Dear Editor,
I am a member of Third Act Vermont, part of Third Act, a national organization for folks over 60 determined to change the world for the better. Last week we organized 100 actions to emphasize the connection between money in the banks and carbon pollution causing the climate emergency.
You probably have some of your money in a bank or use a bank-backed credit card. Banks use your money and the money of other depositors to make loans including trillions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry. Since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2016, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America have invested heavily in the expansion of fossil fuel exploration and infrastructure. Examples include arctic drilling, deep sea drilling, fracking, natural gas infrastructure, tar sands, etc. The leaders of these banks are accelerating global warming for their short-term profit.
As the old joke says: Give a man a gun, he’ll rob a bank. Give a man a bank, he’ll rob everyone. . . of their future.
Third Act Vermont is pressuring the leaders of the big banks to stop funding fossil fuel expansion. We want to end the climate emergency. We want to meet the basic needs of all people and have a thriving planet.
We have good reasons to want a livable future. As elders, we are a frontline community in relation to climate being affected worse by extreme heat.
The young people we love are also a community at the frontline of the climate crisis. They have lived their entire lives during the climate emergency, which they didn’t cause. As elders, we have a moral responsibility to take action on their behalf.
We in Third Act asked nicely. We pledged to move our money if the banks didn’t stop funding fossil fuel expansion. We acted on our pledges as we took our money out of Chase, CitiBank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America and cut up our credit cards from those banks.
This bank action is part of a much bigger plan to end funding of fossil fuel expansion. Third Act members are growing our movement and escalating our actions toward solving the climate crisis.
Sign up for Third Act Vermont at www.ThirdAct.org and www.ThirdActVT.org. We will take action together to shape the future we want. Join us!
Sincerely,
Laurel Green
Bellows Falls, Vt.