Elders Climate Action Announces
a New Effort
Our Congressional Candidates Climate Project
Will the greatest threat to future generations in human history be largely ignored throughout
the 2016 U.S. national elections?
It's time for the elders to speak up to make sure that doesn't happen. Will you help?
Elders Climate Action is putting together a project aimed at injecting climate change into the discussion during campaigns for the US House of Representatives and the US Senate:
Urging candidates for Congress to complete an ECA questionnaire on their position on climate change issues. The results will be posted on ECA's website.
You can initiate this project in your area simply by forming a Project Team of 2 or more people to present the questionnaire to your candidates, and develop a follow-up plan. This can be a very simple and easy project, or you can decide to put more time and energy into it if you wish.
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Join Elders Climate Action in Washington, DC
Make a Difference
on Climate Change
A delegation of Elders Climate Action members is planning four days in Washington, DC this June:
June 22nd: GCAD Planning.
We will spend the day doing the essential initial planning for our next Grandparents Climate Action Day, tentatively scheduled for the Spring of 2017.
The three days before our GCAD Planning Day, we will focus on our national legislative priority:
June 19th and 20th: Participate in the Citizens Climate Lobby Conference, where we'll get the latest information and the best training on advocating for climate fee and dividend legislation - our #1 policy priority for tackling climate change.
June 21st: Lobby Day. We will form ECA teams to visit Congressional offices and bring our message of care for the grandchildren and future generations.
Your participation is needed! Help make these four days have real impact!
Please complete
this online form
to let us know which of the three parts of our Make A Difference on Climate Change days in Washington you are interested in participating in.
You can also learn more on our May ECA Members Call to be held Wednesday, May 11th at 2pm Pacific Time, 5pm Eastern time.(Register here).
We're looking for low-cost housing options, and will let you know what we find.
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Are you ready to step into leadership in the effort to preserve a livable planet for future generations?
ECA Needs You!
ECA has a hugely challenging and vitally important mission: mobilizing elders throughout the United States to preserve a livable planet for the grandchildren - while there is still time!
We cannot accomplish this mission without many more of us
stepping
up to take leadership.
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ECA Monthly Members Call:
Join our monthly Members Call to get the latest information on ECA activities, ask questions, and make suggestions: Every 2nd Wednesday of the month at 2pm Pacific time, 5pm Eastern time.
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MOMS Clean Air FORCE Play-In for Climate Action
Your opportunity to have a great time, and make a difference for the grandchildren
Elders Climate Action has been very blessed to have a great partner in Moms Clean Air Force - they have supported us, and provided us with invaluable advice and assistance.
We'd love to have a large delegation of ECA members participate in MCAF's annual Play-In For Climate Action, which will take place on July 13th at Upper Senate Park in Washington, DC.
It will be a wonderfully fun time, and by combining the voices of elders and moms and kids, will send a powerful message to our nation's leaders.
Go here to learn more and register:
Let us know if you plan to participate, so we can be in touch to get your thoughts and/or photos of the event for the ECA website: info@eldersclimateaction.org
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VOICES OF ELDERS
Thoughts of an Older Climate Activist
Ellen Post
 I am a retired environmental economist. For many years I worked on risk assessments and benefit analyses for EPA, helping them assess the risks of various air pollutants and the benefits of tightening our standards for some of the most ubiquitous ones, like particulate matter. But the air pollutant that is likely to ultimately be the most dangerous got no regulation at all: carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
The evidence for human-caused climate change is overwhelming. And the costs of clean energy alternatives - solar and wind - have plummeted in the last decade or so. So why hasn't the U.S. transitioned away from fossil fuels? It's not a lack of good science; it's not a lack of good economic approaches; it's not a lack of alternative energy solutions; it's the politics.
I'm not a natural activist, but I can see that activism is essential to getting the government action we need to fight climate change. So the only way I can be happy in the age of climate change is to get active - as I wrote about in my essay, "How to Be Happy in the Age of Climate Change (Updated)." Because, as I say in the essay, " ... it turns out that I really care about this earth and all the people and animals on it. I've grown rather fond of civilization, for all its faults."
And, you know, I'm also rather fond of the next generation (a couple of whom are my own kids). As one person, I cannot do much. But with thousands and thousands of us, we can move mountains - and perhaps even our government!
Visit Ellen Post's website
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ECA Volunteer
Jerry Lee Miller takes action with this letter to the editor of the LancasterOnline, February 26th, 2016. Jerry Miller is spearheading the formation team for an Elders Climate Action Chapter in Lancaster Pennsylvania.
Elders Climate Action organizing here
A friend moved from Lancaster to California to be near his granddaughter. Now that my first grandchild has arrived, I understand my friend's motivation. The birth of a first grandchild is life-changing. I'm still aglow with the joy and wonder of this blessed event.
However, I fear for my granddaughter's future if humankind does not quickly change a prevailing mindset. This mindset sees the earth as a pile of resources that humans can extract and use indefinitely. This shortsighted way of looking at the world is driving us toward multiple catastrophes.
Life as we know it cannot continue unless we acknowledge our subjugation to physical laws that allow only so much ocean acidification, only so much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, only so much polar and glacial ice melt, and only so much sea-level rise.
Irreversible consequences ensue when we cross certain thresholds. Do we know how close we are to these thresholds? Are we willing to play Russian roulette with our grandchildren's future?
The amount of carbon dioxide is rising, the oceans are increasingly acid, and recent temperatures are the hottest on record. How long can this go on?
With many others, I have engaged in political advocacy on behalf of a stabilized climate, worked at educating the public, marched, demonstrated and prayed. So far these efforts have fallen short.
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VOICES OF THE YOUNG
Delaney Reynolds
Delaney Reynolds is an amazing young woman who lives in Miami, Florida. At age 16, Delaney is very much aware of the danger climate change poses for her, her community and the wider world, and she is not sitting back and waiting for others to take action. Not Delaney.
She is the founder of the Miami Sea Rise, has created an awesome website
and has published three books for elementary and middle school students on climate change and sea level rise. At age 16, those are stupendous accomplishments. But on the issue of climate change, Delaney is unstoppable.
She has created PowerPoint presentations for young people and delivers them to students in schools, not only in her home state but via videoconferencing to students in places like India and Vietnam.
Delaney's work is being noticed. She recently gave a TED Talk and is also featured in a video alongside scientists, politicians, and authors,
Ahead of the Tide
, and she was
selected as a Youth Leadership Council Member at EarthEcho International, a nonprofit environmental and conservation organization founded by siblings Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau.
This young woman has written a letter on behalf of the world's children asking each of us to do whatever we can to protect them from the threats of global warming and sea level rise. Please read what she has to say and ask yourself: if she can do this, what can I do to help turn back the rising tide of global warming?
A letter to the parents and grandparents by Delaney Reynolds.
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Earth Day Reflections
Geri Freedman
Each year, Earth Day, April 22 marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. I was a student then, and part of the student activist movement
, and participated in planning the first Earth Day event at my university.
These were tumultuous times and we were filled with frustration at the system over a multitude of issues in this country
: the raging Vietnam War, the women's movement as well as the civil rights movement. The environment was equally important to us
;
we needed to act and a movement was born.
Earth Day 1970 gave voice to that emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns on the front page. Oil spills, toxic dumps, pesticides, and unregulated power plants were destroying our environment.
Nationwide we were 20 million strong that day
, with demonstrations, rallies, education and a new focus on our environment. A
t my campus, Northeastern University, we held a protest rally and educational events. As a demonstration of the ills of fossil fuels, we took sledge hammers to a Volkswagen Beetle and destroyed it.
That was 46 years ago and many of the issues have not changed. Some of the outcomes from that massive bipartisan movement were the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the implementation of the Clean Air, Endangered Species and Clean Water acts. Perhaps my grandchildren would not be able to see brown pelicans if it were not for these policies.
What did I do next? After university came a career in human services and government and
having a family.
But
, it was not until the birth of my grandchildren and my retirement that I returned to my roots and passions. Elders Climate Action reached out to me and I knew it was time to act. I am picking up where I left off 46 years ago,
and
ready to make a difference for all of the grandchildren.
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ECA at Earth Day 2016, Indianapolis, IN
Paul Severance and Robin Gobetz spent Earth Day at a booth at the Indianapolis Earth Day Festival, and signed up 35 new members for ECA, and collected a number of visual messages for Indiana members of Congress.
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What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming: Towards a New Psychology of Climate Action
(2015)
Per Espen Stoknes
Do you find yourself angry and frustrated when your friends, relatives or even politicians just don't - or won't - get it and pooh-pooh climate change? Do you feel frustrated and helpless because you don't see anything you can do that will make a difference? If so, this book is a must read.
Stoknes shines a penetrating light into the all-too-human psychology that can prevent us from grappling effectively with climate change. He explains why the traditional "scientific" framing of climate change can be counterproductive, driving people to denial. He explores new ways of thinking about global warming that can empower us to move forward productively in the political, the social, and our own personal spheres.
And, finally, Stoknes shares a deep poetic and philosophical vision of our relationship with the natural world that provides a comforting anchor in the stormy seas of climate change. Reading this book will awaken a new awareness and empathy that can free you to engage positively on the issue of climate change. It certainly did so with the author of this review!
If you cannot spare the time to read this book here is a
link to a short video overview of The Climate Paradox.
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Pachamama Alliance
by
Cassie Stiftl, Social Media Coordinator
Who do we need to be and what do we need to do at this momentous time in history? What is needed to actually "change the game" - transforming the systems and structures that stand in the way of achieving a just, sustainable, and fulfilling future for all?
You can explore the answers to these questions and be propelled into game-changing action in Pachamama Alliance's Game Changer Intensive 7-week online course. The next Game Changer Intensive begins July 5th - registration deadline is June 26th. These programs are offered several times a year. For more information, click here.
Pachamama Alliance supports groups like Elder Climate Action to take the course in small local groups, so they can engage with the course curriculum deeply, together, and in-person. If you would like more information about taking GCI as a small group, email Josh Wolf at
josh@pachamama.org.
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Featuring Delaney Reynolds, Ahead of the Tide is a series of ten five minute videos on climate
change.
Ellen Post Blog
The Pachmama Alliance
Climate Justice Month
Our Common Earth
contains articles, websites, and videos exploring how our volatile climate will affect the future of food, work, and life on planet earth. Th
is is a website hosted by Lynn Raskin, an Elders Climate action volunteer and is full of resources. Visit:
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Stay connected via our
ECA website
,
Facebook
page,
bulletins and newsletters for updates and opportunities in
your communities.
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Elders Climate Action
is
a Project of the
Conscious Elders Network
The
Conscious Elders Network (CEN) is an educational, non-profit organization fostering a budding movement of vital elders, dedicated to growing in consciousness while actively addressing the demanding challenges facing our country.
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Facebook is an essential tool in getting the word out about Elders Climate Action. The more our Facebook page is visited, LIKED, and SHARED, the more people we will reach. In order to be seen, we need you! Learn the
Facebook
basics
here.
Like us on Facebook now!
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There are many ways
to get involved with
Elders Climate Action.
Each person and their efforts
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let us hear from you on
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what you enjoyed about this newsletter.
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May
