Elders for Climate Action
On a Thursday morning in June, Roberta Wall sat on a rocking chair, swaying back and forth. She caught the attention of several passersby. She wore a light green cardigan and bright red-framed glasses and held a poster that read, “How much more climate failure until we act?” Wall, who is 72 years old, wasn’t on a porch, though. She was in front of Citibank’s New York headquarters, one of dozens of aging activists sitting in similar chairs and holding similar signs and blocking access to the building. This wasn’t their first rodeo: For these older protestors, civil disobedience has been a decades-long endeavor. “I'm here just using my voice,” said Lynn Cole, a 69-year-old member of Extinction Rebellion, who started marching during the Vietnam War at the age of 14. “To that end, I'm here for future generations.” Today that means protesting the top financiers of fossil fuels: investment banks. Reporter Carrene Gepilano writes about how an uptick in the number of older folks embracing climate activism is fostering intergenerational solidarity.
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