March National Call – Bill McKibben and Th!rd Act

Organizing to Win with Bill McKibben, Vanessa Arcara and Third Act

A great opportunity to hear co-founders of the organization Third Act, Bill McKibben and Vanessa Arcara speak of their vision for climate activism.  They will discuss why it’s essential that elders step up to an active role in the global climate movement that’s been built mostly by young people. Vanessa will explain how Third Act is organized and its plan for leading elders in meaningful action. Bill will talk about why, without our vigorous participation, the movement may not achieve what’s needed for a livable future. He will remind us of the massive power our generation will bring to the climate movement, through our numbers, wealth, political clout and wisdom…and the imperative to bring it now. Third Act is growing very quickly, and we at ECA are proud to count them as allies in our effort to get this job done.

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, a founder of 350.org, and now co-founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and the forthcoming The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened. He is the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2013 he won the Gandhi Peace Award; in 2014 he was awarded Sweden’s Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel. He holds honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. McKibben has also launched a subscription newsletter, The Crucial Years, on Substack

Vanessa Arcara is the President and co-founder of Third Act. She is an activist and administrator, a gardener and a mother. Vanessa began her activist work in the world of food justice at Slow Food USA, SolidarityNYC, and on small farms across the northeast of the United States. Her writing has been published in State of the World: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. For the last decade she’s worked on the climate crisis at 350.org, helping coordinate actions big and small. She lives in upstate New York with her family.