大象传媒

In February 2020, professor Sheldon Pollock, 74, was recently widowed, approaching retirement from his tenured position at Columbia University, and thinking about what would come next for him.

His granddaughter Elea, a high schooler in San Diego at the time, was helping to organize a school walkout as part of the climate movement Fridays for Future. Pollock, who had come of age in the 1960s and protested against the war in Vietnam, had long donated to environmental organizations like 350.org, but Elea鈥檚 activism inspired him to do more.

鈥淟ike a lot of people of my generation, I was [first] involved in antiwar [protests] and Central American solidarity in the 1960s and 1970s,鈥� he said. In what he described as his 鈥渟econd act,鈥� he devoted himself to scholarship, teaching, and raising his two daughters, leaving less time for political engagement. 

鈥淏ut many of us who are at the end of our careers or recently retired are regaining some of that activist, engaged spirit,鈥� Pollock said. 鈥淲e want to make sure that we leave the world better than it is now.鈥�

Baby boomers are for not taking the climate crisis seriously enough. According to a , 56% of Americans 55 and older said they worried about climate change 鈥渁 great deal or fair amount,鈥� compared with 70% of Americans ages 18 to 34. 

But many do feel responsible for the climate crisis. According to a recent AARP鈥揘ORC poll, 45% of Americans over 50 say their generation (22% said they were leaving the environment better off). Some, like Pollock, say they plan to dedicate the next stage of their lives to the climate movement.

Pollack is a volunteer with , an organization that mobilizes Americans over age 60 for 鈥減rogressive change.鈥� Co-founded in 2021 by activist and journalist Bill McKibben, the group has 20 working groups across the country.

Pollock, who most recently taught at Columbia University, runs an educator working group within Third Act that is organizing to register young voters and divest pension plans from fossil fuels. He said he is also speaking with other educators about how to support university divestment efforts.

The name Third Act is borrowed from by the actress and activist Jane Fonda, who, earlier this year, a climate political action committee that willing to take on the fossil fuel industry. Like McKibben, Fonda, 84, has other older Americans to take up the fight against climate change. 

鈥淔olks in this age cohort were on the frontlines of the civil rights movement. They were the progenitors of the environmental movement with [the establishment of] the first Earth Day,鈥� said Vanessa Arcara, president and co-founder of Third Act. 

Arcara previously worked with McKibben at 350.org; she said people over 60 made up the 鈥渉eart and soul鈥� of the organization鈥檚 volunteer corps. 鈥淲e felt there was this wide open space to start talking to folks who had 40 or 50 years鈥� worth of activism, passion, and skills and wanted to find purpose and connection again,鈥� she said. 

In the seven months since Third Act was founded, more than 15,000 people have registered for Third Act events鈥攐nline meetings where participants can learn how they can get involved with the climate movement, Arcara said. This spring, the organization put its mobilizing power to the test: After Bill McKibben called on President Biden to to ramp up the manufacturing of clean energy technology, thousands of 鈥淭hird Actors,鈥� as Arcara called them, wrote to the president in support of the idea. The president in June.

Arcara added that grassroots organizing could take on even more significance amid recent setbacks: a stalled climate agenda and a hamstrung Environmental Protection Agency.

Part of the power of bringing older Americans into the climate movement is their generation鈥檚 spending power. They also hold a disproportionate amount of wealth: Americans 57 and older (baby boomers and those belonging to the silent generation) own despite making up just over a quarter of the population, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Millennials own about 5% of U.S. wealth, despite making up more than 20% of the population.

Given all that wealth, older Americans have the best chance at convincing banks to stop investing in fossil fuels, Arcara said. To that end, Third Act is collecting pledges from banking customers who say they will close (or never open) accounts with any of the 鈥渂ig four鈥� banks鈥擝ank of America, Chase, Citibank, and Wells Fargo鈥攊f they continue to invest in fossil fuels. Third Act working groups have held dozens of demonstrations pressuring those banks to stop funding the fossil fuel industry, Arcara said.

鈥淲e have to assume that there鈥檚 significant power in the people who actually hold the resources in saying, 鈥楨nough is enough,鈥欌�� she said. 

Older Americans also represent a powerful voting bloc. In the 2020 elections, among Americans ages 65 to 74 was 76%, compared with just over 50% of people ages 18 to 24. 

That鈥檚 something Hazel Chandler, 76, tries to harness in her work as a volunteer with Elders Climate Action network and Moms Clean Air Force, where she鈥檚 an Arizona field coordinator.

Chandler, a great-grandmother, said she鈥檚 made it her mission to bring fellow older Americans into the climate movement. 鈥淚 try to help them understand that there are concrete ways they can get involved,鈥� she said.

That has included gathering signatures to send to local representatives (including one successful bid to of a gas-fired power plant outside Phoenix) and campaigns to get school districts to apply for .

When Chandler organized a meeting with Arizona lawmakers, she said they were surprised to see their older constituents advocating for environmental policies. 鈥淚 heard them say again and again, 鈥榃e didn鈥檛 think that older people cared about climate,鈥欌�� she said. 

Like Pollock, Chandler was involved in the antiwar movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She said she finds today鈥檚 youth-led protest movements energizing. 鈥淭here was a time, [after] the 1960s and 1970s, when it was really hard to get people to rally around causes,鈥� with the notable exception of AIDS and LGBTQ activism, she said. 鈥淭here just wasn鈥檛 the mass public involvement in making social change that 飞别鈥檙别 seeing now.鈥�

In recent years, she has brought older activists to youth-led climate protests. 鈥淭he kids鈥� message is much more powerful when we all stand behind them. It鈥檚 not about telling them what to do. It鈥檚 about supporting what they鈥檙e doing and being able to give our elder perspective,鈥� she said. 

That perspective includes memories of a cooler planet. When Chandler first moved to Phoenix in 1977, 鈥淚t cooled down at night,鈥� she said. She remembers the first time the temperature passed 115 degrees, in 1991. 鈥淣ow it happens every summer,鈥� she said.

Unlike Pollock and Chandler, Myrtle Felton never considered herself an activist. The 68-year-old grandmother found her way to the environmental justice movement four years ago, after losing her husband, three relatives, and a close friend in the span of three months. She attributed their deaths, from ailments including respiratory disease and diabetes, to local pollution.

Felton lives in Convent, Louisiana, in a region dotted with plants that some call 鈥�.鈥� (The state has the nation鈥檚 of cancer diagnoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) 

鈥淭hat鈥檚 when I said, 鈥楨nough is enough,鈥欌�� Felton said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not right to be putting all these chemical plants in a predominantly Black area. This district is overburdened.鈥�

She joined a community-wide effort that a new plastics plant in a nearby town. The following year, she and two friends founded , an environmental justice group, to warn others about the health risks of the surrounding industry. Many of her neighbors view the pollution as a necessary trade-off for job creation, she said. 鈥淭hey are afraid that their relatives won鈥檛 have a job or whatever, but they鈥檙e not afraid that these chemicals are shortening their relatives鈥� lives,鈥� she said. 

Like Pollock and Chandler, Felton said she鈥檚 thinking about the planet her three grown children and three grandchildren are inheriting. She worries both about the immediate effects of living near pollution plants and the longer-term prospects of living in a community threatened by increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes. Last year, her own home was badly damaged by Hurricane Ida. 

For Felton, her activism felt like a natural part of growing older. She said that in the late 1990s, it was a group of 鈥渙lder women鈥� who led the fight against another plant coming to her town. Back then, she was too busy raising her own children to get involved.

鈥淏ut now 飞别鈥檙别 the older generation,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 have an obligation to my community. I see my role as trying to help the community survive.鈥�

This article originally appeared in and was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.