Mark your calendars for June 14! Third Act hosts a can’t-miss Teach In and Campaign Launch.

About this event

Join us in launching Power Up Communities! Alongside more than a dozen other partners, we’re building the largest-ever coordinated nationwide initiative to influence Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) in order to strengthen clean energy policies and build a better future to pass on to our grandchildren.

If you’re asking, “what are Public Utility Commissions?,” this Teach In is for you! PUCs are state-wide regulatory bodies that execute climate and energy policies with broad but sometimes opaque authority.

We’re pulling back the curtain to equip you with the knowledge to engage with your local PUC and strengthen clean energy policy in your backyard!

Energy rockstar and author Dr. Leah Stokes, Senior Policy Counsel at Rewiring America, will demystify the policymaking process for us, cutting through the jargon and illuminating how PUCs fit into the larger climate conversation, why these bodies are integral to the success of the IRA climate legislation, and more.

This is only the beginning. We’ll be fostering new opportunities all year for you to play a role, individually and collectively, to influence PUCs and protect your climate.

Leah Stokes

Dr. Leah Stokes is a policy expert with nearly two decades of experience working on climate and energy, including championing a federal Clean Electricity Standard. She has four degrees, including her doctorate from MIT, and was recently recognized on the 2022 TIME100 Next and Business Insider Climate Action 30 lists. Leah is conversant in a wide variety of climate and energy topics, including public policy, political science, planning, and psychology. Her recent award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy examines why we are behind on climate action, telling the history of fossil fuel companies and electric utilities promoting climate denial and delay. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the co-host of the popular climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees,” and a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America. Her academic work is published in top journals and is widely read and cited. Find her @leahstokes.

Jeremy Friedman

Jeremy Friedman is Campaign Strategist for Third Act. Jeremy spearheads TA’s new effort to engage PUCs and to foster a nationwide coalition of movement organizations able to ensure that PUC advocacy is a key front in securing a safe and clean energy future. They also support TA’s programs for folks to participate in and protect democracy during, between and beyond elections. Working many years as a massage therapist in addition to community organizing, Jeremy believes strongly that change is inevitable, generative, and always unfolding at the personal, relational scale of our physical bodies. They are based in Philadelphia, with roots in New York City and Chicago.

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. 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.