LAT: A key ally in the battle against climate change? People over 60 [View all]

“Global warming is a fact,” said Olmstead, who attended the protest with Third Act, an organization of people over 60 who are dedicated to the preservation of democracy and the fight against climate change. The rocking chair was a nod to his age.
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“Young people are leading these fights, but by themselves, they don’t have enough structural power” — such as the ability to wield assets and authority — “to make change on the scale we need and the time that we have,” McKibben said. “Older people have lots and lots of structural power — if you’ve reached the age where you have hair coming out your ears, you probably have structural power coming out your ears, too.”
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Many Third Act members in California shared similar motivations. After all, theirs is a generation known for its ability to organize — around the Vietnam War, around civil rights, around the birth of the modern environmental movement. They know how to make change, and some are eager to share that knowledge with younger people.

“A lot of us have been working on making the world a better place since we were young adults and have not let up for a minute,” said Ann Bartz, 73, a Third Act member who lives in Long Beach. Bartz recalled starting college at UC Berkeley not long after the bloody People’s Park protest in 1969. The Vietnam War was still raging, and soon she was participating in some of the demonstrations on campus.