I had had enough after hours of meetings and talking that didn’t lead to significant change. I wanted different legislators.

That’s why I ran for city council and, later, the South Carolina State House.  My efforts in local organizations, such as Transition US, Sierra Club, 350.org, Third Act, and Citizens Climate Lobby, to make humans more responsive to climate change had made a difference, but we needed more.

I ran as a Democrat in a state not known for embracing change related to climate change. And I lost. Twice. Did it make a difference?  It certainly did. By entering the political race, I could make climate change a subject of conversation.

And because I won 40% of the vote in the most conservative county in South Carolina, my voice made a difference when speaking to my conservative Republican representatives who knew I spoke for a significant percentage of their voters.

I live in Clemson, SC, a university town where many residents live because they are scientists, engineers, and other academically focused people who understand that humans need to radically change to protect the earth.  My husband is a physics professor, and I work as a social worker and psychotherapist. In our 22 years of being voters in Clemson, most races only had Republican candidates, and not a single candidate on my ballot wanted to address climate change.

I’m glad my efforts volunteering in green organizations sent children on green field trips and helped neighbors realize sustainable homes existed nearby. But I’m even more grateful that when I ran for office in 2016, current conservative legislators learned they had many voters who cared about green issues. Moreover, the hours spent on my campaigns gave me valuable experience. I have since used to help other female green candidates, one of whom now serves as a county council member in Pickens County.

Evangelicals, business owners, and gun lobbies have worked together for many years to elect legislators who support their causes.  Third Actors must also find people to run for office to represent our interests. Third Actors are beginning to understand that policy change comes quicker when we change our legislators. 

So, what can you do to elect more green candidates?

1. Consider running for office next year or another year after that.
2. Ask people you know to run for office and ask again. Research suggests that before a woman will consider running for office, she needs to be asked several times.
3. Donate early in their campaign if you know a green candidate running. Even if you can only give $5. Besides the funds, a donation to your candidate will show an increase in supporters, a critical ask of larger organizations (i.e., the Democratic Party), some of which decide who to fund based on number of donors.
4. Help green candidates get campaign training from organizations like Emerge, the Democratic Party, or Women In Leadership. If the training costs money, offer to pay a portion.
5. Connect the candidate to former candidates who previously ran for office or to the local green organizations. Invite them to your Third Act group to discuss their campaign and recruit volunteers.
6. Assist with fundraising by donating yourself, asking your friends to donate, and suggesting that they ask their local Democratic Party, Third Act group, Sierra Club, or other green group to provide a donation.
7. Offer in-kind donations to candidates such as offering to post for them to a social media account, providing graphic design, copy editing, canvassing, phone banking, babysitting, writing, delivering yard signs or door knob hangers, volunteer management, video filming or editing, canvassing, phone banking or text banking.
8. If you’re known for being informed about green issues, be sure to tell your friends that you know which candidates support green strategies that you endorse. Encourage friends to tell their friends to ask you about the upcoming race for your opinions.
9. Attend candidate forums or debates and submit questions about the environment for candidates to answer. Keep questions short and focused on public interest issues (e.g., what policies do you recommend to lower utility prices?). Consider providing green candidates with the questions you will submit in advance so they are prepared with relevant data and information.
10. Engage in relational voting:  encourage your friends to register and to vote, have them tell their friends who is a green candidate and why, and go to your neighbors and tell them about the candidate.

“The climate emergency eliminates time for politeness.”

Increasingly, voters live in states where they must choose between either two liberal or two conservative candidates.  Where I live, practically speaking, the election for state and county offices occurs in June during the Republican primary (South Carolina Congress is 69% Republican) since most districts are gerrymandered to favor Republicans.  In bluer states, voters need to differentiate between two candidates who both support action to help the environment.  

We have all been taught not to talk about politics (or sex or religion, for that matter) in social settings. But the climate emergency eliminates time for politeness. In a country where single-issue voters were able to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Third Actors must utilize the ballot box as a way to change policies. Like pro-life voters pre-2021, we must encourage our friends and family to vote for the earth by talking about the candidates’ stances on environmental questions (and not just some of the time, from now until November 5!).

Although most of our attention in presidential year elections is on national races, a substantial number of significant environmental decisions are made by county and city councils.  Inform yourself about local candidates and their positions on green issues (i.e., do they support buying green city/county vehicles, solar installations on government buildings and schools, building and waste regulations, incentives for green building and local farming, etc.).  

County and city council people are more likely than national candidates to answer their phone when you call them, so contact them or even set up a meeting to discuss green issues that affect your area.  Or invite them to your local Third Act chapter meeting.  Or better still, host a public forum for voters on green issues, which allows candidates to talk directly to voters.  Prepare questions ahead of the forum to help votes differentiate between candidates (e.g., How will you help businesses implement more sustainable practices?)

Third Act volunteers have been correctly focused on getting their legislators to change policies to help the earth.  But we MUST also focus on changing our legislators.  More sustainably focused legislators can have long-term effects. I now spend less time talking to conservative legislators and more time asking people to run or helping good candidates with their campaigns.

I’m running again for South Carolina State House on November 5th.

Run for something.  Or help someone run for something.  Even if you lose, you will emerge a winner.

In the fall of 1987 I was ready for something bigger so I packed up my car and moved  to Minnesota hoping to find work in Jesse Jackson’s campaign for President.  I was drawn to the idea of the Rainbow Coalition where groups shared a common purpose and the intent to collaborate. Well, they weren’t hiring! So, while volunteering for the campaign, I helped found a multi-issue, multi-constituency coalition that would live beyond a presidential campaign. (Paul Wellstone was a founding board member.)  The coalition was grounded in a set of principles that groups had to sign on to and we were deliberate about using those principles to decide what campaigns, among the many opportunities, we would work on.  We did experience some wins that demonstrated the power of having an infrastructure that brought and held us together, along with the power of organized people.

I began to realize that challenging public narratives and offering a different way to understand what is possible was another form of power.

Yet as in my small Pennsylvania town, after 13 years I was seeing the limits of this model of organizing. I was hungry to learn more about how to build on all that I had learned and experienced-  how to create greater change. I turned to the Civil Rights movement and noticed that while they organized people power and built infrastructure, they also had a story, a values-based narrative and vision that guided them – the Beloved Community. I began to realize that challenging public narratives and offering a different way to understand what is possible was another form of power. For the next 15 years I worked with organizations, mostly in Minnesota, developing strategies that moved beyond simple wins to making even bigger ones possible. This included the integration of the three forms of power described above: organized people, built infrastructure, and a values-based narrative.  

In 2004-2005 my work with ISAIAH helped launch their work in a new direction where they connected the multiple issue campaigns with values that offered a contrast with those then dominating the public discourse. They offered hope vs fear, community vs isolation and abundance vs scarcity. The lobbying training was very different in 2005. Instead of training people on the specifics of legislation, ISAIAH invited them to tell their own story, grounded in hope, community and abundance – focusing on the “why” rather than the specifics of policy – and asking legislators what values guided their decisions making. It launched an evolution of their work that eventually engaged other organizations.  

In 2018 progressive groups came together with two major themes – Politics of Joy and Greater than Fear – that contributed to the election of Tim Walz as Governor by  counteracting the fear-mongering of the Republicans. These organizations were also a huge factor in electing the Minnesota trifecta that everyone is talking about and in setting the agenda for 2023-2024. Now we see some of these themes playing out at the national level.  Many people have contributed to the framing of last week’s Democratic National Convention, but some of it certainly has its origins in Minnesota grassroots organizations.

COVID set in soon after I stopped working for pay and, like for many, my life was put on hold.  It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to next contribute.  I care deeply about the effects of the climate crisis and what is happening to our earth home. And it was becoming hard to look my 26-year old son in the eye while not acting in some way.

Experience has taught me that learning to write from a broader set of values requires not only learning new skills but also unlearning old ones – like the desire to respond to every lie or misstatement.

I was glad to find my way to Third Act Minnesota last spring. I was drawn by the focus on a set of principles and collaborative work.  When I was asked to develop a plan for Minnesota Third Actors during the election this fall I saw an opportunity to bring my experiences into the work of the Keyboard Warriors, a set of members who write letters on a regular basis to shape a larger story around this election, told from the perspective of elders.  As it turns out, our mission matches up well with the Harris-Walz key themes.

Experience has taught me that learning to write from a broader set of values requires not only learning new skills but also unlearning old ones – like the desire to respond to every lie or misstatement.  But that just keeps us stuck in their story so pivoting to the anecdote is very powerful. The writing guide I developed is a tool to help people change their natural inclinations when writing publicly, especially in the context of an election.  

Hopefully, my fellow Third Actors reading this will also find it useful.

I’ve been spending this beautiful summer week with my three grandchildren, paddling on a wild Adirondack river and thinking about my responsibilities to their future. And when I find myself growing into elderhood, the question I think a lot about is, what does it mean to become a good ancestor? It seems to me that part of that is to lift up new leaders to support them in defending our values and what we love, and contributing our gifts to the flourishing of the next generations. 

And as I watched my kids fall in love with the wild river, it brought tears to my eyes because there’s nothing I want more than a world which is whole and healthy and green for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren, for the grandchildren of pine trees. And with the ascendance of Kamala Harris, I’m so excited to be for something, to be inspired by the affirmative energy, not just recoiling in disgust from the specter of a Trump presidency, but energized to help create a positive future for all of our grandchildren. And in this time of hyperpolarization, we’re all looking for common ground to bring people together for a common purpose.

And Kamala Harris represents that. If we’re looking for common ground, we need look no further than the ground itself. Regardless of the party, we all need clean air and pure water and healthy soils and the nourishment that comes from wild places. After all, a river doesn’t ask for your party affiliation before offering you a drink.

And the truth is that without a livable climate, everything else falls away. The Biden-Harris administration stands behind the strongest U.S. climate policies to date. We need to unite behind Kamala Harris’s ongoing climate leadership in the transition to a new, green economy. And we have seen this wonderful recent outpouring of support for her candidacy, reflecting the excitement that we all feel tonight. I’ve loved to tune in to Teachers for Kamala, Farm Workers for Kamala, Black Women for Kamala, White Women for Kamala, White Dudes for Kamala, Cat Ladies for Kamala, and tonight, we join as Elders for Kamala. 

And I think we could imagine a similar enthusiasm from our more than human relatives too as she works on their behalf. If anybody bothered to pull them, I suspect we’d see Pollinators for Kamala, Rivers for Kamala, Forests for Kamala, Climate for Kamala. And I will stand with them. And as I travel around the country, I am inspired by folks sitting at the edge of their seats just waiting to be asked to make a difference. And the actions that are proposed here by Third Act tonight are wonderful invitations to do exactly that.

And Kamala Harris’ candidacy ignites that in people. It’s exciting to imagine how she is rallying the forces to defeat the monstrosity of the MAGA extremists and ushering in a new political climate that reaches for just and verdant future. She will restore and protect reproductive rights, restore voting rights, and surround herself with other visionary leaders. I’m thinking about the hope for continuity for Secretary of the Interior Deb Holland and her revolutionary work for indigenous land rights. 

And in my culture, we speak of a warrior. A warrior is someone who puts the good of the people ahead of themselves who inspires others to do the same. And it is time. It is time for a fierce woman leader, compassionate and smart, who believes in the rule of law, who uses science, who uses evidence and reason, who can speak a sentence that is not only coherent and complete but send shivers down your spine, who puts principle ahead of power country ahead of corporations and who will be fiercely protective of justice for all in reciprocity for the gifts of freedom and democracy, of wild rivers, of living in this beautiful homeland.

I want to offer my gifts in return in financial support in advocacy and energy in postcard and phone banking on behalf of this warrior woman, Kamala Harris and on behalf of our country. I hope you will too. 

Paid for by GrayPAC. Not authorized by any candidates or candidates’ committees.

The Unique Superpowers of Elderhood

DBS: What unique perspectives, experiences or superpowers do older adults bring to the table when it comes to addressing climate change? And how does Third Act make use of these?

SS: I love how you framed this question because older adults really do have superpowers. For one, it’s the sheer amount of [older adults]. There are more than 70 million Americans over the age of 60, and that number grows by 10,000 people each day. They also hold two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, as opposed to the 5% millennials hold. Collectively, this gives them huge leverage as a block of consumers, to hold politicians and financial institutions accountable for their fossil fuel investments. And they always vote. They are such reliable voters. 

Aging is a privilege. Not everyone gets to do it and they want to put that privilege to work.

What I’ve observed in my work at Third Act is that they’re also extremely patient and persistent and this really is a secret weapon, especially in some of our more intricate, hard-to-explain work, like strengthening energy policies by influencing public utilities commissions. I will tell you just like a year ago when I was joining Third Act, I didn’t know what that meant. And in this age of collectivism, older people just have the stamina to untangle the spaghetti bowl of jargon. They are showing up in droves to our trainings, learning about Public Utility Commission regulatory proceedings, and using that knowledge to then make comments on dockets and give testimony as interveners. 

On the more visual, public-facing side, it creates a spectacle to arrest older folks who are peacefully protesting. So many in this demographic are particularly willing to take bold steps because they feel a deep responsibility to future generations and frankly, they have less to lose. Aging is a privilege. Not everyone gets to do it and they want to put that privilege to work.

A Community-Led Model

DBS: What role do personal connections and community engagement play in mobilizing older adults to take action on climate issues.

SS: It’s the most important role. Our relational organizing model is based on building trusting relationships between people. These are the same ideas that were at the heart of the civil rights and feminism and voting rights movements in the sixties and where a lot of Third Actors actually got their start.

We take this peer-to-peer and relational approach that both imparts skills and nurtures creativity so that third actors can lead themselves. The idea of our volunteer-led model is to have them take charge of their fellow Third Actors.

Fears and Hopes

DBS: What are the major concerns and drivers of this audience? And where do those concerns and drivers intersect with climate change?

SS: Third Actors have major concerns about the presidential election and the state of our democracy, and these are deeply intertwined with climate change. Actually, we have a Third Actor, Lis, who is interviewing other Third Actors from across the country. 

We always ask, what if we did this work joyfully? So when Third Actors talk about their fears, they also talk about their hopes.

Shalom in California wants her daughter to inherit fundamental rights, like voting, loving freely, and making decisions about her own body which are all dependent on a healthy and thriving earth. Kathryn from Wisconsin is concerned about current laws protecting our air, water, food and medicine, being corrupted for corporate profits. And from a retirement community in Michigan, Barry fears the undermining of democracy and worries that a win for climate change deniers is going to roll back progress and exacerbate the current suffering.

We always ask, what if we did this work joyfully? So when Third Actors talk about their fears, they also talk about their hopes. Barry, who I just mentioned, has five kids, elevent grandkids, and one new great-grandkid, Duke, who he calls “The Duke” and is motivated by a vision for the future where all world citizens, including baby Duke, are seen and treated with respect and knowing that they belong.

It all comes down to legacy. We see how climate change is so interconnected with these other struggles for democracy, which are really biting at our heels here at the moment.

The Nuts and Bolts of Communication Infrastructure

DBS: What challenges have you encountered in communicating climate change to older audiences and how have you overcome them?

SS: I’m going to flip this question because the biggest challenge that I’ve encountered is not actually communicating climate change to older adults; it’s figuring out how older adults communicate with each other, especially in these highly-distributed, remote, and digital landscapes.

The nuts and bolts of communications infrastructure is not what made me get into this work. It’s not sexy and it’s not the headline story, but figuring out the common denominator of how people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond can collaborate is essential.

We have over thirty working groups based in particular states or rooted in affinity. Just a couple of months ago, my team launched a network of websites all connected under the Third Act domain, which gives each working group its own blog and events calendar that they maintain so that they can keep their own working group members, outside audiences, and each other informed of what they’re doing. And then these feeds are also all aggregated together. So we have made visible hundreds of event listings and campaign updates that were previously just not anywhere or siloed. There are a lot of big numbers and flashing metrics. But my favorite is that we have about 100 Third Actors trained and working in WordPress for the first time ever and it’s growing every day.

We’ve also developed a visual brand identity that extends to the working group. It gives each working group sort of a unique logo mark that distinguishes them and also fits visually under the Third Act brand. Together, these kinds of efforts make visible the power of this collective. 

The nuts and bolts of communications infrastructure is not what made me get into this work. It’s not sexy and it’s not the headline story, but figuring out the common denominator of how people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond can collaborate is essential. We have a volunteer. She’s amazing. Her name’s Lani and she came into activism at 76 years old. She was a teacher for over 40 years and she’s used that experience to help us develop a cohort of volunteer coaches. They provide support directly to Third Actors on things like how to crop an image or how to upload a document to the cloud. And this peer-to-peer approach matches perfectly with our relational organizing model. It also uses our greatest assets which are experienced people to address our greatest challenge, which is older people being left behind by technology.

Not many of our working group members are comfortable with social media and fewer of them enjoy it. On the other side, we have volunteers who have spent a whole career in software development and marketing. We encourage people to play to their strengths, but also create this space where people are learning and trying new things for the first time.

Don’t Make Assumptions, Keep it Accessible, and Listen

DBS: What advice would you give to other climate communicators who are seeking to better engage older or more mature demographics in their work?

SS: Thank you for asking this. Older folks are often stereotyped and left out of progressive conversations, but this is a huge mistake and source of untapped power. My number one [piece of advice] is don’t presume that people get more conservative as they age or that they lose their sense of humor.

And like we’ve been talking about, don’t discount their potential. Liz, one of our national volunteers put this really well so I’m just going to use what she said, which is that, it’s not that older folks are completely untechnical; you just can’t expect it to be automatic. And so make your content accessible and pay attention to how they use their platform.

This is really basic, but keep that contrast high, keep that tech size large, and those buttons obvious. Don’t forsake the iPad. Also, leverage the relative amount of free time that retired people have. Recently, I needed help on a project and I asked a Third Actor, how much time do you have? He was like, I don’t know, as much time as my wife will allow. 

Most of all, listen. Not only do older people want to back up the youth who are driving the climate movement, but they also have the real structural power to make a major impact. And it’s actually just purely impractical. Our founder, Bill McKibben, talks about this all the time, just impractical to leave this problem to the next generation because we really do need as many people as possible to be engaged if we want to make change at the scale we need in the time that we have left. 

As we’ve talked about, so many older folks were active in the most defining social movements of our country. And, in fact, they’ve always played a special role and can make a lasting visual impression. I’m thinking of this iconic image of Dorothy Day on the United Farm Workers picket line where she’s facing off for the sheriff from a seated position on a portable golf stool. That’s so much the DNA of Third Act, they actually call themselves the Rocking Chair Rebellion. We’ve really taken hold of this icon of the rocking chair to sit down comfortably in our power.

Our seasoned generation holds unparalleled power to ensure a safe and stable planet for generations to come.To solve the climate crisis we need to stop digging up and burning dirty fossil fuels to produce energy, when our needs can be supplied by affordable, reliable, abundant solar and wind power and other clean energy alternatives. 

One third of the United States landmass is federal public lands that belong to all of us, and should be managed for the public good. These lands also contain huge deposits of coal, oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale. Extracting these dirty fossil fuels and lighting them on fire is what drives the climate crisis spinning out of control for life on earth as we know it.  But we have a choice: we can decide to leave most of this dirty energy in the ground and start restoring the earth and the stability of the climate now. 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees most of the public lands (245 million acres) that hold large reserves of dirty fossil fuels. Historically, nearly all of these BLM lands were open to top priority use by energy companies, loggers and miners. At long last, the Biden Administration has reformed this public land giveaway and issued a new Public Lands Rule, which provides tools for the BLM to improve the health and resilience of public lands in the face of a changing climate; conserve important wildlife habitat and intact landscapes; facilitate responsible development; and better recognize unique cultural and natural resources on public lands.

This new rule elevates managing public lands for conservation, wildlife protection, watershed protection, and climate restoration. 

Biden’s new, final Public Lands Rule will put conservation on equal footing with fossil fuel development for the first time. In parallel, other Biden initiatives encourage the deployment of clean renewable energy on our public lands, and reform antiquated oil and gas leasing rules. This is the proven and necessary path to solve our climate and biodiversity crisis.

Unfortunately, the Public Lands Rule is under attack by the dirty energy industries and their political allies. Already, a bill has passed in the MAGA Republican controlled House to overturn the rule. To make sure it withstands the assault and is fully implemented we need the public – that’s all of us – to voice our strong support for the Public Lands Rule.

Third Act members submitted hundreds of comments last year to the Biden Administration so that this new rule would be drafted. Our work continues.

To demonstrate strong public support, we ask that you sign on to an online letter of support to counter the pressure campaign of the coal, oil and gas companies.

Together we can secure a huge victory. President Biden has taken this bold step to put the public interest back in public lands and tackle the climate crisis. We need to have his back and help bring this monumental change across the finish line. 

All images courtesy of Liz Sanders.

I signed on to be part of the Summer of Heat, a campaign against the banks and insurance companies that are supporting and profiting from climate destruction. This meant I was fortunate enough to participate in the two-day Non-Violent Direct-Action (NVDA) training in NYC hosted by Third Act. NVDA is defined as nonviolent resistance to injustice. There are hundreds of forms of nonviolent direct action including marches, boycotts, picketing, sit-ins and prayer vigils.

It wasn’t my first training, but one of the most insightful. I went to the training thinking that this would be nuts and bolts on the how to’s of NVDA: how to hold the line, what to expect from police. Maybe we’d learn a couple songs and chants. Cover a little history and participate in role play. 

And that was all there. The excellent training team of Cathy Hoffman, Marla Marcum, and Leif Taranta was smart, honest, and so grounded in this work. It was inspiring. I learned there is both an art and craft to NVDA.   

What I didn’t anticipate was that we’d also build and nurture our Elders movement for change– to be thoughtful, strategic, and intentional in our work, to the powerful potential of our Third Act community. Bill McKibben spoke of our unique role in the movement, and how NVDA is an important tool in our work. His advice was to also find joy in our activism. 

I am awed by all those willing to put their bodies on the line for change, at Greensboro, Stonewall, Act UP, Standing Rock and so many others. During the training oversized images of brave activists hung around the room. The iconic image of Dorothy Day – writer, activist, person of faith – standing up for farmers workers against the police, stood out to me. She emboded authority and grace, and inspires me to continue the struggle for justice and a better world.

After the first day, I lay in bed energized, yet questioning my role How far I was willing to go? Did I understand the risks? Was I willing to be arrested? Where was my place in this movement? 

The next day one of the many exercises was an exploration of our personal “comfort/stretch/panic” zones. It’s easy to get attached to our comforts and be risk averse, but ease doesn’t lead to growth. When we take risks and stretch, that’s when we thrive and learn. It’s also important to know your boundaries and limitations.

With these tools and community support, I am ready to stretch.

 I was recently asked the Colbert Questionert, a parlor game that the late-night host asks celebrities. The first of the 15 questions is, What’s your favorite sandwich? The last, Describe the rest of your life in 5 words. I immediately thought of the connection, joy, and purpose I experience making good trouble with our Third Act community. 

My answer: be present, be of service. 

Just recently landslides tragically smothered thousands in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, Midwest storms devastated communities and left hundreds of thousands without power from Texas to Montana, and New Delhi just recorded all time high temperatures of 127.22 F degrees. 

Our collective call to action gets louder every day.

It’s an easy way to share my love for where I live, and to elicit stories. Folks love talking about their thumbs, whether brown, green, or a kind of early-spring color somewhere in between. And so I know there are lots of you out there brushing off your broadforks this time of year. Like me, you might be feeling a deep connection between our work here at Third Act and the utter joy—and importance—of growing a garden.

If that sounds like you, I have good news: this spring we’ve partnered up with the folks at Garden for Wildlife. They let you fill in your zip code to find perennial bulbs, plants, and shrubs native to your neck of the woods. And if you decide to add any to your garden a portion of that sale will go toward supporting Third Act’s work. 

Native plants turn patches of soil into places of belonging. They thrive alongside the critters that live near us, they’re low maintenance, and they improve our soil—and our soil’s ability to draw and store carbon safely underground. And there’s just a special quality they have; they’re so alive, right where they’re meant to be.

You can check out what’s on offer near you at Third Act’s Gardening for Wildlife page. There are native plants available in most states–some western states are still forthcoming–but beyond plants you might also consider sending a gift card to celebrate the spring, for Mother or Father’s Day, a birthday, an anniversary, or a wedding gift.

As I’ve learned about our movements for justice, I’ve come to understand why the great Ella Baker, key leader in the civil rights era, called community organizing spadework. It’s the daily commitment to understand who’s around you. It’s the commitment to listening, to having skin in the game, to patience, and to the wending non-linearity of progress so obvious in a garden plot, and so crucial to our work of building power together.

Now I grew up reading Miss Rumphius, so when I moved into my home a few years ago, the first seeds I planted were sundial lupines. Not much digging required there. But I hold on to my garden spade with reverence all year long—this spring in my garden, where I’ll plant some sky-blue asters in honor of Ella—and in our work here at Third Act, where it’s an honor to build this movement together with you.

Third Act has partnered with Garden for Wildlife by National Wildlife Federation to provide more wildlife support by installing native plants in gardens. Built on National Wildlife Federation’s 50 years of research, Garden for Wildlife sells native plants that can thrive in your community’s gardens.

Third Act will receive 15% of the total sales from your purchases with them through the next 12 months. Using this link will assure the sale is credited to us. Please remember to use the same email address each time you shop there.

Robert Wald shares his experience below.

Peace of Mind

I was in sixth grade the last time I had a fistfight. Our teacher, who believed students could learn better without actually being taught (this was the 1970s), stepped out of the classroom. Soon a classmate began poking kids with a pushpin, and when my turn arrived, I exploded in rage.

At one point, I had pinned my classmate against the teacher’s desk. I grabbed a pair of scissors and attempted to stab him. I missed, and the scissors embedded harmlessly in the desktop. Our teacher returned before much else happened, and I spent the rest of the morning in the principal’s office. 

I’ve avoided violent confrontations since then, and most people today view me as a laid-back person. Occasionally, though, I fantasize about throwing a brick through the window of a Bank of America or blowing up Exxon’s headquarters. You know, something for the good of humanity.  

So when Third Act offered training in nonviolent direct action, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to learn how to fight nonviolently against the carbon barons, who wage industrial-scale violence on us and the planet. 

The training took place in a large room on the ground floor of The Festival Center in Washington, D.C. Upon entering the room, I sat in one of the 50-odd chairs arranged in a circle. There were a few conversations among those Third Actors who knew each other, but the room was mostly quiet, the way rooms are when filled with strangers. 

Being a member of the Maryland working group, I knew a handful of people there. As the day progressed, however, I came to know many more of my Third Act brothers and sisters. And that’s exactly how I came to think of them over the course of the training. 

Some of the attendees had participated in nonviolent direct actions before, but others had never joined a movement, let alone risked arrest. They’re the ones I admired most, because they were just then embarking on a journey. 

Over the next one-and-a-half days, we learned and talked about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence and those of the War Resisters’ League. We also learned about the history and power of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. We learned how to plan and execute such actions, the right way to get arrested, and how to deescalate tense situations. The training also included a role-playing scenario based on Third Act’s nonviolent actions targeting dirty banks. 

I’d never gone to therapy or expressed inner thoughts and feelings in a group, but sharing my stories and hearing the stories of my fellow Third Actors turned out to be the most gratifying part of the training. It just may have been the most important, too, because it helped us get to know and trust one another. I know that if I am arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, there will be caring, deeply committed Third Act brothers and sisters by my side, backing me up. And I, of course, would do the same for them. 

After the training, I hung around and chatted with other Third Actors. My head and my heart were buzzing. I wanted more, as if I had just read a great novel that I never wanted to end.

Privilege allows me to sleepwalk through my life: not feeling what others have to feel, not remembering traumas that others cannot forget, and most disappointingly, being profoundly unaware of who I really am.

My smaller self hates this.  It wants to fix it all right now and put it behind me.  It fiercely believes that if I say the right words, don’t use the wrong words and read all the prescribed books then I can get past this problem.  This small self cherishes concrete solutions and can’t stand anguish.  It needs to fix it “now”.  If it can’t fix it now,  it goes into the corner in a major pout and refuses to engage.  It doesn’t understand that the problem is both greater than it and greater than its understanding.  It sees awareness training as the wonder drug that will heal all instead of a program helping us begin a lifelong journey to understand and heal a lives long disease. 

I began the program with huge hope. Hope not for a wonder drug but rather for a process that would help us learn to walk together to better carry problems unique to each yet common to all.  Off the bat I was impressed with the care with which it was crafted and the courage and enthusiasm with which others participated.   It was like some of the canoe teachings from my home area where we must learn first learn how to paddle and then how to paddle together.  Much of Third Act for me  is learning how to paddle together.  Paddling requires profound respect and attention and quick forgiveness when paddles cross.   This paddling is the challenging journey from  “me” to “we”.

One purpose of this paddling was succinctly stated by Grandmother Mary Lyons, an Anishinaabe elder,  when I chatted with her privately after she spoke at a Line 4 pipeline demonstration.  I asked her frankly “What can White people do that will really help?”  She looked down for a moment and then looked back at me with caring yet piercing gaze and said  “You’ve forgotten who you are and where you came from.  This keeps you from seeing and understanding.  We cannot teach this to you.  You must find it”.  

In my bones I knew she was right.  I’d forgotten the part of me that was rooted in ancestral lands,  enduring community and gratitude for the gift of being part of a people.  As an immigrant, most of these roots were boiled away in the great American melting pot and the replaced with painful propagandas of manifest destiny, white supremacy and “Progress”.

I came into this program knowing I was living lies and hoping to get closer to truth.  The program delivered.  Not simply with the skillful staff but most movingly with the courageous story telling by participants.  Initially these were shared awkwardly but, with time and trust, they became moving and profound,  helping me to see many things in myself.  We began to paddle together.  

This is vital work here but also vital globally.  Structural racism was an important issue at COP 28 in Dubai as was moving away from colonized thought forms.  Many people at COP spoke to me of the global importance of the US standing up and facing its issues.  Funny thing about paddling: I began thinking we’re just paddling us but soon the waves whispered “thanks” for helping paddle the world.  

While I honestly feel off balance, awkward and ungainly, I no longer feel alone. This is like learning to walk again.  I’m a toddler trying to stand. This training gave me new hope that I can learn to walk with a new generation  My work is stumbling towards new ways of sharing and listening in vulnerability and humility.  The passion I felt when I first learned to walk has returned.  Nothing can stop it.  

May we stumble together to walk anew?

When it comes to addressing the crisis of democracy as well as the climate emergency, what we need to do is reach the human heart. That’s exactly what congregations, clergy and people of faith are good at. Throughout history, driven by a desire to be faithful to God, people of faith have called upon their gifts, their abilities and their soul-force to address many of the failures of our public life. Engaging public life is as important as any purpose of the church, the synagogue or the mosque.

God-faring (yes, God-faring, not God-fearing) people of faith can no longer stand idly by as the stability of our democracy, the authority of our Constitution and the rule of law come under attack. We can no longer be bystanders as Christian Nationalists prepare to transition our government from a democracy to a theocracy. Similarly, God-faring people of faith can no longer be silent as the climate crisis unjustly destroys the lives of the most vulnerable on Earth — those who did the least to cause it — those we are called to love and care for. We can no longer ignore the disinformation and lies perpetrated by corporate profiteers who focus only on maximizing quarterly profits as they wreck the Earth for all future generations. We (in the developed world) can no longer carry on our normal lives as if living our lives was not the cause of the sixth great extinction.

Third Act was formed to engage people of a certain age in the urgent task of addressing both the crisis of democracy and the climate emergency. Since Third Act was born in December 2021, both threats have gotten much, much worse.

Third Act Faith encourages people of faith and houses of worship to call upon their spiritual, moral and community-minded values as they muster their gifts, energy, time, skills, networks and assets in an organized effort to do what urgently needs to be done to preserve democracy and restore our common home.

In 2024, public life in the United States will be dominated by the run-up to the election. A little-known fact of American history is that for 250 years (1634-1884), one of the ways congregations engaged public life was to hear an election sermon. As an election approached, houses of worship would fill with citizens eager to reflect on the moral qualifications of those running for office. Today, though, it is likely that little to nothing will be said about the election in many, perhaps the majority, of our houses of worship.

It’s time to reawaken this moral witness. Doing so will require many — perhaps most — people of faith, houses of worship and their clergy to overcome their longstanding aversion, and their congregation’s resistance, to mixing politics and religion.

I did my best to address this challenge when, from 2006-2018, I served as leader of more than 350 United Church of Christ churches in Massachusetts. In the months prior to most elections, I offered a workshop for clergy that focused on the history and importance of preaching an election sermon and the general concern about politics and the church.

My understanding of the relationship between politics and the church was nurtured in the mid-1980s when I was a member of Riverside Church in New York City. There, I learned of Riverside’s founding pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick’s repeated endorsement of Jesus’ exhortation from the book of Acts, “You shall be my witnesses.” He told the people in the pews that if they were to be faithful, it was up to them to stand for high principles; to act in such a way that people would see in them something greater than themselves. Again and again, Fosdick would remind his congregation that even the least of us can stand for the greatest things. Each of us can bring to the voting booth a sense of moral responsibility. I also benefited enormously from the wisdom and moral resolve of Riverside’s senior minister, my mentor and friend, William Sloane Coffin.

During my 20 years serving as a local pastor in two congregations, I preached many election sermons. Two months before the election, I often asked my congregation to share with me materials that they thought might be helpful as I shaped my election sermon. One year, a member shared a quote from our denomination’s former executive minister for Justice and Witness Ministries, Bernice Powell Jackson: “Politics is about the values we honor, the dollars we allocate and the process we follow so that we can live together with some measure of justice, order and peace.” This provided a nice counterpoint to the quotations that others had suggested from Machiavelli and Clausewitz.

While the many election sermons I delivered were obviously political, they were never partisan. I never endorsed a candidate, and rarely mentioned them. Instead, I did my best to provide my congregation with what I discerned to be timeless moral principles that should guide our political decision-making — principles that are not only rooted in our faith tradition but are also supported by every faith tradition I know of.

The first principle concerns each candidate’s past record and current promises about how society and government must care for the least of these among us. In God’s eyes, each person is of equal worth. Our duty is to establish a form of government and elect representatives who will uphold the worth of each person.

The second principle involves discerning which candidate is most likely to preserve and advance justice while promoting the common good. This principle can be found in every religious tradition. God urges us to enlarge our unit of care and concern beyond self-interest and promote the common good.

The third principle assesses which candidate’s proposed policies and past practices take into consideration the integrity of creation — the care for our common home — for all of humanity and for future generations. Which candidate will offer the courageous leadership needed to expand the relevant unit of survival from the boundaries of our nation to the Earth as a whole, and extend the relevant time frame from the quarterly reports of corporations to the ancient measure of the seventh generation?

The fourth principle affirms Gandhi’s assertion that the means are the ends in the making. Which candidate’s advertising, endorsements and other means of campaigning reveal someone who tells and adheres to the truth? Someone who can be trusted to use the proper moral, legal and constitutional means once the full power of their office is conferred?

These moral principles are no less relevant today than when I preached them decades ago. With very little editing, clergy from any faith tradition could make these principles the core of their election sermon and support each principle with scripture from their tradition.

In addition to providing these timeless moral principles, I would emphasize our sacred responsibility to vote. Voting is the means by which we elect leaders and advance laws that can and should underwrite the principles I have listed.

As the ideological divide in our country — and in many of our congregations — becomes more and more apparent, clergy are often reluctant to speak about the importance of voting or to lift up the principles that should inform people of faith as they consider their choices on Election Day. Many clergy worry that if they enter this discussion, they will be disregarded and accused of being political.

While that may be a risk, the upcoming election presents every congregation and every clergy leader with an opportunity to identify the values and principles that guide us, as people of faith, when we consider our “life together” as residents of our state or country.

Let’s be clear: we are not called to be bystanders. We are called to be engaged in our communities in truthful ways that amplify love and expand justice.  And a crucial way to demonstrate our engagement is to vote.

Houses of worship and people of faith need to examine how our community, our state and our nation address the needs of the least of these among us;how we assure and advance justice; how we promote the common good; how we tell and adhere to the truth; and how we preserve and restore God’s creation. These are core values of the church, the synagogue and the mosque — and politics are the means by which all of these values are upheld.

Christians recognize that in almost every chapter of each of the four Gospels, we see Jesus urging the community to address the needs of the least of these among us. We hear Jesus passionately advocating for justice and promoting the common good. His commitment to truth is unwavering. In these ways and more, he is amplifying the message of the Hebrew prophets. It’s long past time that people of every faith tradition recognize that their God, by whatever name, calls them to preserve and restore creation.

All of these activities are political because they involve how people relate to each other, how people govern their lives together. Jesus, like the prophets in every tradition, tells the truth as he seeks to amplify love and expand justice in families, in towns and throughout the empire.

Soon, we will have the opportunity to faithfully exercise our sacred right to vote. I pray that every congregation and every person of faith will look to these principles as we examine our choices at the ballot box in the coming election.

Thank you for all the ways you are already addressing both the crisis of democracy and the climate emergency, and may the God of many names strengthen your resolve to amplify your witness.

Footnote

[1] Excerpt from “New Consciousness” by James Gustave Speth, featured in Speth’s recent Orion article,  “You Say You Want a Revolution.”  Here is the complete poem:

Decades of discourse
led by lawyers,
scientists, economists,
and we are stuck.
They can’t do what must be done:
reach the human heart.
The deep problems are
avarice, arrogance and apathy,
our dominant values gone astray.
We need not more analysis
but a spiritual awakening,
a new consciousness.
So bring on the preachers and prophets!
the poets and philosophers!
the psychologists and psychiatrists!
Bring on the writers, musicians, actors, artists!
Bring on the dreamers!
Call them to strike the chords
of our shared humanity,
of our close kin to wild things!
Call them to help find a new world!

See you on the other side!

Bill McKibben, for Third Act

Flash forward to the present, and now I’m one of those Third Act staffers listening to and learning from hundreds of amazing volunteers each week. As the Network Campaigns Lead, I interact with our working groups every day, so I know that these volunteer-led groups are the heart and soul of Third Act.

Most working groups are geographically based, but some are nationwide affinity groups, based on passion or past professional experience. All of us believe that elder power can be harnessed to fundamentally transform our culture and our politics. Taking on the financial and political forces that threaten our climate and our democracy is a daunting task. But Third Actors are committed to  sustained, collective action to tip the balance of power away from fossil fuels and fascist tendencies and towards clean energy and a healthy democracy.

We embrace a relational model of organizing where we build trust and confidence in each other over time. Our tiny yet dedicated staff trains and organizes groups which then make it a priority to reach out and engage an ever-growing number of Third Actors, finding a place for everybody to make a difference. Volunteers research local issues, write postcards, and lobby decision makers. They attend outreach events, work with local media, register voters, and organize public protests with Third Act staff supporting them as needed.

All of this takes time, dedication, and a lot of resources! In addition to our thirty existing working groups, the Third Act staff is committed to establishing a vibrant group in every state as soon as possible. This is no time to think small! We know we have no time to waste.

Which brings up another Third Act working principle: “Be generous, but not to a fault.” We all want our generation to leave a legacy to be proud of, so we give generously of our time, talent, and treasure. In just two years, we have grown to 70,000 strong. But we need at least twice that number to meet the urgency of the challenges we face in 2024 and beyond! To meet that goal, we have set up a new fundraising campaign called the  No Time to Waste  fund, with a goal of raising $500,000 in 2023.

Third Act is the nation’s home for activists over sixty working to protect our climate and our democracy. Won’t you join me in supporting this urgent  No Time to Waste  campaign so we can start off strong in 2024?

Happy Holidays!

In Solidarity,
Melanie L. Griffin

Third Act co-founder Bill McKibben tells us that the best thing an individual can do to address the climate crisis and attacks on democracy is to stop acting like an individual.  That is why we all joined Third Act.  With fellow Third Actors, we will be more powerful and able to take action collectively.

It has been so satisfying to work with local Third Act volunteers who are eager to join and make a difference with the most vital issues of our time. So many fellow elders have been searching for this home to fulfill their commitment to making a difference for our families and our future.

One of the best ways to make this happen is to get active in a Third Act state or affinity working group.  But in over half of the country, our members still do not have a local working group to join.  We have made amazing progress in organizing working groups over the past two years, but much more needs to be done. All of our members need access to state working groups to plan and implement dynamic and effective local and state campaign actions.

Third Act needs additional resources urgently so that we can recruit, train and empower volunteers to establish working groups in every state and Puerto Rico.  Right now we are organizing as quickly as we can, but we are at capacity.

Your donation to the No Time to Waste Fund can help us reach our $500 thousand goal and then we expect to:

• Add two additional organizers to our team to expand the support we can provide, and start Working Groups where we don’t yet have them, 
• Increase the direct support we can offer to Working Groups for their own trainings, actions, and materials,
• Add digital support for Working Group leaders building a web-presence, coordinating events online, and for maintaining our CRM, data, and privacy work;   
• Support two (out of five) in-person regional convenings

Your support can build Third Act communities ready to fight for a better future. Working together we can get much more done than we can as individuals. Can you chip in now to help resource Third Actors to respond quickly—as needed, when needed, where needed?

Your fellow Third Actor,

Bruce Hamilton, National Volunteer

As we watch what is unfolding in Gaza, Israel, in the West Bank, in Sudan, Ukraine, Armenia and the Congo, in Pakistan, Tigray, Ethiopia and elsewhere––we are reminded of the way human beings are capable of so much harm amid so much life. We join the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International and so many more in asking for a ceasefire in Gaza.

As I sit in the relative comfort of my home, I’m asking myself ‘what are the depths and limits of my humanity?, should not all suffering be an offense to my conscience?’ Indeed it is offensive to my conscience, to my heart that works and to my firmly held belief that a better world is possible for all of us.

This time is harsh and painful, and so it demands of us to activate our better angels; to educate ourselves on the ways in which we are complicit in harm; and the ways we can do and be better. I’m comforted by how many Third Actors have reached out on behalf of humanity. What a gift to generations to come. In the words of our very own advisor Rebecca Solnit, “Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.”

If you, like many others, feel daunted by the enormity of what’s happening, one place to start is by educating ourselves. Knowledge breeds empathy, it’s difficult to remain apathetic when we know one another. Knowledge, like action, is an antidote to despair. Below you’ll find a series of articles, books, and readings to help you be better informed on the state of the world. This knowledge will crack open your heart, but in the words of the great poet Rumi ‘The wound is where the light enters you.’

I said: what about my eyes?
He said: Keep them on the road.

I said: What about my passion?
He said: Keep it burning.

I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?

I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

–Rumi

Resources

• Information on Tigray conflict
• Information on Sudan Conflict
• Information on Armenia Conflict
• How the Israel-Hamas War Imperils Action Against Global Warming

Books

• Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
• The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
• King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
• Maus by Art Spiegelman
• On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice in Palestine by Jewish Voice for Peace
• Peace, Justice, and Jews: Reclaiming Our Tradition by Murray Polner and Stefan Merken
• Free book resources from Verso Book
• Free ebook resources from Haymarket Books

Films

• Ghost Hunting (2017) dir, Raed Andoni
• A World Not Ours (2012) dir, Mahdi Fleifel
• They Do Not Exist (1974) dir, Mustafa Abu Ali

The troubles aren’t over for many of America’s indigenous peoples. For instance, NPR featured a story this year in Minnesota where many more Native American children are put into foster care relative to being only a small percentage of the population. Social workers doing family welfare checks don’t understand the dynamics and culture of some native families as they’re different from the area’s white middle class. This is very traumatic for Natives who were constantly told growing up about the generations who were taken away to boarding schools. Those children were forced to speak English only and adopt the “civilized” ways of the dominant culture. Later generations were warned to prevent their children being taken away at all costs. Now current generations share in that pain and trauma.

The erasure of Native people has resulted in almost 100% of Native youth feeling invisible in their classrooms, a factor directly linked to the devastating rate in which we are losing Native youth to death by suicide. (Redbud Resource Group)

Recently I attended a workshop by this nonprofit, Redbud Resource Group (Redbud). Entitled “Going Beyond Land Acknowledgements,” these California natives recounted the history of some of their tribes. When gold was discovered in their lands there were attempts to totally exterminate them so as to have unfettered access to the riches of their land. Although they tried to hide in the caves of their hills, 90 percent of them were killed. Now a regional nonprofit is helping Native peoples to increase tribal visibility, sovereignty, economic outlook, and to find new ways to preserve and strengthen cultural ties.

Redbud showed an old photo of what their land looked like when managed by their ancestors, an interim picture filled with pine trees, and what the charred remains look like now having been swept by wildfires. Their ancestors had known to remove the pines which so easily caught fire in the dry California landscape.

Yet there’s bright spots too. Redbud shared a case study of a state park in the Sonoma Valley where the staff has developed a working relationship with the Wappo community. Now the park staff grants unlimited free passes to these original inhabitants, allows them to gather traditional plants on the land for their medicinal needs, includes Wappo language and perspectives in their educational materials, and incorporates their knowledge in sustainably maintaining the land. They plan to share the stewardship of the land with the Wappo people.

There are other examples of government entities sharing forestry fire fighting work with local natives, and philanthropic endeavors that are helping local tribes to buy back and sustainably preserve their lands and culture. However many more Natives have struggles of which we’re often unaware.

Despite living in Virginia for 30 years, I only recently connected with a regional nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing tribal cultural knowledge and advocating for fair and equal conditions for indigenous people. Eastern Woodlands Revitalization alerted me to one of their fights –  to maintain the purity of Virginia’s waterways upon which local tribes have depended for centuries. Apparently there is a plan to dump waste products into their river from a nearby water processing plant. Why have I never heard of this? Why aren’t more people involved with helping them in this fight to preserve the life blood of our world?

Although Natives are all around us, most are invisible to us. Few are in positions of power. Their stories, their needs, and their ability to help in our mutual goals of preserving Turtle Island are unknown to many.

As Third Actors, we advocate for racial justice and preserving the environment. We should go beyond land acknowledgements. It’s incumbent on us to seek out and find the Indians around us, to form relationships wherein we can work together on creating a just and sustainable future. We need to humbly ask them, “How can we help?”

Nevadans saw first-hand the power of Third Act in the last election—CNN highlighted your powerful work to knock on doors and rally voters to protect Sen. Cortez Masto’s Senate seat in northern Nevada. Third Actors were ambassadors at over 800 schools in the U.S. to set up voter registration drives for high school seniors, which reached 100,000+ new voters. You’ve sent over 46,000 postcards to voters to help raise turnout. This commitment to free and fair elections is crucial, and it’s inspiring. 

If you haven’t already done so, I hope you will donate to support Third Act’s No Time to Waste Campaign to build an even stronger movement going into 2024. To build communities and a society that we can believe in, it will require everyone’s participation. We’re counting on you!

This election week, and each week between now and November 2024, we need to defend every eligible American’s right to vote, remove barriers to voter participation, and make our elections as transparent as possible to maintain the public trust. Third Act can be an invaluable help. I’m glad to be on side with you all in the fight to protect our precious democracy.

Yours in service,
Cisco Aguilar
Nevada Secretary of State

After leading an organizing workshop, Third Act’s Field Director B Fulkerson switched hats and led a healing yoga session for the 60 attendees. Network Campaigns Lead Melanie Griffin moderated the camp experience, interspersing contemplative practices and rituals designed to help people integrate and accept their emotional responses to the climate crisis.

Before we left the campground, the festival producers invited us back to the main stage in 2024, and our group was already discussing how we might step it up and engage more people next year.

But if you wanted to get involved with Third Act Faith’s work, they are inviting people to their general meeting to help “Bridge the Divide”. On November 7th at 8pm ET, Third Actors will have a chance to hear from Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a world renowned atmospheric scientist who has been the lead author of three National Climate Assessments. Dr. Hayhoe is also a best-selling author and a popular speaker, known for her ability to reach across the political divide and make climate science easily accessible to everyone. RSVP below to attend

But here’s the rub. Costco partners with Citibank for its co-branded credit cards. And Citibank is the definition of uncaring and heedless. It’s one of the four biggest lenders on earth to the fossil fuel industry, and they hand out the cash indiscriminately. This funding is making it possible for big oil, gas, and coal companies to keep expanding dirty, polluting projects that are contributing to the climate disasters we’ve all experienced this summer: deadly wildfires, smoky, unhealthy air, floods, hurricanes, and extreme heat waves. Citi is the number one biggest US  funder of coal; it is the second-biggest lender for oil and gas development in the Amazon rainforest (a climate crisis two-fer), and it has forked over billions for building out the LNG (liquid natural gas) terminals we’re opposing together with local communities in the Gulf Coast. Citi has lent billions to Conoco Phillips, the developer of the vast new Willow oil complex in Alaska.

What does this mean for Costco? The analysts at a think tank called TOPO have estimated that Costco’s cash in banks is the retailing giant’s biggest source of operational carbon emissions: if the retailing giant considered its emissions associated with its banking providers as part of its operational carbon footprint they would represent more than a third of the carbon it produces from its own operations. Costco has done a credible job of starting to clean up its stores and trucks.  As the company says on its website:

“we understand that we impact the environment through operating our 850 locations worldwide — and we are committed to running these in an energy-efficient and environmentally responsible manner. These efforts support our mission to remain a low-cost operator, while serving our communities, promoting environmental stewardship and reducing our carbon footprint.”

We take Costco at face value; and indeed it’s only in the last two years that we’ve really begun to realize how much carbon pollution is produced by corporate cash in banks that they then use to finance dirty fossil fuel projects. (Here’s a piece I wrote for the New Yorker that lays out the problem in detail). We hope that now that we’re raising the issue, Costco’s execs will get on it. They’re a big enough client that they can probably sway Citi to change its policies and stop lending to companies still expanding their fossil fuel operations. If Costco can’t, they should find a bank that operates as responsibly in the world of finance as Costco does in the world of retailing.

I confess I feel this one a little personally. Costco is headquartered in Kirkland, Washington (hence the name of their store brands). It’s now a big and wealthy Seattle suburb, filled with Microsoft engineers. But once upon a time it was a small ship-building town connected to Seattle by a ferry. And in those days my grandfather was the only doctor in town; somewhere I have a picture of hundreds of locals wearing shirts saying “I Was a Dr. McKibben Baby.” My Dad grew up there during the Depression, playing for the local baseball team. So when I reach for a bottle of Kirkland olive oil, it always brings a little burst of nostalgia, which is a lot better than a little burst of carbon.

Bottom line: people like Costco, and with good reason. But Costco has a problem that can be fixed fairly easily: by persuading Citi to strengthen its climate commitments or else switching to a better credit card company that isn’t wrecking the planet. These other choices exist—Sam’s Club (a Costco competitor) uses Synchrony, which does not invest in fossil fuels.

We’re asking Costco—together—to fix this problem.

You can join Third Actors, Costco members, and climate-concerned people and sign the petition urging Costco to call on Citi to step up on climate or else Costco will drop Citi. You don’t need to be a Costco member or Citi Visa card holder to join the petition. And if you are a Costco member, you can use a different Visa card at Costco stores (and find better Visa cards here and here).

Costco’s motto is “do the right thing.” Let’s remind them to do the right thing and call on Costco to shop for a better credit card.

The Arctic Refuge is also vital to the land-based Indigenous Gwich’in people, who depend on the caribou for their subsistence and cultural survival.  The migratory Porcupine Caribou herd concentrate and give birth to their young each year in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain – right where the oil companies want to drill and develop.  

“With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in announcing the lease cancellations. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history. The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”

In addition to canceling the leases in the Arctic Refuge the Biden Administration proposed new regulations for the Western Arctic that would ensure maximum protection for the more than 13 million acres, while supporting subsistence activities for Alaska Native communities. These bold initiatives add to Biden’s actions to protect millions of acres of lands and waters in the Arctic, including withdrawing approximately 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea, ensuring the entire United States Arctic Ocean is off limits to new oil and gas leasing.

Biden’s move is politically bold as well as scientifically essential. His predecessor, Donald Trump, working with the Republican-controlled Congress during his first two years, added a provision requiring the leasing of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to their massive 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy legislation. The theory was that the falsely projected giant oil leasing revenues would help offset the cost of the tax breaks for billionaires. This never panned out. Gwich’in and environmental groups lobbied banks and oil companies not to fund or bid on Arctic Refuge leases when they were offered. This paid off because banks pledged not to fund the development and no major oil companies bid on the leases when they were offered. In the end only an Alaska state corporation took up the leases, while other existing leaseholders forfeited their leases realizing drilling in the Arctic was bad business. The state corporation is now rushing to challenge the lease cancellation in court.  

This epic struggle is far from over. Ultimately, we need Congress to designate the Arctic Refuge and other key parts of the Western Arctic as wilderness and permanently withdraw them from any future industrial development. But that will take a much more favorable Congress so this immediate administrative action is an essential interim reprieve. 

President Biden made pledges during his campaign to end new fossil fuel development on federal lands to address the climate crisis, but he has abandoned this pledge and disappointed climate justice advocates by approving some major new leases, most noticeable the Willow Project in the Arctic. Still, it must be noted that he has successfully championed more climate justice actions than any prior administration.  

Biden’s historic conservation and climate agenda, which already includes protecting more than 21 million acres of public lands and waters across the nation, and securing the Inflation Reduction Act, is the largest investment in climate action in history. This latest action to protect the Arctic adds to that legacy and demonstrates to the world that the United States is serious about setting an example and leading on addressing the climate crisis. 

Much more must be done, and, as the International Energy Agency notes, most of the existing dirty fossil fuel leases on public and private lands need to be left undeveloped to have any hope of keeping global temperatures from rising to intolerable and life threatening levels. We need all decision makers at all levels of government and private industry to finish the job by rapidly transitioning us to a clean energy economy, before it is too late.  Do it, for our families, for our future, and for all the special and fragile natural areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I’d gotten an email notice about the class a few weeks before, but because I hadn’t picked up a watercolor brush since I was a kid, many, many years ago, and even then displayed no skill, I didn’t plan to attend. The fire in Lāhainā changed my mind. I thought I’d join the class with my Zoom gallery screen off, and watch the others paint while I packed for a short trip traveling a few hours from my home in Saint Paul. 

When the class began, I changed my mind again and started my Zoom video screen, wanting to be part of this group, to make my face visible in the gallery, quietly. Fifty or so students, older and younger folks, many of them in Hawai`i, listened to the instructions, the teacher—or kumu in the Hawaiian language—telling us to make brush strokes starting with a dot, a circle, shade in the shapes, then draw some curved lines for petals.

After the class, I packed for the trip my husband and I would take the next day, driving to the small town of Grand Marais. Of course, the town isn’t as remote as Hawai`i, but it’s not an easy place to get to. A four-lane freeway stops two hours short of the harbor village. Canada is less than an hour up the shore. Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake, sometimes called an inland ocean, is on one side of town, and the Sawtooth mountains, remnants of long ago volcanic activity, on the other side. The flowers that grow in Grand Marais are rugged ones, dogbane, goldenrod, and the showy pink wildflower called fireweed that thrives in wildfire recovery areas. 

I travel with paper. I use it to note things down or for a morning’s writing practice. On my bookshelves at home I have a pile of abandoned, mostly empty, notebooks in which I may have written a few thoughts and then torn out those pages and saved them in files or thrown them out, the empty notebooks I then toss into the stack in one corner of a shelf. I packed one of those mostly blank notebooks to write in during this trip. 

As we started to settle into our short-term rental, while unpacking my suitcase, I pulled out the notebook, opened it, and noticed it had a few words written on the first couple pages. In the otherwise empty notebook, I’d written vocabulary my kumu had taught me. Puke Mo’omana’o —“book reflection” or “journal,”“Nani ku’u ola, “Beautiful My Life!” I had written. 

It’s been hard to think straight since the Lāhainā fire. The first morning of our vacation, as I put on my jacket for a walk across the town’s stony beach, and locked the door behind me, I thought, well, what if Grand Marais, in a flash, burned down? Could the emergency crews find me? Would the brave souls doing grim, essential, solemn work to identify bodies see the root canal or the dental implant in my jaw bones? These thoughts did go through my head, as I walked out the door. 

The August Lāhainā fire is now among the deadliest wildfires according to a list compiled by the National Fire Protection Association. On one day last June, the air quality where I live in Saint Paul, thick from Canadian wildfire smoke, was reported to be the worst in the United States.

There’ve been small fires in Grand Marais in recent years, four buildings burned down in two fires. Last spring, a casual eatery selling pizza, gyros, and frozen custard burned to the ground. Three years before that a more formal restaurant, and two gift stores on either side of it, burned. The pizza place has re-emerged this summer serving customers from a metal shipping container on a lot facing the main street’s sidewalk. The more formal restaurant now operates from a food truck on the land where its building had been. There are flower pots and picnic tables nearby. 

Another food truck, on the corner of the town’s only stop light, is run by a young woman who told me, when I stopped by there, that she used to live in Maui. I bought a cup of coffee from her along with a candle in a coconut shell she was selling, a sign near the food truck window said the business was giving 10 percent of its profits to the fire victims in Lahaina. 

I spend hours on most days walking back and forth from the cobblestone beach where I watch kids skip rocks, or take a walk to a book store, or to some place to grab a sandwich, or maybe I take a short hike in order to find a place to sit and write near the jagged rock formations at what’s known as Artist’s Point. 

A week after the Lāhainā fire, a whiff of smoke or a fragrance alive in my imagination, I decided to stop by the Ben Franklin store on the main street, strolling through the aisles displaying first aid kits, hiking boots, and souvenirs. In the middle of one aisle I found and bought what I was looking for—a watercolor kit, in it yellow, red, and blue paints nestled into a plastic tray along with tiny cups for water, pencils too, and a small pad of thick paper. I walked back to where we were staying. 

I want a heavier sweater and more coffee, I think, as I take a seat at the table by the window with a view of the lake. I pick up the brush from my kit, dip it in the water, and then the paint. I start with a dot on the paper, make a circle, shade it in, and then use my pencil to draw petals. Then I do that again, and again. Flowers for Lāhainā.

The most important election in the U. S. this year occurred on May 12 in Fort Valley, Georgia, where workers at the Blue Bird school bus company voted 697-435 in a National Labor Relations Board election to join the Steelworkers Union. (Badgers may disagree.)

At Third Act, we fight to save democracy and our planet; at the intersection of these two existential issues are workers and unions.  We can’t have democracy unless workers have their own organized voice to counter the organized voice of employers, and we can’t save this planet unless workers are involved in that struggle.

That’s why the union election in Fort Valley is so important.

We can be proud that Third Act  got the September 17  NYC Climate March coalition to include in its three demands that we must “provide a just transition to a sustainable clean energy economy that supports workers and community rights, job security, and employment equity.”

But using the words “just transition” isn’t enough. Creating millions of jobs in the new sustainable economy isn’t good enough. Even creating good jobs isn’t enough.  We have to make sure workers get the chance to make them good union jobs.

That’s what happened in Fort Valley.  Blue Bird, Peach county’s largest employer, didn’t engage in union busting, so workers actually had a fair election. Why?  Because Blue Bird gets tens of millions of dollars in federal funds from both the infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts to build electric school buses.  Those funds come with a requirement that the recipient “have committed to remain neutral in any organizing campaign ….”  In other words, no union busting.

If workers can actually organize and grow unions in the new economy, they will both help to save democracy and support the climate justice movement.

So, as Third Actors this Labor Day, let’s honor “labor” by continuing to make workers’ rights to organize central to our fight to save democracy and the planet.

Mary Ann Holtz of Florida brought the urgency home, quoting a previous newspaper article: 

“Of the 20 counties in the United States that will see the largest increase in the number of days when the heat index will reach or exceed 100 degrees, 18 are in Florida.” And ending with a plea: “In the Sunshine State we really can shift to renewable energy. Let’s insist on it!”

The effects of our climate action neglect were shown by Janet Kossing of Illinois, speaking to a need as basic as breathing: 

“…we’ve had the new experience of unbreathable air–in large part from wildfire smoke and the climate emergency upon us here and now. As a resident of Australia in 2019, I encountered even worse, including vacationing families driven into the ocean to escape the flames…”

This especially hits the hearts of Americans everywhere, who watched the Native Hawaiians in Lahaina, Kīhei and Upcountry Maui dive into the ocean to escape the flames.

In her letter, Kay Reibold spoke directly to the North Carolina Utilities Commission: 

“We need your advocacy, a vision for a clean energy future, and action, NOT rubber stamping of Duke Energy’s destructive proposals and facilitating regulatory permits that are promoting dirty industries in the state.”

Andy Hinz of Maryland pointedly asked if the Governor’s latest appointment to the Public Service Commission would push his fellow commissioners in a clean direction: 

“Will he allow them to waste money on hydrogen produced by burning fracked methane? Will he allow our broken Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS—the rules by which Maryland incentivizes the transition to clean energy) to remain broken by incentivizing dirty energies like burning trash, methane from factory farms, and wood harvested from our forests? Will he allow Exelon and others to keep expanding our obsolete fracked methane infrastructure rather than begin shutting it down now in a well-managed phase-out?”

And Pete Ness from Pennsylvania reminds us of one of the main reasons we are undertaking this PUC campaign: 

“…we as citizens must use another kind of “solar power” — shining sunlight on important agency decisions that can otherwise be obscure, mysterious and hidden behind closed doors.”

Indeed, Pete, the more folks who understand the power of the PUC’s, the more we will be able to influence their decision-making.

This Letter to the Editor Action is ongoing, alongside many other ways to get involved in PUC advocacy – especially through Third Act’s Working Groups.

My research work brought me to the United States in 1987 for postdoctoral studies at Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA). My entire career was in the field of water treatment, our most precious resource.

In 2013, I became a US citizen and voted for the first time in 2016. The results sickened me to my stomach. In the years that followed, I became more and more appalled by the Trump administration.  I struggled mightily with his daily attacks on our democracy and our environment; for example, the countless EPA deregulations and the exit from the Paris Agreement.

In 2019, I left Corporate America with the intention of giving back and making a difference. I volunteered for the Biden Presidential Campaign in Philadelphia which turned out to be decisive in Joe Biden’s win.

I looked at several nonprofit organizations sharing my values related to the environment and democracy. None of them felt “right” until I attended a Third Act All-In Call in late 2021. When the call ended, I ran downstairs with a huge smile on my face and told my wife “I found the right fit.”  

But I have to admit, it has been hard for me to talk to other older people about being trans/nonbinary. The language and terms are somewhat new and always evolving, which is daunting for us oldsters. I keep handy and share resources to help people understand the basics of trans/nonbinary identity and how to support your queer/trans/nonbinary loved ones.

As my friend and mentor George Goehl wrote recently, while we organizers must meet people where they’re at, we also need to remember that it’s a starting point, not an end. While we must never shame anyone for inadvertently saying the wrong thing or using incorrect pronouns, if my six-year-old grandson gets it, why can’t we Boomers?

And though I am far more comfortable expressing myself and embracing a nonbinary, queer identity today (thanks to the young ’uns), my gender journey is still very much in progress. Until just a few years ago, my thinking about gender and sexuality was centered on being gay and male.

In 1988, just after coming out, I mustered enough courage to go to my first Pride event. It took place in an obscure park along the Truckee River just a stone’s throw from where I’ve been living for more than 60 years.

When I say I mustered courage, let me set the scene for you: local officials and townspeople were getting news coverage for successfully chasing out the Reno Gay Rodeo. A county sheriff even threatened to arrest anyone attending the Gay Rodeo for “being a homosexual” and violating Nevada’s sodomy law. Wondering why they had to greenlight another gay pride event at all, the (democratic) mayor said, “the council and I have never condoned the gay pride festival or that lifestyle, but the law says there must be tolerance.”

Whether straight or gay, fitting into maleness was the dominant priority my whole life. Growing up camping, hunting, fishing, spending summers on our family’s working cattle ranch, drinking Coors from age 13––it came easy.

B with their brother and father. Smoke Creek Desert, 1982.

When I was seven, as my dad was leaving for his first ‘tour’ of Vietnam, he got down on one knee to look me straight in the eye. He said “Bobby, you’re the man of the house.” I had no idea what he meant and although we were close, we never had a conversation about it again.

Jake, Dad, Cathay, and B. Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, 1965.

I was ridiculed quite a bit in sixth grade as a “fem,” mostly for wearing my favorite embroidered flowery shirts; because I was so bad at sports (dyslexia); and because I sang in the Sierra Boys Choir. I joined Pop Warner football in 7th grade, and still hear the refrain, “Fulkerson, you pussy!” for not hitting hard enough.

B as an Eagle Scout (1976) & for Pop Warner Football (1972).

Later on, my mom got me some dumbbells and while I kicked ass as a Freshman offensive guard and defensive tackle, I remember being relieved when a knee injury took me out for the season and I could focus on theater instead.

I was also active in the Boy Scouts, where Lord Baden Powell’s legacy of masculinity-as-morality only grew stronger. Thanks to my parents and scout leaders who cared, I made it to Eagle in a relatively short time, hoping to be “the best little boy in the world,” (to steal a phrase from a book by Andrew Tobias of the same title.)Whether it was acting straight or “being a man,” my aim was to be the person others wanted me to be. To my everlasting shame, I learned to join in the laughter at the effeminate boys and the “ugly” girls. Much like later on, as a liberated gay man, I’d snicker when people used “they/them,” pronouns, asking if there were more than one and saying as that, as an English major, such pronouns made no grammatical sense. Turns out I was wrong about that, too.

At George Washington University, I joined a southern fraternity and became immensely popular as a whisky-drinking, Laxalt/Reagan loving “Nevahda Bob,” conforming with ease to rigid, straight, western manliness. When I shook hands with someone in the Capitol on my first week as an intern with Senator Paul Laxalt, I’ll never forget him complimenting my “working man’s hands.” I didn’t tell him my callouses were from working out, not working.

Staff of Senator Paul Laxalt, with Sen. Strom Thurman and Ronald Reagan, 1979. B is to the right in the back row by the Nevada flag.

I gave up trying to be straight and shot out of the closet after a long drive home from Idaho on October 11, 1987, coincidentally the same day as the March on Washington. It was either steer the truck into the Owyhee River canyon, or tell my friends and family the truth I’d been running from.

My friend and Third Act advisor Rebeca Solnit, whom our founder Bill McKibben calls “the greatest essayist writing today in the English language,” has written her whole career about her hope and change coming from the margins:

“One of the joys of being a tortoise is watching the slow journey of ideas from the margins to the center, seeing what is invisible, then deemed impossible, become widely accepted.”

Over the pandemic––nearly three decades since I’d first come out––I was forced to retreat inward to my own tortoise shell. I took long walks along our gorgeous Truckee River, reflecting daily on my own existential existence along with that of all of humanity. I realized I was living in someone else’s imagination, a stifling binary framework in which I only had two gender choices: be a man or be a woman.

I remembered the words of my Rockwood sister adrienne maree brown:  “I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s capability. I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free.”

I consumed all the media I could find about gender analysis, from Alok Vaid-Melon (nephew of my dear friend and mentor, the late Urvashi Vaid, my first teacher on queer organizing and intersectionality), and listening to new podcasts like Gender Reveal. I discovered Jewish trans icon Ezra Furman and devoured her lyrics and music, holding on to her life-saving wisdom that I can learn to trust myself so much that I am willing/able to assert independence from the entire unsatisfactory framework I’ve inherited.

I started seeing a gender coach and joined a trans support group. I slowly came out as trans/nonbinary to my coworkers, my family, and close friends.

As Third Actors, we come to this work with a life’s worth of experience; we see through the long lens of our personal and collective evolution.

The right is using trans issues as a central organizing theme to build power, divide America, and destroy democracy, by once again instilling fear that gays/trans are hurting our children just as Anita Bryant did on her Orange Juice crusade 50 years ago.

We’re living in a paradigm, not of our own making, that we bolster by our participation. Trans and nonbinary people have been gaslit into believing our experience is not real by the political debates over whether we deserve access to healthcare, bathrooms, sports teams, affirming queer education, or personal preferred pronouns, and we are losing our minds trying to combat the misinformation that puts our community in harm’s way. When we trust the prompts that come from our deepest selves, more than what is being fed by a machine whose sole purpose is to stay in power,  it becomes easier to see other truths: that we are all just human beings trying to laugh, love, and become ourselves whilst trying to mitigate the amount of pain, suffering, and heartache experienced on this burning world.

Whether that is because of late governmental intervention during the AIDS epidemic, rampant homophobia and transphobia, the lack of resources and protected spaces/communities for queer and trans people, or something else, many of us don’t make it to our third act. Today, 40% of all homeless youth are LGBTQIA+ and 45% of trans and nonbinary youth have considered suicide in the last year. So when we talk about pride, it is important to note that the first pride was a riot, not a parade, that birthed the Queer Liberation Movement.

Thanks to a growing community, some survive and question what we can do if we come together to create a safer world, despite what is going around us. We build new muscles of wonder, resistance and possibility. After all, those who automatically fit into society do not have to care whether it works for others or not. But it’d be so much easier if they did, and helped find ways to support a solution.

Yesterday on my ritual morning walk, I counted four pride flags, trans and nonbinary inclusive, in my Reno neighborhood––ok, one of them was ours, but still!

Thirty five years ago, the possibility of outward, visible, community love for queers was simply not in my field of imagination. I didn’t dare to dream that I’d ever meet and marry the man I loved, be with him for 16 years, and become gay grandparents together. And I’m also pretty sure nobody was thinking 30 years ago that in 2023, Nevada would be the first state in the US to protect both marriage equality and trans/nonbinary rights in our state constitution.

B and their partner Mike. Carson River, 2019.

At Third Act, our motto is No Time to Waste. As one of our precious members from Texas said, “we just want to go out right.” Working here for two years this August has given me entirely new perspectives on organizing and on life itself. We’re creating a new pond as our Lead Advisor, Akaya Windwood likes to say, “where the waters are healing”.

I hope you’ll jump in.

If we organize, we can change this world. We have to put this into action to protect our freedom and to save lives, a call to action in the face of the June 24 one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

For 50 years Roe protected the most intimate decision of a person’s life—when or whether or with whom we have a child.  

20 states have banned abortions completely or have such restrictive laws that it is inaccessible for most who need it, and to those who need it most.  

Yet, 59% of all people who have an abortion are mothers. They know exactly what it takes to raise a child.  

I started an underground abortion service in 1965, eight years before Roe became the law of the land. I started this as a good deed for a friend who was nearly suicidal and not prepared to have a child. Word spread and more people asked for the same kind of help. Bear in mind that at this time, three people merely discussing the provision of an abortion constituted a conspiracy to commit a felony. So, we named the service JANE. We would publicize it with notices saying, “Pregnant? don’t want to be? Call Jane.” I recruited others to be part of the service. Within a few years, the women in the service learned how to perform the procedures. By the time Roe became the law of the land, the women of JANE themselves had performed 11,000 abortions.

This transformative grassroots organizing experience remains foundational to my work across issues as an activist and political strategist.

Now is always the time to organize. Recruit others, spread the word, raise the funds, show up and drive our concern into the elections at all levels.

IF we organize, it is possible that we can win a national trifecta—a pro-reproductive freedom majority and advocates in the Presidency, the Senate and the House.

In the House there are 18 seats where Biden won and yet a MAGA supporting Republican now holds the seat—opposing reproductive freedom and action to address climate or freedom to vote and more. If we gain four more seats in the Congress we will have a pro-freedom majority. We can do this, if we organize.

Over 70% of the country supports Roe and believe that no politician should come between a woman and her physician on abortion. The same statistic is true for Americans who want to see action on climate change. These are powerful numbers and powerful issues, but we need to drive them into the elections.

Our rights have become partisan battlegrounds. There are more Democrats than there are Republicans in the country––we just need to ensure they register and vote. And we need to engage those who are part of the pro-reproductive freedom majority, but might have voted for a MAGA candidate. We need to both mobilize and persuade.

Yes, there are strong challenges. Nothing is guaranteed. Last year’s Supreme Court decision is evidence enough. But the way to win to expand our freedoms is to join with others, take action, and organize. That is what Third Act was set up to do. When we organize, we can change the world.

Heather Booth, Third Act Advisor, is one of the country’s leading strategists about progressive issue campaigns and driving issues in elections. She started organizing in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam war and women’s movements of the 1960s. Heather started JANE, an underground abortion service in 1965, before Roe. In 2000, she was the Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, helping increase African American election turnout. She helped found the Campaign for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2005. She directed Progressive and Seniors Outreach for the Biden/Harris campaign. Heather was the founding Director and is now President of the Midwest Academy, training social change leaders and organizers. There is a film about her life in organizing, “Heather Booth: Changing the World.”

An important but overlooked regulatory body exists that can address this problem: public utilities commissions, or PUCs. Each state has one—although some states’ go by other names, such as public service commissions. PUCs consist of anywhere from three to seven commissioners, whose terms typically last between four and six years. Most commissioners are appointed while some are elected.

PUCs play a critical role in utility regulation.

They have power to determine how much people pay for their energy bills, how much utilities invest in clean energy versus fossil fuels, where energy projects are sited, and how federal policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are implemented. 

Take the coal fleet in operation today. A recent study from Energy Innovation shows that 99% of U.S. coal plants are more expensive to run than if they were replaced by new solar, wind, or storage projects. In addition, building new gas plants is not only incompatible with our climate goals, but will also prove a costly mistake as these projects will need to be retired before the end of their useful life. Whenever PUCs continue to approve these increasingly uneconomic, climate unfriendly investments, they are slowing down the clean energy transition and costing consumers money.

Utilities are key to climate action.

Together, clean electricity and electrification of buildings, transportation, and parts of heavy industry can cut current carbon pollution by about 75 percent. Hence utilities, and by extension their regulators, are critical to making progress on climate change.

Very few people know about PUCs.  

Terms like PUCs or utility regulatory reform might induce yawns or blank stares. PUCs can seem obscure and boring, hidden from the public’s view. But this lack of salience and transparency is exactly what has enabled utilities to escape public scrutiny.

This has led to regulatory capture, where utilities influence their regulators and promote decisions in their self-interest at the expense of the public. Utilities have denied climate science and opposed distributed energy resources like rooftop solar. Bad actors in the sector have used ratepayer funds to bribe regulators and lobby for funding to bail out uneconomic coal and gas power plants. If there is one industry in the U.S. that should be held accountable through robust regulation, it is the monopoly electric utility industry.

Utilities have significant financial, political, and technological capital to move the needle on climate action. But insufficient regulation, combined with misaligned incentives, have made utilities barriers to an equitable clean energy transition. In fact, as Sierra Club’s The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges illustrates, the vast majority of utilities receive a failing or near-failing grade based on their plans to retire coal plants this decade, stop building new gas plants, and build clean energy at the necessary pace.

If you want to learn more about these issues, you can read or listen to the book Short Circuiting Policy, which gives a background on PUCs and explains how utilities have slowed down the clean energy transition. 

PUCs and utilities can do better.

Activists have long been the driving force behind improving clean energy policy, passing laws like Clean Energy Standards (CES) at the state level. Working together, we can ensure that PUCs center climate and equity, allowing them to be enablers rather than barriers to clean energy and electrification.

• Use existing statutory authority. Through Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) processes, PUCs can require utilities to retire coal plants, build more clean energy, and prevent the building of new gas plants. PUCs can also adjust rates to make electrification more affordable, pursue innovative regulatory models including performance-based regulation, and bar utilities from using ratepayer money for political activities. To help this happen, advocates can testify in support of clean energy and environmental justice during PUC proceedings, and provide people power and communications resources to state and local groups engaged on PUC issues.
• Appoint and elect climate and equity leaders. Advocates can push for climate and environmental justice champions to be appointed and elected to PUCs.
• Pass model legislation. State legislatures can pass laws that explicitly require PUCs to consider climate and environmental justice impacts in their regulation, mandate utilities align their integrated resource plans (IRPs) with climate and clean energy goals, and establish programs that pay advocates to participate in PUC proceedings through intervenor compensation. Advocates can help make these laws a reality.

There are countless examples and case studies of success stories to build upon. Colorado recently passed legislation that bars utilities from using ratepayer money for political lobbying. Illinois established a consumer intervenor compensation fund to provide advocates with financial resources to participate in the state’s regulatory proceedings. Connecticut has proposed a bill that would require utilities to fund intervenor compensation and regulate utility executive compensation. And earlier this year, Louisiana elected Davante Lewis, a clean energy and equity champion, as a member of its Public Service Commission.

We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us to rapidly accelerate an equitable clean energy transition through utility regulatory reform. Let’s seize it. 

Charles Hua (Twitter: @charleschurros, LinkedIn: charles-hua) is a Policy Analyst at Rewiring America and a recent Harvard College graduate who has been recognized by the White House as a U.S. Presidential Scholar and by the Aspen Institute as a Future Climate Leader.

Leah C. Stokes (Twitter: @leahstokes; Instagram: @leahcstokes) is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara, Senior Policy Counsel at Rewiring America, and Co-Host of the podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”

It’s work, of course, that we’re all engaged in, as we push for a stronger democracy (especially against racialized voter suppression) and a cooler planet (since climate change hurts the most vulnerable humans the hardest).

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Bill:

I follow the news around climate change constantly. And so not long ago I was leafing through the latest issue of Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension (a journal for kidney doctors), because cases of kidney disease are going up due to higher temperatures, increased sweating, and dehydration.

But here’s what struck me: They had some interesting data about the temperatures in American cities, and they connected it to something you might be familiar with called redlining. Back in the 1930s, the federal government drew lines around minority neighborhoods, essentially limiting further investments in those areas. 

These were places that just steadily deteriorated as a result of federal policy. Each neighborhood was graded from A to D. When you visit those neighborhoods that were given a D grade a century ago, you’ll notice a significant difference in temperature. Due to the lack of investment, there are fewer parks and trees, which has led to much higher temperatures in those areas. And when I say “way higher,” I mean, way higher.

In comparison, the neighborhoods that received an A grade in the 1930s now have an average temperature that is 8°F lower than the city’s overall mean temperature. On the other hand, the neighborhoods that received a D grade have an average temperature that is 4.8°F hotter.

So, we’re looking at a 12°F temperature difference in these neighborhoods because of the racist policies enacted by the federal government a century ago. But it’s not just history. In my recent book, I dove into the real estate market and how it shapes our economy. Did you know that the total value of real estate in the United States is a staggering $33 trillion? That’s more than the combined GDP of the US and China. It’s mind-boggling.

The connection between race, climate, housing, and economic justice is undeniable, and we need to address these systemic issues head-on.

Wayne actually has a picture of the house that I grew up in, located in the suburbs of Boston. My parents bought it in 1970 for $30,000, which in today’s money is about $200,000. It was as simple and standard a suburban tract home as it was possible to imagine. 

The house that Bill grew up in, Lexington, MA.

That $200,000 investment in 1970, by the time that it was last sold––exactly the same house––over 50 years ago, skyrocketed to a value of $1.2 million in today’s currency. So that staggering $1 million gain came from nothing other than being on the escalator at the beginning. Right place, right time.

And of course, there were lots of people who couldn’t be on the escalator as it began to dramatically rise to the top, either because there were places where segregation kept them from, or in places like the suburbs of Boston, because people lacked the means to participate. People of color. Why? Well, because of things like that red lining all those decades before or the fact that when the federal government adopted Social Security in the 1930s, it exempted domestic workers and farmers: the two largest categories of Black workers at that time.

So people didn’t have retirement income the way that my parents and grandparents did from social security. That’s why the racial wealth gap in our country has continued to widen over these years. So it’s really important that we talk about equal protection under the law.

But it’s equally crucial to seriously address our history and how we got to where we are today and how to begin making amends One small piece of good news is that in this town where I grew up, Lexington, earlier this year became the first of the Boston suburbs to announce that it was rezoning in order to allow fairly substantial multi family homes for the first time. 

But if you think that battle’s won, then you’re wrong. Most of the suburbs in Boston haven’t taken such steps yet. Just last week, in the New York State budget discussions in Albany, a bill was defeated because suburban homeowners in Westchester and Long Island opposed the idea of multi-family housing.

They put up too much political heat and the legislators in Albany couldn’t stand up to it. This fight is ongoing, and it’s why it’s such a pleasure now to turn things over to Wayne, who understands this history in deep powerful detail. And he’s gonna tell us a couple of stories that are incredibly fascinating and important. Over to you brother!

Wayne:

Hey Bill, thanks for kicking us off. Your latest book did a bang up job describing institutional racism. I think that’s a question people have like, well, what is institutional racism? And you brought it right down to housing. 

And I’m so glad that you did, because housing is everything. I’m super pleased you brought up the fact that the formerly redlined areas in cities tend to be much hotter. I only came across that information about six years ago when I read an article in High Country News.  

It’s astonishing how, in this country, when you dig deeper into any issue that seems to go against the best interests of the nation, you often find race. Who would have thought that peeling back the layers and asking, “Why are these places so damn hot?” you would find redlining?

Ferguson, MO

I chose to start with Ferguson because we’re all familiar with it, and it conjures up a particular image in our minds. Several years ago, I had this idea to go on a winter adventure, so I hopped into my pickup truck and drove all the way to Vermont to go ice climbing. It was a lot of driving for not much ice climbing, but during my journey, I made a stop in Ferguson. It was late at night, and in hindsight, asking a cop for directions might not have been the best decision. 

But the next day, there I was, standing in the very spot where Michael Brown was shot. I had always pictured a typical inner city, but in daylight I saw that it was quite attractive. It really took me by surprise. Ferguson, what we all think of as a Black city, is really a suburb. And not very long ago––into the sixties––it was a sundown town. 

Sign from a “Sundown Town” that reads: “Whites only within city limits after dark”

Sundown towns had signs on the edge or actual barriers across the street, oftentimes way cruder than this one, and Blacks could come into town and spend their money, and if you weren’t out by sundown, you didn’t want to pay the consequences.

Lamar Williams, one of Ferguson’s first Black residents.

But they were pretty clear in Ferguson that they didn’t want anybody other than white people. And how that changed is the story of the turmoil that has shaped Ferguson today.

So these housing projects were in Saint Louis. They typically would go into an integrated community, bulldoze it, and  put up these buildings. Interestingly, they were intended for both Black and white residents, with separate buildings made for each group. You can tell the Black side from the white side, because there’s open and green spaces on the white side. 

Housing projects in Saint Louis, MO. You can tell the Black from the white buildings because of the open, green spaces on the white site.

The United States government began building housing projects at exactly the same time as suburbs developed. And so today’s conversation is largely to help us grasp that the segregation of towns and white flight was not solely a result of individual prejudice and bigotry, but rather a systematic creation fueled by conditions and laws at the state, local, and federal levels.

Now let’s look at Grosse Pointe. I’m gonna guess that white people live in this house. Not only do they have large lots and homes due to zoning, but they also employ another strategy on the outskirts of town, specifically in Black communities.

Grosse Pointe, MI

This is a Black Detroit town situated near heavy industries, a sight typically absent in white areas. These industries effectively serve as boundaries for Black neighborhoods, making them less desirable places to live and causing home values to diminish.

Outside of Detroit, MI

Moving on to Interstate 880 in Oakland, CA, not far from there is 580. 880 runs through West Oakland, permitting a significant volume of diesel truck traffic, with around one and a half million trucks passing through every year.

Interstate 880 in Oakland, CA. One and a half million diesel trucks pass through every year.

Just a few miles away, in the town of San Leandro, which is 99% white. And guess what they prohibit in San Leandro? These massive diesel trucks.

This stark contrast serves to increase the value and desirability of the white area while devaluing and making the Black area less desirable. As intentional laws and zoning take their toll on these Black communities, we also witness the departure of businesses that contribute to the local economy and provide employment opportunities. In their place, less desirable businesses are given the green light to establish themselves.

I’m going to propose that when you’re left only with liquor stores, it’s not so conducive to a well functioning community. Pawn shops and payday loan businesses also make their presence known. The average annual interest rate at a pawn shop is 200%, while payday loans come with an average interest rate of 400%, where borrowers commit their next paycheck to pay off the loan. Clearly, this is not beneficial for residents facing financial hardship. These types of businesses are not found in places like Grosse Pointe.

Another thing is the 1956 Federal Highway Act, which was the largest Public Works Act in history. Originally, it was intended to provide easy access for white suburban homeowners to travel into the city for shopping, work, and conducting business. It was proposed to link 42 state capitals in 90% of all cities with populations of  50,000 or more. It’s hard to imagine a country without interstates today, but prior to 1956, there were no such highways.

Interstate highways were deliberately constructed through Black neighborhoods

These interstate highways were deliberately constructed through Black neighborhoods, creating massive concrete barriers that physically separated the white side of town from the Black side. This intentional division made it difficult, if not impossible, for residents to travel between the two areas. As a result, the Black side of town became less desirable and its property values declined.

Let’s talk about this guy, Robert Moses, the infrastructure czar of New York City and the director of the New York City Slum Clearance Committee. Those two positions are contradictory. He gained a great deal of prestige and power all across the city, and he was very clear in his directives: “ram those highways right through the cities, do not go around.” 

Robert Moses, infrastructure czar of New York City and the director of the New York City Slum Clearance Committee

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), informally referred to this program as “getting rid of the local *** town.” Alfred Johnson, pictured here, lobbied to get rid of the Black sections of cities.

Alfred Johnson lobbied to get rid of the Black sections of cities

Over a million Black Americans were displaced, given a 30-day notice to leave as bulldozers arrived. There was no help whatsoever to get them into new housing. What happened is those million black Americans just crowded into existing Black neighborhoods, exacerbating overcrowding and making them even less desirable places to live.

When I was learning about redlining, I used to think that the FHA was a bunch of racist bankers, but after World War II, they launched a major initiative to build the middle class. They financed housing subdivisions across the country, offering programs that brought housing prices down to around double the average annual salary.

For instance, these houses in New York back in the 1950s were sold for $8,000, while the average American salary was $4,000. It’s a dream for many of us to be able to afford a house for twice our annual income, but finding such opportunities is nearly impossible nowadays.

Levittown, NY in the 1950s

The FHA became the mortgage lender and insurer in the 1950s. Subdivisions like Levittowns, named after William Levitt, were constructed all over the country. However, the FHA explicitly stated that these homes were exclusively for “Caucasians.” These white-only suburbs were tools for generating wealth available only to white individuals.

For instance, this home in a 1950s Levittown was priced at $8,000. Fast forward to the 2000s, and these homes in the same area now cost around $400,000. They look a little better. White people ought to be chagrined when the Supreme Court ends affirmative action here in a couple of weeks.

A former 1950s Levittown in the 2000s

Not only were Black people unable to live in these areas due to mortgage restrictions, but the FHA also required restrictive covenants. One covenant explicitly stated that the property could never be sold, leased, or mortgaged to anyone of the Negro race or anyone married to a person of the Negro race. Such agreements were mandated by the federal government and included as part of the closing documents.

Documentation of an historic FHA covenant

Another document that reads: No property in said Addition [a house] shall at any time be sold, conveyed, rented or leased in whole or in part to any person or persons not of the White or Caucasian race. No person other than one of the White or Caucasian race shall be permitted to occupy any property in said Addition or portion thereof or building thereon except a domestic servant actually employed by a person of the White or Caucasian race where the latter is an occupant of such property.

We ended up with segregated neighborhoods not only because white people desired it, but also because our government actively created these conditions. The map illustrates a typical red line, with red indicating areas where mortgages were unavailable, while green represented areas deemed suitable for loans.

Redlined map

Bill: 

This was not like just some casual thing that someone sat down and did one day. This was all across America at a really granular level of detail, block by block, figuring out what the good parts were that we wanted to support and the bad parts that we wanted to degrade. 

When people talk about systemic racism, this was about as systemic as it was possible to get. And remember they were doing this in the days before you had GPS and computers; the amount of effort involved in doing this was astonishing.

Wayne:

The FHA justified their actions by claiming that Black neighborhoods were poorly maintained, suggesting that the presence of Black people would devalue the area. Richard Nixon even coined a term for it, benign neglect. A ghetto isn’t necessarily a slum, right? They ghettoized Black people by herding them into specific areas, and then they intentionally turned off services. So, garbage collection, pothole repair, emergency services, and so on were nonexistent or slow. Streetlights went to pot.

In 1970, Lyndon Johnson formed a committee to figure out why Black people were so damn pissed off. And this fellow Adele Allen, who had moved into a white town adjacent to Ferguson, testified:

I don’t know if the police were protecting me, protecting someone from me; we have patrols on the hour. Our streets were swept neatly monthly. Our trash pickups were regular and handled with dignity. The street lighting was always up to par. 

But now that Kirkwood is Black, we have the most inadequate lighting in the city. People from other sections of town leave their cars parked on our streets when they want to abandon them. What they are making is a ghetto in the process.

So the federal government looked at the factors victimizing residents of these towns, but instead of addressing the underlying issues, they used them as an excuse to prohibit mortgages in these neighborhoods. 

Furthermore, national, state, and local realtor organizations would revoke a realtor’s license for selling a home in a white area to a Black family.  I would call that institutionalized racism.

Additionally, in those days, many well-paying jobs were unionized. However, unions actively barred Black individuals from joining their ranks, and the federal government sanctioned these unions to speak for workers.

Unions previously barred Black individuals from joining their ranks

Now we’re in Portland, Oregon. This is called the Albina district of Portland. It was white, then it went Black, and the government stopped investing in it. It reached a point where you could buy a home for the same price as a used car.

Albina, OR impacted by divestiture

This is Albina today, after it was gentrified.

Albina, OR after gentrification

The cycle of decline is evident: Inner city services are gradually withdrawn, resulting in a decline in the neighborhood’s quality. The residents are blamed for the deterioration, leading to banks and investors pulling out and divesting from the community. This further exacerbates the downward spiral: established businesses leave and others of lesser quality take their place. As a consequence, crime rates tend to rise, home values plummet and property taxes suffer.

And when property taxes suffer, schools suffer. So now all of this leads to poorer quality schools and educational opportunities. People don’t have the credentials and the knowledge to get into college, so their job prospects suffer.

They stay at lower economic levels, returning to the same neighborhood they were trying to escape, and then it’s wash, rinse, and repeat.

And here we are, back at the beginning of our conversation. That’s why housing is so important

Some actions that came out of our group discussion:

• Attend local planning meetings to promote fair and affordable housing.
• Speak up and call out racism when it is recognized.
• Punch back hard against politicians who use race as a campaign platform.
• Promote low-income housing instead of affordable housing for middle-class individuals.
• Consider ways to enable home ownership for lower income families to promote wealth transfer.
• Connect issues of race and classism to build more powerful and intersectional movements.
• Support ongoing efforts to allow multifamily housing for affordable housing options.
• Participate in the Power Up Communities campaign to address racial and environmental justice in local energy commissions.
• Continue to deepen the conversation and build personal and organizing skills to mobilize collective action.

Broadly, PUCs have significant authority to dictate standards, enforce rules, and establish new policies that jumpstart – or impede – clean energy, climate, and environmental justice priorities at a state level. PUCs touch nearly every key issue:

• Statewide Energy Plans and Targets

• Clean Energy 

• • incl. rooftop solar rules and minimum renewable standards

• Consumer Energy Pricing and Protection for low-income ratepayers

• Environmental Justice Policies 

• • incl. power plant and infrastructure siting, health and racial justice 

• Permitting for new power plants and infrastructure 

• • incl. transmission line and storage improvements and modernization – critical for renewable energy

• Oversight of existing power plants and infrastructure 

• • incl. nuclear safety, fracking regulations, and more

• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Standards
• Transparency, data access, and public participation in decision-making

Utilities

A small number of private investor-owned utilities (IOUs) serve electricity to about 72% of all US customers and directly account for about a third of total U.S. electricity generation and nearly 25% of all US greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Other utilities are either publicly-owned / municipal (“munis”), or cooperatives (coops). Beyond electricity, utilities supplying gas and other resources must also play a key role in creating a livable future.

Altogether, 200+ PUC commissioners are ruling on our country’s energy future. With clean and renewable electricity production on the rise, their role is expanding.

How Are PUCs Structured?

PUCs exist in every US state and territory, under varying names: state corporation commission, department of public utilities, etc. They are established under the state’s constitution or other legislation, and have (usually) three, five, or seven members, who may be elected (11 states) or appointed by the governor (the other 39 states).

Start here to learn more about your state’s PUC.

Some PUCs operate in good faith, but all too often, there is a revolving door between PUC commissioners and the industries they regulate. In many states, commissioners simply rubber-stamp utility wishlists with limited scrutiny, from behind a wall of secrecy and obscurity, with little meaningful input from environmental experts or the public.

PUCs have (usually quite small and overburdened) staff which must work across diverse areas requiring significant expertise, and are generally significantly outnumbered by the vast resources available to big-business IOUs. There may also be staff whose mandate is to protect the interests of the public.

Find out if an organization in your state represents the public interest.

How Do PUCs Operate?

• PUCs are quasi-judicial organizations, with meetings resembling courthouse proceedings.
• Cases before them are assigned docket numbers. Each docket specifies how various entities can influence the outcome, ranging from individual customers to “intervenors” – trade groups, environmental organizations, companies, social justice coalitions, etc. 
• The PUC may have an intervenor (or “expert witness”) hearing, where utility staff, intervenors, government staff and commissioners may cross examine each other.
• For the general public, the PUC might schedule public hearings, either in-person, virtually, or both, and will have avenues to submit comments in writing.
• Some cases are for long-range planning, referred to as Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs). States with a climate mandate may require a separate docket for the PUC to help shape the Climate or Carbon Plan.

Want to learn more? Check out this brief overview:

Canary Media, What are public utility commissions? A beginner’s guide

And for an even deeper dive, here are Third Act’s favorite links, videos and long-form articles to help you become a PUC Expert:

1. John Oliver: Last Week Tonight: Utilities 
2. David Pomerantz, Utility Dive: Getting Politics Out of Utility Bills
3. Leah Stokes @ Bioneers: The Future Is Electric
4. Chisholm Legacy Project: Who Holds the Power report
5. Wired: Everyone Wants to Build Green Energy Projects. What’s the Holdup? 
6. Rocky Mountain Institute: The Untapped Potential of Public Utility Commissions (3 part series)
   • Purpose: Aligning PUC Mandates with Clean Energy Goals
   • The People Element: Positioning PUCs for 21st-Century Success
   • Regulatory Process Design for Decarbonization, Equity, and Innovation
7. LATimes: The revolving door at public utilities commissions? It’s alive and well

About the Author:

Cathy Buckley (she/her)

Cathy is a consultant for Third Act (cathy@thirdact.org), working with Jeremy Friedman on Power Up Communities. As staff for the NC Alliance to Protect Our People and the Places We Live (APPPL), Cathy concentrates on clean energy and environmental justice matters at the NC Utilities Commission and in eastern NC.A Climate Reality Leader since 2013, she founded the Raleigh chapter in 2020. Cathy received a Bachelor and a Master of Science from MIT.

Corporations have become adept at closing doors and covering their metaphorical ears. Wells Fargo and Bank of America locked out ThirdAct supporters and customers on the 3.21.23 Day of Action rather than accept their letters objecting to fossil fuel financing.

After decades of stalling, gaslighting, and locked doors, we’re taking a different tack: empowering a growing movement of people using their shareholder rights to vote to require companies to change via shareholder resolutions on corporate policies.

Shareholders are legally entitled to a vote, and a voice. And what can be an unwelcome intrusion for management has proven to be a growing solution for activists. In the last few years, we’ve seen unprecedented activism in the form of environmental, social and governance proposals, and the reshuffling of board members. If you own the company, it’s harder to lock you out.

So far in 2023, 542 shareholder resolutions have been filed; 217 related to climate; 93 on corporate political influence; 23 related to reproductive health; 38 on diversity programs, and six about racism in the workplace. There are 42 anti-ESG proposals.

But it’s not as simple as putting a good idea on the ballot. Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America invested $119 billion in fossil fuels just last year alone. Shareholders tried to put a stop to this. On April 25, 2023 shareholders voted on several proposals that would have required Citibank to phaseout lending for new fossil fuel projects. Even with the existential anxiety we all feel with one more catastrophic weather event, a preliminary count of the votes shows that only about 10% of Citi investors supported the proposal. Resolutions at Wells Fargo and Bank of America for a “climate transition plan” for how to reach “net zero emissions by 2050” earned 31% and 28.5%, respectively, against the boards’ recommendations (significant shareholder dissent is generally regarded as at least 20% of shares voted against bank management recommendation); however, the stronger climate resolution at Bank of America calling for a phaseout of fossil fuel expansion projects earned only 7% of shareholder support.

The problem is most individual shareholders don’t vote.

The Shareholder Proxy Voting System is Broken

Problematically, 88% of individual investors don’t vote their shares. Until now corporations have relied on what they’ve called “investor apathy” to explain away a system in which management and institutions wield a disproportionate amount of power. But apathy isn’t the problem; it’s a voting system that is too difficult for most people to participate in.

If you own shares of publicly-traded companies, you may have received shareholder election notices in the mail. You’ve been asked to vote on directors without knowing whether they are going to rubber stamp management’s strategies or advocate for policies more in line with your values. You’ve been given yes/no options on shareholder proposals with minimal explanation and zero context. If you own a diversified portfolio, as most people do, the volume of shareholder information is overwhelming. Although it’s possible to spend the hundreds of hours doing the research and voting proxies, understandably most people don’t do it.

Financial advisors typically assume authority to vote their clients’ shares. But the vast majority of advisors either send these ballots to a proxy advisor such as Institutional Shareholder Services, or simply don’t vote them. Proxy advisors routinely vote against environmental, social, and governance issues. This is happening in the dark, unbeknownst to most investors. The end result is that if you have a financial advisor and are not receiving your shareholder ballots, those shares are likely being voted against your values.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Investors: Vote Your Values in Minutes

That’s why Third Act is partnering with iconik, the technology company that built the first personalized, automated proxy voting platform available to investors of all sizes across all brokerage firms. We’ve transformed the shareholder voting process for the convenience of the investor —what once took hours now happens in minutes—as featured in the Business Insider, MarketWatch, Morningstar, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and elsewhere. 

This approach is a little different than other campaign-oriented approaches. The Third Act voting profile is like an umbrella covering every company you own, helping to ensure that your shareholder voting rights are exercised in a manner consistent with your goals, values, and preferences.

You don’t need to be a digital native to use iconik’s secure platform. It’s simple, and it starts with what matters most to you – your values. If you sign up for iconik through ThirdAct, the service is free, and automatically votes your shares to match Third Act’s voting profile.

Third Act’s voting profile supports key initiatives:

• Climate Finance
• Indigenous Rights
• Primary Forests
• Oil and Gas
• Political Activity

How to Participate: Method 1

If you receive shareholder ballots by email, you can have them automatically voted to match the Third Act voting profile by forwarding them to:

proxies+thirdact@iconikapp.com

Using this method, you do not need to first create an iconik account. However, if you would like to be able to add or adjust voting rules, view impact reporting, and exercise more control over your profile, consider Method 2 below.

How to Participate: Method 2

Creating an iconik account allows you to automatically vote your shares to match the Third Act voting profile while giving you full control over the process. It’s free, only takes a few minutes to set up, and we have videos, like the one below, to guide you through the process. The platform is built to be open and transparent, allowing you to adjust automatically-generated votes, if desired. As election results are recorded, iconik will generate a personal impact report, so that you can monitor your impact on the issues that matter to you.

To get started, visit Third Act’s page on iconik:

https://iconikapp.com/third-act

If you’d like to further personalize your voting profile, and delve into other issues—such as animal rights, diversity and equity, executive pay, and many others—you can set up a personalized iconik account for $5.00 a month.

Shareholders Can Make Real Impacts

This is a moment to be a part of real change. It’s not just one more Tweet, but a way to harness our collective power as shareholders to create the future we desire. Third Act is helping to lead the way, forging an alternative capitalism that prioritizes people and the planet over a strict focus on profits. If you own even a single stock, you can join! It’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s empowering.

If you own even a single stock, you can join! Get started on voting your shareholder values today.

About the author:

Alex D. Thaler, Co-Founder & CEO of iconik.

Alex is a startup founder, software engineer, and former corporate attorney. Prior to founding iconik, Alex served as Head of Security, Privacy, and Compliance at AnyRoad, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup redefining data-driven insights in the experience economy. Alex received a BA from UC Berkeley and a JD from University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has been named as one of Inicio Ventures’ rising Latinx founders to watch.

We handed out flyers encouraging people to move their money from Wells Fargo. My wife, Sandra, said to me, “Jim, this seems a little hypocritical since we still have our money in Wells Fargo.”

Okay, right. We had to move our money! We discovered that others shared our desire and, like us, just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. We started a “cohort” program of people who wanted to act together to move their money from climate-bad banks.

We developed a weekly Move-Your-Money Zoom session that provided people with the information they needed to get a new credit card and/or checking account. We found that it became an immediate community in which we all enjoyed doing something together that wasn’t so much fun alone. [In 2023, we have re-launched this cohort series, sign-up here.]

The cohort provided support to each of us, and people made commitments, such as, “by next week I will have done _______.” These public commitments made it much more likely that we followed through on them.

Of course, this came back to bite me. One morning I was working to figure out how to get into my checking account so I could change my paycheck direct-deposit away from Wells Fargo. I was confronted with two security questions: 1) Where did you meet your spouse? 2) Who was your favorite teacher? I confidently typed 1) St. Paul, MN and 2) Polly Ames.

I was told that I could not access my account because those were incorrect answers!

This is the point at which I normally would have said, “I don’t have time for this now. I’ll come back to it later.” And likely would not have returned to it. But I kept at it for 45 more minutes until I got it squared away.

Why did I keep at it? Because our cohort was meeting at noon and I had told people last week that I would have this done by today. Everyone cheered my persistence, which felt great!

We developed tools to help make the change: an assessment of services desired from a new bank; a sheet with links to find climate-friendly credit unions and banks; a tracking sheet of actions; sample letters to the CEOs of the four worst climate-bad banks (Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America), and to the local branch manager.

But perhaps the most valuable thing we offered was a supportive group of people to do this with.

Our personal results were great. We began using a checking account at the Stanford Federal Credit Union (SFCU), which we had access to from my time as a Stanford business student, and which we had previously ignored. We also took out checking and money market accounts at Self Help Federal Credit Union, which we liked because it is so invested in empowering marginalized communities. We now have our regular checking and savings with Self Help and we keep the funds we intend to donate in our Stanford account. We also do our banking for THIS! Is What We Did with SFCU and again, have had good results. We’ve had no problems with ATM access since many credit unions have connected ATMs and we had one right outside the grocery store where we usually shop.

We had our Visa credit card with Chase for 40 or more years. Fortunately, Stanford Federal Credit union also had a Visa credit card, which we got. We switched from getting frequent flier miles to getting cash-back because we don’t intend to fly much any more, since air travel is such a large contributor to climate change. We also don’t intend to make any big purchases (like a home mortgage) in the near future, so we weren‘t concerned if our credit rating took a temporary hit. Nonetheless, our credit rating remained very high.

We’ve had good service and no glitches from our new accounts or new credit card. And we feel so much “cleaner,” in a profound sense, to not be supporting the banks that finance the fossil fuel industry that is destroying humanity’s future on this planet.

The mission of THIS! Is What We Did is to help grow an intergenerational movement strong enough to break the power of the fossil fuel industry and stimulate the effective, drastic action needed to spur climate justice and give future generations a chance for a decent life through:

1. a powerful educational experience
2. a welcoming community
3. easy-access on-ramps to effective action

We found that supposedly easy access actions (like moving your money) can involve multiple steps, and how great it was to do them with a supportive community.

I remember the feeling of satisfaction Sandra and I got from taking this action. It felt so great (and still does)! One person who moved her money posted a photo of herself cutting up her bank card with the caption, “I feel so much integrity after moving my money.” It feels good to align our money with our values!

Last spring, Bill McKibben and THIRD ACT asked people to wait to drop their climate-bad banks until we could do it together to have maximal impact. So, now is the time – as we lead-up to the 3.21.23 National Day of Action to Stop Dirty Banks – to get out of climate-bad banks all together. This is the most effective way we can have collective impact, but for many people, the transition from old to new accounts takes time, energy and support. Third Act and THIS! have many resources to help you find better banks and credit cards (see below).

THIS! is here to help you prepare for the big moment where you’ll get to cut up those credit and debit cards. We stand ready to provide a step-by-step process to support people looking to move their money. Feel free to get in touch and sign-up for a cohort. Third Act and THIS! look forward to sharing many more happy “bank switching” stories…..

A quick note: The volunteers and staff at THIS! and Third Act are not financial advisors and we are legally prohibited from giving financial advice. All resources and discussions are for educational purposes only; all financial decisions are your own. You also will not be asked to share your financial situation with others in the cohort.

About the author:

Jim Thompson (he, him) (Jim “AT” ThisIsWhatWeDid.org )

Jim is the founder of THIS! Is What We Did. 

THIS! helps people move their money from climate-bad banks (especially Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo & Bank of America) financing the destruction of the planet’s ability to support humanity. THIS! provides training in Effective Climate Conversations and supports people who are committed to helping grow a large and diverse movement. 

Jim founded Positive Coaching Alliance, a national movement to transform youth sports. He co-founded Recovery Café San José, a healing community for individuals traumatized by homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse. He has written nine books including Positive Coaching and Elevating Your Game.   

Jim received an MBA from Stanford where he was Director of the Public Management Program, named as the nation’s top non-profit business management program. 

Jim is an Ashoka Fellow. He has taught coaching, leadership, and sport & spiritually in Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program and teaches an online spiritual poetry class.

Move Your Money

Responsible Finance Webinar #2: Better Banks & Credit Cards

Banking on our Future Pledge

How to Switch to Better Banks & Credit Cards: FAQs

When it comes to moving your accounts to a better bank, the first question is often “What is a better banking option?” Fortunately, there’s a range of great banks and credit unions to choose from, so you can find one that works for you in terms of both services and values.

Momentum for better banking is building nationally and around the world. One of many resources for finding banks with a commitment to economic, social and environmental sustainability is the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. The Alliance aims to transform banking so that it plays positive roles, especially with respect to the climate crisis.

 At Green America, we promote diverse financial institutions in our banking map so you can find a bank or credit near you – or consider mobile banking wherever you are!  The Green America banking map includes financial institutions with solid social and environmental practices that pass our certification program, which includes avoidance of financing of the fossil fuel industry, clear investment policies, responsible subprime lending policies, and more. 

When thinking about switching, a good place to start is by considering a bank or credit union with a genuine, proven commitment to community development. There is actually a federal certification program, through the Treasury Department, for financial institutions that support economic development in low income and marginalized regions. These are called “community development financial institutions” (CDFIs). The Green America banking map includes all of these federally certified banks and credit unions across the country. Your deposits can make a real difference in economically struggling communities, urban and rural.

Because of complex discriminatory policies that exist within local governance, banking systems, and the finance industry (i.e. redlining, gendered access to wealth, and the criminalization  of queerness),we do not see the reflection of our country’s diverse demographics in this sector that is overwhelmingly cis-gendered, hetronormative, and white man-led. To help change this, consider choosing a “Minority Depository Institution” (MDI). MDIs meet a federal government definition and provide an opportunity to help build broad-based economic opportunity and prosperity. Whatever choice you make – always be certain that your new bank is FDIC-insured or that your new credit union is NCUA-insured.

The Green America map also includes all the members of Inclusiv, a national association of credit unions whose members are also dedicated to providing opportunity for people with low-to-moderate income nationally. Community development credit unions are nonprofit, cooperatively owned, and federally regulated. Banks with a strong commitment to community development can also be found through the Community Development Bankers Association.

To power to change this, consider choosing a “Minority Depository Institution” (MDI). MDIs meet a federal government definition and provide an opportunity to help build broad-based economic opportunity and prosperity.Whatever choice you make – always be certain that your new bank is FDIC-insured or that your new credit union is NCUA-insured.

Building sustainable banking options that are least extractive to local communities is very important and only the first leg of the bank switching effort marathon. It is vitally important to understand the many barriers connected to bank switching, whether they be operational or mental, that continue to make moving your money a heavy lift for the everyday individual. It is also important to know how this process can be a tremendous support for the movement towards building more sustainable communities and generational equity.

We know that taking on the task to shift your money is one that may take time. As you proceed through your bank switching process, Bank for Good offers public access to guides, articles, and resources designed to guide people towards understanding green finance initiatives, with the option to sign up and join a community of people interested in additional resources, support and reminders.

The Bank for Good website offers visitors a myriad of resources that help unpack the importance of banking with institutions that do not invest in fossil fuels or support initiatives that are harmful to building sustainable communities, such as funding private prisons.

Using this wealth of research, Bank for Good created a Better Banks tool that allows you, the user, to select the types of offerings you need from a bank. The tool then sifts through the Bank for Good database to find banks and credit unions that fit your needs and do not harm the environment or our communities. As Bank for Good continues to expand the number of institutions listed, people will be given more values and actions aligned options of where to house their money.

For more information, check out the 10 step guide that Green America has put together to help people plan their bank switch. For the purposes of the Responsible Finance Event #2: Better Banks and Credit Cards, you can keep your focus on Step #1 – the exciting process of identifying the bank or credit union that will allow your deposits or credit card – to work for the kind of world you want!

Green America’s Guide to Socially Responsible Investing & Better Banking provides an overview of options and background information about the importance of you joining our money moving movement! An easy entry point to this movement could be something as simple as just changing your credit card. Since banks process credit card transactions – how about using a credit card linked to a better bank or credit union? You can find a list of credit card options here.

And If you need a little more inspiration, enjoy these short stories from people who have made the switch and want to encourage others – like you!

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About the authors:

Jessy Tolkan is the President and CEO of Drive Agency. With nearly 20 years of campaign and movement experience, her passion and drive for transformative change have taken her around the world and across issue sectors in pursuit of building the necessary power to win. Prior to founding Drive Agency, Jessy served as Partner at PURPOSE and Co-Founder of Purpose Labs, a ground-breaking approach to campaigning and collaborating with philanthropy to drive change. During her tenure at Purpose, she helped expand their global footprint by opening campaign offices in India, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Indonesia, and Kenya. The Purpose Climate Lab, where Jessy remains a Collaborator and Senior Advisor, employs 40staff globally, and has raised and invested over 40 million dollars in climate campaigning infrastructure over the past 6 years. Over the course of her career, Jessy has built and led a series of powerful progressive institutions, including her role as Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition, as the Co-Executive Director of the Citizen Engagement Laboratory, and as Senior Advisor to the Working Families Party. Jessy has consulted with leading social change organizations in the United States and around the world including: Progressive Change Campaign Committee, GetEqual, HeadCount, 1sky, 350.org, Groundswell, Web of Change, and Wellstone Action, The Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, and Global Witness. She’s been featured in Time Magazine, Glamour Magazine, The New York Times, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Rolling Stone Magazine named her one of the 100 agents of change in America.  Jessy Tolkan received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science.

Fran Teplitz serves as the Executive Co-Director of Green America, focusing on Green America’s programs in green business, socially and environmentally responsible banking and investing, and public policy. Green America is a nonprofit membership-based organization in Washington, DC that involves consumers, businesses, and investors in economic strategies to advance positive social and environmental change. Fran joined the organization in 2000. Fran’s roles include serving as the Director of Green America’s Green Business Network® and Director of the Responsible Finance Program. Her work on impact investing includes community investing and banking, shareholder action, and fossil fuel divestment. She also manages Green America’s role in coalitions related to sustainable business and economics, climate change, and other policy issues. Fran worked with Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund for seven years before joining Green America. Prior to Peace Action, she worked on U.S. policy toward Central America.  She holds a Master’s Degree from the Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and earned her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis in Political Science. 

We are both supporters of Third Act, members of AARP, and one of us is former staff of AARP. We know well the political power of AARP to influence key decision-makers and policies. Without AARP’s support, for example, we would not have passed the Affordable Care Act nor the prescription drug price limits in the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act. We also know well that AARP listens to its membership.

So, we are asking Third Actors who are also AARP members to sign this petition as a friendly yet urgent message of encouragement to AARP leadership to play a vital role in advancing climate solutions. Getting involved with climate advocacy clearly fits with AARP’s mission to fight for older people (50-plus) and help them choose how they live and age. While AARP’s official policy book (2020-2021) includes work to prevent and reduce the effects of climate change, we think there is more that AARP can and should do to truly address the well-being of older Americans as we face climate impacts. Knowing that we have a large contingent of AARP members within Third Act will also strengthen Third Act’s ability to develop a productive and collaborative relationship with AARP.

Movement on Climate at AARP, Opportunities to Accelerate

Interestingly, we’re already seeing some real movement at AARP.  Check out this recent excellent piece funded by national AARP on the climate impacts on retirement security and the recent podcast on heat impacts in California from a new AARP CA podcast service.

The podcast is a real milestone in AARP’s climate work.  It’s the first time that any official educational initiative from AARP has talked not just about the need to adapt to the reality of climate change and its impacts (see this frontpage article from last June’s flagship AARP Bulletin), but has highlighted the cause of the problem as the burning of fossil fuels and the need for government action to move faster to clean energy.  This progression is inevitable because the effects of climate change are beginning to hit home, especially for older people.

There are several major roles that AARP can play as the organization considers how it can grow its work on climate change: public education, policy advocacy, and pilot projects, among others.

Public Education

While the IRA is now law, we will not achieve even the projected 40% reduction in carbon emissions and climate pollution unless homeowners and landlords are educated quickly and effectively as to how to take advantage of the financial incentives in the law to help consumers (including renters) realize available energy savings on their homes and cars.

With the largest circulation magazine in the country, AARP has the consumer educational publishing infrastructure to make a real difference. AARP could easily mount a nation-wide educational campaign to its 38 million members to assure full use of the consumer incentives paid for in the IRA that will help homeowners, landlords, and renters navigate getting solar, buying a heat pump, using battery backup power, and buying and charging an electric vehicle at home – all of which will help reduce carbon emissions and lower consumers’ energy costs. This message will resonate with AARP’s audience given that about 80 percent of older Americans (65+) own their own homes (though there are racial disparities) and more than 55 percent of homeowners are age 55+. 

Policy Advocacy

The national AARP has recently approved climate lobbying by selected state offices, and these offices are used to weighing in on state energy utility policy and other state legislative issues facing seniors. This support from state AARP offices could help push state utilities to take advantage of the additional incentives available to convert to clean energy, as well as invest in needed electricity grid improvements to handle more renewable power. Lastly, Third Actors who are also AARP members who sign this AARP member petition may join AARP volunteers in each state to support work on these and future climate issues. 

Pilot Programs 

Pilot projects at the AARP state office level are the way national AARP tests the waters in new program areas.  While  AARP is not an environmental organization, it has begun to realize that its core mission of “protecting the health, financial security and livable communities” of seniors and their families is going to require ending economic reliance on fossil fuels as well as mitigating the unavoidable damage of climate disruption that is already here and already affecting the well-being of seniors.

AARP member volunteers have targeted working with CA AARP to create a pilot climate educational and advocacy program, but they are also looking to find at least one AARP office in a purple or red state (FL, TX, AZ, CO, or NV most likely) to essentially mirror what CA AARP is doing.  Ultimately, volunteer organizers (aided by sympathetic younger AARP staff members) see AARP addressing the climate emergency the same way the organization addressed the COVID emergency:  by re-assigning significant numbers of national and state staff and financial, educational, and lobbying resources to work on a health threat that has disproportionately begun affecting older citizens.

Please Sign the Petition Asking AARP to Step-Up On Climate

As Third Actors and as members of AARP, we are very worried about the climate crisis and we want actions in our lifetimes. That’s why we like Third Act’s slogan: No Time to Waste!. And we are excited about the unique role that AARP can play in making sure that Americans take full advantage of the IRA to cut carbon emissions and safeguard our future.

To help build broad public support for a national climate mobilization, we need organizations like AARP to step-up and be a leader in advancing climate solutions. 

So if you are an AARP member, please join us in signing the petition urging AARP to take the lead in helping secure what we seniors want most: to leave as our legacy a livable world for all generations to come.

For more information or if you have contacts within AARP, please email us at:  support@petition2AARP.org

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Robert Loeb is a retired social entrepreneur in the field of advocacy communications. He founded the Telecommunications Cooperative Network (TCN)–the first consortium of charitable institutions for cooperative purchasing of state-of-the-art communications and information technology–where he pioneered the use of program-related investment loans from the Ford Foundation andCarnegie Corporation to save millions of dollars for thousands of non-profits on their communications costs.  Mr.  Loeb was also a founder of Breira, the first nationwide coalition of religious, institutional, and cultural leaders in the American Jewish Community that helped build the foundation for US support for a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Harry “Rick” Moody, Ph.D., publishes the online newsletter “Climate Change in an Aging Society,” and is the author of the forthcoming book of the same name. He retired as Vice President and Director of Academic Affairs for AARP in Washington, DC. Dr. Moody previously served as Executive Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College and Chairman of the Board of Elderhostel (now Road Scholar). Dr. Moody is also the author of over 100 scholarly articles, as well as a number of books.

Third Act launched its Banking on our Future Campaign to pressure the financial system, especially the big four banks (Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and CitiBank), to stop financing climate destruction.

The Carbon Bankroll report by Bank Forward makes clear that the biggest environmental decision we make is where we choose to keep and invest our money. How our money and cash are used by big banks has a far greater impact on climate emissions than what kind of car we drive, for example.

Third Act wants the banks to know that if they don’t move their money out of fossil fuels, then we’ll move our money away from them. You can sign the Banking on our Future Pledge to add your voice to the thousands that are already calling for change!

In response to Third Actors’ numerous questions about “how to move your money,” Third Act invited us, Timothy Yee and Gregory Wendt, to help design a 4-part webinar series around Responsible Finance. With decades of experience in sustainable investing and financial and retirement planning, we are pleased to share our approaches to working with clients to develop personal Responsible Finance Plans. At each event, you will hear from certified financial advisors, bank and personal finance experts, experts on investment and retirement, and advocacy experts that are  leading campaigns to reform the financial system. You’ll learn both practical approaches and big-picture strategies to help you design your personal Responsible Financial Plan. The goal is to provide you with some resources that allow you to make choices that are good for you and good for the planet, while also seeking good financial performance.

To help you better understand how to get started, in this blog we provide:

• Key questions to ask yourself and a worksheet to assist you with identifying your values, priorities, needs, and challenges;
• An introduction to personal financial levers – personal banking, personal investing, and corporate and non-profit retirement plans – that we will explore more deeply in upcoming webinars; and
• Additional reading and resources, including how to find a financial advisor with expertise in sustainable investing.

This blog accompanies the first webinar in the series: Responsible Finance: An overview of how to align your money with your values. You can access a recording of our first webinar here. Subsequent webinars will cover personal banking (checking and savings accounts and credit cards), investing, and corporate and non-profit retirement plans.

1.  Articulate Your Values, Needs, and Challenges

While it is tempting to immediately dive into practical solutions and changes in each of the primary areas of personal finance levers (banks and credit cards, investments, retirement plans), it is a vital and foundational step to first identify your values and what is most important to you. Typically, when we first meet a new client it may take 3-4 meetings with interview questions and discussion to articulate your values, your financial priorities, your risk tolerance, and more. There’s no easy “one-click” answer. Financial advisors may also use a scenario planning model to assess whether your financial plans and investment strategies will achieve your financial goals.

The first question to ask yourself is: What do I have and what are my priorities and needs for my money over the years to come? 

We recognize that that is a massive question, so we broke it down into smaller questions, listed below, in hopes that you will take some time to reflect, journal, and discuss your answers with your loved ones and financial advisors:

• What is your view of a better world?
• What are your priority interests and concerns (climate, prison reform, human rights, etc..)
• What inspires you to make the world a better place?
• Beyond wealth and financial solutions, where do you spend your time serving others?
• What is the way you want to invest your time and energy in the most important relationships?
• What are the organizations or groups you admire the most?
• What do you see in your community and your world that you want to help or support?

This is not an esoteric or philosophical exercise but rather an important way for you to be able to evaluate financial solutions, be they banks, investment funds, or individual companies. These questions are clues to discovering more about what is most important to you and to find the themes where you want your dollars to help the world.

In addition to these questions about values, it is helpful to do a short inventory and analysis of your various financial services, advisors, and accounts. You can evaluate the benefits and challenges of switching your money away from an advisor or financial institution that doesn’t match your values and towards one that is a better match, as well as evaluate tradeoffs.

You can download and adapt this simple table template to help you compare the pros and cons  of making the switch.  It will be helpful if you complete this table before the next webinar on better banks and credit cards, investments, and retirement funds.

Note: We have given some hypothetical examples of accounts or services and reasons you may be “For” or “Against” switching. If you want to use our Table Template, go to File > Make a Copy and then save this file on your own computer or Google drive to edit the file with your own personal evaluations, questions, ideas, and concerns.

2. An Introduction to Your Personal Financial Levers

Green America – a Third Act partner organization that has been working on sustainable finance for decades – has a wonderful Guide to Socially Responsible Investing and Better Banking (2021). This Guide provides a great orientation around the key levers of personal finance – better banks, investing, retirement, and shareholder activism. Green America also certifies banks, credit unions, and credit cards that meet their environmental and social justice criteria. However, Third Act requests that you do not yet close your bank or credit card accounts until we announce our collective day of action so we can have a greater impact together.

A. Personal banking

Do you know where your money sleeps at night? In other words, where is your bank investing the money you have deposited with them and the profits earned from your credit cards? It’s important that you ask your bank directly about their investments and how they use your money (learn more about how to write a letter to your bank here and here), as well as your financial advisors and doing your own research on your issues of concern.

If combating climate change is important to you, the “Banking on Climate Chaos” report details which banks are financing fossil fuel companies and projects. You can investigate which banks are involved with modern-day redlining, an insidious practice started in the 1930s and continuing today where banking institutions discriminate against Black and Brown customers and home mortgage borrowers. If your bank’s commitment to racial diversity is important, you can research that here. The FAIRR Initiative evaluates the environmental and social impacts of the world’s largest livestock producer companies. You can do similar research around each of your priorities, and work to move your money away from banks that invest your money in ways that undermine your values.

Responsible Finance Webinar #2: Personal Banking (date to be announced soon) will include speakers who can help guide you to better banking solutions and credit card options and describe the steps needed to open new accounts.

In the meantime, you can start exploring other banks or local credit unions to see if they align with your values and/or can meet some or all your financial needs.. You can also look into one of the fossil-free credit cards from online banks. Note that it is unlikely that a single financial institution will meet all your needs. Please see pages 11-13 of Third Act’s Banking on our Future Toolkit for some tools to explore in advance of Webinar #2, including Green America’s map of certified banks and credit unions and a list of credit cards, Bank for Good’s searchable database, and Mighty Deposit’s database.

B. Personal Investing

The beauty of personal investing is that you have control over where your money is invested. Again, start with identifying your values. Next, ask your financial advisor directly if they (a) understand your values and priorities, and (b) can translate them into appropriate investments. Finally, evaluate your financial advisor’s responses.

If your advisor’s responses are not satisfactory – does not meet with “a” or meets “a” but not “b” – then you might need to find a new advisor. There are a few directories that can help you find an advisor knowledgeable about sustainable investing, including:

• Green America’s Socially Responsible Financial Planners & Investment Consultants
• First Affirmative’s directory 
• Find a B-Corp (you can put “financial advisor” in the Search bar)

A simple way to start considering how to align your values with investment options, you can visit the Forum on Sustainable and Responsible Investment’s listing of Sustainable Investment Mutual Funds and ETFs chart and click on “screening and advocacy”. This website gives you an idea of some of the ways you can screen investments based on your values as well as a starter list of investments to consider.

Remember to evaluate any proposed investment for alignment with your values (i.e., how much financial risk you are willing to take, whether it matches your time horizon, and whether any underlying investments are OK with you). A financial advisor will also help you consider investment and mutual fund fees, tax implications, active versus passive strategies, index funds, and other considerations. Lastly, make sure that any investment you like is something your advisor can obtain.

Responsible Finance Webinar #3: Personal Investing (mid-November 2022, date to be announced soon) will include speakers who can help provide information about how to identify environmentally and socially responsible investment funds, as well as other investment approaches, such as impact investing, and advocacy efforts to influence funds and large asset managers.

C. Corporate and Non-profit Retirement Plans

What does your 401k really invest in? As You Sow provides information about Fossil Free Funds and lots of assessments of other funds at Invest Your Values, including tobacco, gender, deforestation, social justice, and weapons, to better help you understand the stock market based investments in your plan.

If the investments aren’t fully reflective of what you and/ or your employer believe in and value, you might consider this actions recommended by As You Sow here and here to help start an internal discussion at your workplace about making investment changes to retirement plans.

Be aware that this change can take a fair amount of time depending on the size of the plans and number of interested parties. At the same time, there is $39 trillion in retirement plans as of 12/31/21. Moving these assets can have a tremendous impact on the fight for a sustainable future. .

Responsible Finance Webinar #4: Retirement Plans (date in December to be announced soon) will include speakers who will help you dig into the 401K or 403B retirement options that you are invested in and show you alternative choices that align with your values.

About the authors:

Timothy Yee is the President of Green Retirement, Inc., a founding B-Corporation and a minority and woman-owned financial advisory firm. Timothy focuses on sustainable, responsible, and fossil-free investment options in corporate and nonprofit retirement plans. He serves as a fiduciary for his clients, among them 350.org and Trillium Asset Management.

Gregory Wendt is a Certified Financial Planner and veteran wealth advisor on capital markets, sustainability, and new economic thinking. He is currently Director and Senior Wealth Advisor at Stakeholders Capital, a Registered Investment Advisory Firm. Since the 1980s, Greg has worked in sustainable and regenerative economics, finance, portfolio management, economic strategy, and responsible investing, and is a leader in the evolving field of sustainable and responsible investing and green economy solutions. Greg can be reached at greg@stakeholderscapital.com.

Educate Yourself with Additional Reading

• The Resilient Investor by Hal Brill, Michael Kramer, and Christopher Peck
• The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge
• Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing by Larry Swedroe and Samuel Adams
• Activate Your Money: Invest to Grow Your Wealth and Build a Better World by Janine Firpo (a focus on women investors)
• Put Your Money Where Your Life Is by Michael Shuman
• Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity by Michael Shuman

And for some more advanced learning:

• A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life by Hunter Lovins, Stewart Wallis, Anders Wijkman, and John Fullerton
• The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows and Natural Being by Jed Emerson
• Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth – website, blog, videos
• Global Handbook of Impact Investing: Solving Global Problems Via Smarter Capital Markets Towards A More Sustainable Society by Elsa De Morais Sarmento (Editor) and R. Paul Herman (Editor) –  (directed predominantly toward institutional investors and family offices)

Note: Third Act is legally prohibited from giving investment advice as we are not certified investment advisors. We have invited financial planning professionals to share their expertise. Please note that Third Act does not have any contractual relationships with the speakers and blog authors, and we are not endorsing their services. These are educational events and resources where we are sharing information for you to implement in your lives in ways that fit with your personal strategies, risk tolerance, and financial needs.

I believe that acting on our values and ideals is the essence of vitality. What could be more energizing than embodying the rituals of our faith tradition in bringing about the world that we would like to see? This work not only energizes me, but it makes me feel alive.The impetus for this comes from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center and the author of the groundbreaking Freedom Seder.

The original Freedom Seder was written in 1969 and was catalyzed by  Rabbi Waskow seeing Federal troops occupying the streets of Washington D. C in response to the uprising following the assassination of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  It was during Passover of that year and what he saw in his mind’s eye was Pharaoh’s army. Over the years, the Freedom Seder has gone through a number of iterations.

Today, there is an Earth and Justice Freedom Seder said in the streets outside of financial institutions that invest in fossil fuels. It was created to be used by all faith traditions, as part of the Exodus Alliance, a group of multi faith organizations, faith leaders, and everyday people taking action for climate justice this Passover.

In 2021, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America invested over 150 million dollars into the fossil fuel industry, with three of the four listed banks being some of the leading investors in fossil fuel.  Projects like fracking, oil drilling, and pipeline laying are so costly that the fossil fuel companies could not continue with business as usual if the financial institutions that fund them withdrew their support. In essence, these institutions are funding the proliferation of life-killing energies and we’re demanding that they fund renewable, life-giving energies instead. This Passover, we’re asking these “Corporate Carbon Pharaohs” to let all people and our planet go free!

With the Sacred Season almost upon us, we invite all faith traditions to contribute their own rituals as well as join in our upcoming events!

From Monday, April 18th to Friday, April 22nd, Earth Quaker Action Team will be partnering with Exodus Alliance for a Four Day walk, where they will end  at Vanguard’s southeastern Pennsylvania headquarters! Vanguard is one of the world’s leading investors in oil, gas, and coal, which means it is a major driver of climate destruction and environmental injustice. Starting at the industrial banks of the Delaware River, the route includes sites of environmental injustice and climate destruction. There will also be opportunities for training in nonviolent direct action, reaching out to Vanguard customers, and inter-generational support. Sign up: here.

There is a special Grandparents contingent being organized by the Elder Action Network, where you can participate for an hour or all four days. Make sure that on this form, you identify yourself as an Elder or a Grandparent so that they can help support you the best way they can.

On Wednesday, April 20th, there will be a  special interfaith action highlighting the powerful symbols of the Passover story and the role of Chase and Vanguard as “climate pharaohs” of our time by Exodus Alliance, Dayenu, Jewish Youth Climate Movement, Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light, and more. They will conclude with a powerful action at Vanguard’s global headquarters in Malvern on Earth Day.  Learn more: here.

I’m saddened to hear that Joanna Macy, one of the wise women of the planet, who has been a leader for decades in bringing our awareness to the depth of our connection to Earth and how we must honor the pain that we feel in this ecological crisis, was not able to join us due to health reasons, but we wish her a speedy recovery. She has taught many of us how we can channel that pain, and the love beneath it, into action to bring about a more just and sustainable world.

Blessings,
Mordechai Liebling