powerful from his father’s working-class background and an appreciation for education and a desire to help people from his mother’s upbringing as the daughter of YMCA missionaries in China.

He majored in Chinese and Asian Studies at the University of Southern California at Santa Barbara. Then he spent 15 years living and working as a journalist in Asia, including 2 years in Beijing just as China was opening to the world. He also worked in the Philippines, Hong Kong and South Korea, reporting on social, economic and political crises. He later returned to the U.S. and held senior policy communications positions at the World Bank and two D.C.-based international think tanks.

“My experiences in Asia gave me a strong sense of the disproportionate costs and burdens the climate crisis imposes on the poor of the world,” says MacDonald. “Our country is the largest cumulative emitter and largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world, so we bear a large share of the responsibility for remedying the situation.”  

MacDonald first participated in climate-related civil disobedience in August 2011, when he was one of more than 1,200 people arrested in front of the White House in a two-week campaign that Bill McKibben helped organize calling on President Obama to stop Keystone XL, a 2,030-mile-long oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. (Almost a decade later, the project was finally canceled.) 

He has since participated in and helped to organize dozens of NVDA climate actions, including Third Act’s prominent role in this year’s Summer of Heat campaign in New York City,  in which scores of elders have been arrested for blocking the doors at Citibank, the largest funder of new coal, oil and gas projects.  

In addition to joining in elder-focused actions, MacDonald actively supports youth climate justice groups engaged in non-violent direct action. “I think it’s very important for us to show up for young people when they organize actions, and to be respectful, to listen,” says MacDonald.

Aside from a few very close friends of longstanding, the people in the climate movement are my closest friends. It’s rewarding to be connected with people who are also connected through shared values and a shared struggle.

“Support youth on their own terms, ask them what they need. Don’t assume you have answers, just be present.” Following Third Act’s 2023 Rocking Chair Rebellion in Washington DC, youth climate groups in and around the national capital began inviting Third Act DMV to organize elders in rocking chairs to show up for their actions. MacDonald and other TA DMV members keep brightly painted rocking chairs at home to respond to these requests.   

For MacDonald, religion is closely linked to the struggle for climate justice. His parents were skeptics but encouraged his participation in the Congregational Church. As an adult, he retained his parents’ skepticism but appreciated the church’s emphasis on social action. When he met the woman who is now his wife and was exposed to Judaism, he found a faith that suited him better and became a Jew. He now volunteers with Dayenu, a Jewish climate advocacy organization. He recently wrote an essay for Third Act Faith titled Faith-Based Advocacy as a Path to Power. 

As a boy, MacDonald spent a lot of time outdoors in California’s mountains, deserts and beaches, including on camping trips with his grandparents. He finds hope in the natural world that is left to us and in the camaraderie of the movement. Young climate activists and Third Act elders provide him with a friend group he believes is stronger and more meaningful than he would have had otherwise. 

“Aside from a few very close friends of longstanding, the people in the climate movement are my closest friends,” says MacDonald. “It’s rewarding to be connected with people who are also connected through shared values and a shared struggle.”

Read the latest in our In My Third Act series

• Kathy Lindquist on Feeling Liberated in Retirement
• Jeremy Kagan on the Artist’s Responsibility
• Liz Evans on Her Road to Climate Activism

Jane Fleishman

Jane Fleishman is a Third Actor residing in Nashville, TN who is regularly pulled to NYC where her first grandchild lives and to the Southwest where so many of her other family members live. She is retired from a social work career mainly focused on creating and promoting volunteer and civic leadership opportunities for youth in their First Act.

Lawrence MacDonald

Lawrence MacDonald is a writer, policy communications expert, and boomer climate activist. After graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara, he studied Chinese in Taiwan and worked as a journalist for 15 years in Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul and Manila. Returning to the United States in the early 1990s, he worked as a communications officer at the World Bank and as vice president for communications at two Washington, DC-based think tanks, the Center for Global Development, and the World Resources Institute. During this time he became increasingly active in the U.S. climate movement. He has been arrested multiple times in peaceful civil disobedience actions to draw attention to the climate emergency. He is the author of Am I Too Old to Save the Planet?  A Boomer’s Guide to Climate Action. He has led dozens of lively, interactive discussions based on his book. To arrange a book talk, email him. 

He and his wife live in Arlington Virginia and have two grown children who are also active in the climate movement.