I was working at the University of Pennsylvania Museum when the first Earth Day was planned. Betsy & me had a ringside seat at the first Earth Day in Philadelphia. It’s time for our “Third Act’” - Bill McKibben

 “We were there for the first Earth Day, and we’ve been glad to see cleaner air and water—but now we know that the climate crisis presents an unparalleled threat.”

Third Act — experienced people working for a fair and stable planet.

My paddles hit dead fish on the Schuylkill River. I had to stop and let the boat drift through them. 

The jazz record shop at 3rd & Market St Philadelphia PA was close enough to the smell the open sewer that was the Delaware River. An amalgamation of raw sewage, crude oil, & brewery stench. The friction of ship’s bows started fires on the water surface. 

After World War II, the Delaware was a dead river, as dead as any in the United States. During summers in the late 1940s, oxygen levels were typically 1 ppm or less over a 20 mile section of river from the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia to Marcus Hook near Delaware. In 1950, the urban reach of the Delaware River was noted as one of most polluted stretches of river in the world.

Betsy worked at the Red Cross organizing volunteers for Bloodmobiles and calling field commanders in Vietnam by way of ham radio. 

In Scott High School in Coatesville 5 to 7 of us kids ate lunch at the same cafeteria table. Three of them went to Vietnam and came back in a casket.  

Betsy’s Red Cross friend was married to David Douglas. Dave was a Marine who held his hands over his head as a sniper shot his wristwatch off his wrist at the Battle of Khe Sanh. 

I had David Douglas Duncan’s photo book of the Marines at Khe Sanh. David Douglas the Marine left Khe Sanh before David Douglas Duncan the photojournalist arrived.  

We knew Father John McNamee (Diary of a City Priest). Jim Victor, John McNamee and me walked from the Cathedral of Peter & Paul to the Friends Meetinghouse on 2nd St to hear Daniel Berrigan speak. Jim & me couldn’t understand him when he spoke Catholic theology speak but Father John did. 

I worked in the first basement of the University Museum at the photo studio. Around the corner at 34th St is Huston Hall and the Student Union. Something was always going on, war protest organizing, civil rights organizing or organizing for Earth Day.

It was a dark time but also a time of optimism. 

In a few years the Senate and House would override President Nixon’s veto . We got the Clean Water Act and the Delaware stopped stinking. 

“More than 500 people were detained and subsequently released over the course of the demonstrations, which were organized by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.

The older protesters who spoke with The Washington Post said they felt a sense of collective responsibility: It was their generation that drove gas guzzlers, thought nothing of flying abroad for a beach vacation in Spain, paid scant attention to deforestation in the Amazon. It was on their governments’ watch that carbon emissions climbed.

That sentiment is not exclusive to Europe. American climate activist Bill McKibben announced this past week that he is starting a new group called Third Act aimed at getting older people involved in climate activism.

‘We’re going to try and organize ‘experienced Americans’ — i.e., people over 60 like me — around issues of climate justice, racial justice, economic justice,” he tweeted. “Our generations have done their share of damage; we’re on the verge of leaving the world a worse place than we found it.”

MORE AT:

The Washington Post

‘Gray greens’: Grandparents are being arrested in London climate protests

Karla Adam

September 4, 2021 at 4:42 p.m. EDT

“We were there for the first Earth Day, and we’ve been glad to see cleaner air and water—but now we know that the climate crisis presents an unparalleled threat. 

The heat is on and we must act quickly to turn it down.

We watched or participated in the civil rights movement—and now we know that its gains were not enough, and that gaps in wealth have only widened in our lifetimes. We’ve got to repair divisions instead of making them worse.

We saw democracy expand—and now we’re seeing it contract, as voter suppression and gerrymandering threaten the core of the American experiment. 

We know that real change can only come if we all get to participate.

You are the key to this work. Maybe you’ve asked yourself: how can I give back on a scale that matters? The answer is, by working with others to build movements strong enough to matter. That’s why we hope you’ll join us."

Third Act — experienced people working for a fair and stable planet.

We've Wasted Enough Decades

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Bill McKibben Sep 1