We're Resolute in the New Year
Our goals are clear, and we could use your help
Charting Our Course
Third Act Maine’s Coordinating Committee has solidified our priorities for the year ahead. We are feeling great urgency to accelerate the good work on sustainability and put the brakes on fossil fuels. We’re realists. We suspect the path in the next months and years will be anything but smooth. But we are committed to lobbying and protesting and pressuring and writing letters to the editor… and staying in community and singing and taking care of each other.
Level Up Your Activism with Third Act Maine
We’d appreciate your help! FYI, Third Act has 95,000 members in 35 working groups nationally. We here in Maine constitute one of those working groups, with 1,200 members. Clearly, we are punching above our demographic weight—but we could use more writers, organizers, and creators! Volunteer Coordinator Marcia Taylor invites you to email her (mdt.renn@gmail.com) to discuss how your passion, talents, and skills can make a real difference in the new year.
Heat and Havoc: The Year We Left Behind … or Did We?
2024 was the hottest in modern history. As Bill McKibben has said, the house is on fire. The need for our activism has never been greater. From the New York Times, David Gelles and Raymond Zhong explain.
The year 2024 will go down as the hottest in modern history. As planet-warming emissions kept rising and efforts to transition away from fossil fuels faltered, severe weather and record heat powered by climate change unleashed havoc around the globe. —David Gelles, New York Times, 12/26/2024
Every month for the past year and a half, the planet has been at or near its warmest point in modern times.… Temperature records aren’t being broken; they’re being leapfrogged. And scientists haven’t quite pinned down why. —Raymond Zhong, New York Times, 12/12/2024
Upcoming Actions
January 9—and February 13. Standout organized by the Central Hub from 8:15-9:00am at MainePERS in Augusta to protest MainePERS’ continued holding of fossil fuel stocks. The Maine State Legislature passed a law requiring divestment by 2026. MainePERS has not taken any steps to divest so far.
January 13. Midcoast Hub will meet at 1 pm at Ecovillage’s Community Building in Belfast. The group is supporting Waldo County Climate Action Coalition in promoting heat pumps for trailer homes through the state’s funding program. FMI: Cletis Boyer, ontictracker@gmail.com
January 18. People’s March in Monument Square, Portland. Third Act Maine will be represented. People will meet at Monument Square at 10:30am and will be marching at 11am, enjoying a speakers’ program at City Hall at noon, and networking with organizations and activists in Portland High School’s gymnasium afterward. FMI: Molly Schen, mollyvschen@gmail.com
Sign the national petition to reject new export LNG facilities in concert with Third Act (national) and Fossil Free Media. Sign the petition here.
Greater Portland Hub: Regular standouts at L.L. Bean. FMI: Bill Rixon, rixon9@gmail.com.
Western Mountains Hub: Regular monthly vigil at TD Bank in Farmington. FMI: Doug Rawlings, rawlings@maine.edu.
Lincoln County Hub: Plans underway to protect the Juniper Ridge Landfill from expansion and from PFAS. FMI: Marnie Sinclair, marticamv@aol.com.
Stopping PFAS and Other Pollutants
Lincoln County Third Act is joining with other environmental groups to lobby against petrochemicals and other pollutants that are contaminating our air, land, and water.
98% of all the people in the United States have PFAS in their blood streams. PFAS, also known as ‘forever’ chemicals, do not break down for hundreds or even thousands of years and remain a cancerous and dangerous problem. Since its accidental discovery in the 1940s and emergence as Teflon, in the 1950s, this miracle chemical was the answer to non-stick cookware. Dupont and 3M expanded its use to just about everything with a slick surface. PFAS is now found in makeup, dental floss, plastic cups and straws, detergents, pesticides, cookware, firefighting foam, rain gear, plastic containers, and stain resistant scotch guard, to name just a few products.
PFAS’s extensive dangers are well chronicled in the film Growing Broke. It is the heartbreaking story of PFAS contamination in Maine as told through two local farm families.
Institutional—and Personal—Divestment from Fossil Fuels
Worldwide, the fossil fuel divestment campaign is up to “about $40 trillion in endowments and portfolios that have divested, including lots of pension funds,” according to Bill McKibben (What If We Get It Right?, p 142). Western Mountains Third Act is encouraging its members to do a year-end assessment of their finances and follow through with fossil fuel divestment. Quite a few people have completed this review and have gotten help from hub members as well.
In addition, the Western Mountains Hub continues to focus on TD Bank, which bankrolls the filthy tar sands operations in Alberta, Canada. Hub members have been able to get addresses for CEOs and other top administrators and are continuing to send our concerns and our demands.
Finally, quite a few local households have successfully lowered their own carbon footprints. Every little bit helps!
Standouts at L.L. Bean Continue
Scrolling through the Past 144 Years
We offer this up in hopes that you will scroll all the way to the end. It shows the change in global surface temperature across the months and years. But… don’t despair. Instead, join us in action!
