Summer in Maine
Relaxation, Reading--and Deliberate Action
Momentum Is Building
Come to a statewide all-in call today, Wednesday, May 29 at 4 pm to hear how you can participate in activities planned for this summer. Zoom link here. We’d appreciate it if you’d register for this call here so we know who’s coming. Bring your ideas and suggestions!
Mark Your Calendars
May 29. Virtual. Third Act Maine all-in Zoom call. 4 pm. (See above for details!) June 5. Belfast. Midcoast Hub planning meeting at Ecovillage at 11:30 am. June 13. New York City at Citibank Headquarters, part of the Summer of Heat, a national gathering of many organizations, including Third Act. The "Rocking Chair Rebellion" will rise up to blockade Citibank’s world headquarters--home of the world’s second-largest fossil fuel funder--to demand that Wall Street banks and financiers stop using our hard-earned retirement savings to fund the climate crisis. We are retired union members, teachers, health care professionals, lawyers, parents, grandparents, great aunts, uncles, and now activists. With decades of life experience, we stand alongside the youth in their fight for a peaceful, just, and healthy world. This day will bring together people of all ages committed to ensuring a livable future for the generations to come. Sign up here, and email us at ThirdActMaine@gmail.com so we know you're coming! June 13. Augusta. MainePERS standout, 8-9 am, 139 Capitol Street. June 13. Farmington. Standout in front of TD Bank from 11 am - 12 noon. July 8-15. New York City at Citibank Headquarters and other locations TBD. Part of Summer of Heat. July 11. Augusta. MainePERS rally, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm, 139 Capitol Street.
Third Act Mainers Meet with MainePERS Leadership
Before you read about our meeting with MainePERS leadership, help us keep the pressure on by signing this petition to demand that MainePERS follow the law. As of this writing, only 243 people have signed it. If even 1/3 of you reading this newsletter sign on, we’d garner 300 more signatures!
On May 21, representatives from Third Act Maine and Divest Maine met with MainePERS leadership, including Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Brian Noyes. We explained how MainePERS could make better progress divesting from fossil fuel funds as directed by LD 99. Don Witherill and Carey Hotaling, both Maine PERS beneficiaries, called out the need for faster progress in light of the climate crisis. David Gibson and Cassie Cain spoke about their roles in the LD 99 legislation. David also described how he has worked with the College of the Atlantic to cut fossil fuel exposure in half. Scott Budde, along with Tom Sanzillo and Dan Cohn with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, spoke about how other comparable institutions have made progress on divestment, with the California State Teachers Retirement System being held up as a good example for MainePERS to look at. While there was the expected pushback from MainePERS leadership, particularly from CEO Rebecca Wyke, Chairman Noyes expressed willingness to evaluate the information from the other entities that were cited and consider whether MainePERS could take similar steps while continuing to meet its fiduciary responsibility. Tom and Dan sent a follow up letter with references for MainePERS to review and heard that MainePERS staff are already doing so. We are making progress, but we need to keep the pressure on.
Good News about Renewables
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the climate crisis challenge, here’s a bit of encouraging news. According to a report by the climate think tank, Ember, the world has reached a “crucial turning point.” Renewables now produce 30% of the world’s electricity, and the rapid increase in the use of renewables is a “significant step” towards achieving the 2030 goal to produce 60% of electricity by renewables. For a closer look at the data, see this CNN article.
Is Climate Change Altering Our Brains and Behavior?
In his new book, The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains, Clayton Page Aldern explores the psychological impact of living in a time and world where the climate system—its very nature—is undergoing a profound shift. In response, the neural networks in our brains are changing. These changes in our brains lead to changes in behavior.
Aldern writes that the changing climate “acts on our security… Climate change isn’t about rising temperatures and sea-level rise. Those concerns were secondary to something more human: the global climate’s ability to ‘aggravate existing problems’ like poverty, social tensions, ineffective leadership, and weak political institutions. It wasn’t just that a warmer world would hurt us outright; it was that a warmer world would make us hurt one another.”
Climate change beckons us to develop muscles of social resilience, which grow when communities come together to find common ground and shared values. —Molly Mulhern, Third Act Mainer, from the CamdenCAN newsletter
Memorial Day Parade in Freeport
Ten Third Act Mainers flanked the drizzly parade route in front of L.L. Bean on May 27 for the Memorial Day Parade. We explained our presence to many onlookers. We’re urging L.L. Bean to sever its ties with Citibank, or at the very least to talk to Citibank with an appeal to stop funding fossil fuels. The press picked up our protest with an article here.
Third Act Maine Shows Up Around the State
For the 2030 Vision Climate Convergence in Norway on May 17-18, Tom Mikulka brought Third Act signs and spoke to interested participants. Sponsored by the Center for an Ecology Based Economy (CEBE), this fifth convergence featured keynote speaker Susanna Hancock, Ph.D. Dr. Hancock is a glaciologist who spends her time researching climate change in the Arctic. She is also a climate activist who spent her time at COP28 confronting fossil fuel proponents.
Climate Solutions: Modeling through En-ROADS
The powerful En-ROADS climate policy simulator was the subject of a workshop facilitated by Peter Dugas of Citizens’ Climate Lobby in Portland on May 20. The software program was developed by the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. It enables policy makers worldwide to assess the impact of possible policy choices on keeping global temperature increases below 1.5 C. Dugas made the complex program understandable to a multi-generational audience. It’s well worth checking out!
Third Act Mainers Chuck Spanger, Tom Mikulka and Kathy Mikulka described our work to the attendees and answered questions afterwards, where folks could also sign the Maine PERS divestment campaign and/or send a postcard to L.L. Bean’s CEO Stephen Smith.
Sonnet for the Seasons: New England
And what if we could stop it, after all, could stop the change too swift for us to grasp, listening instead to the maple's sweet dusk drip in the metal bucket? The whip-poor-will- may never summer here again. Recall to us Lock's Pond, ice thick enough to rasp through to snatch the drowsy trout, the chilled clasp of hands raw in glazed wool gloves. How small, how petty our accounting of the world in all its flames. We have no means to measure the beauties we have lost, burnt, broken-- our love shies away from our grief, we lie curled in shame. How should we learn now what we treasure? Wait. Only wait, for the windflower to open.
Kate Cell. Reprinted with permission. In Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States. 2023. Paloma Press.