North Carolina Working Group

Welcome! Third Act North Carolina is a new working group that’s part of the national Third Act organization. We are committed seniors of North Carolina communities who are determined to change the world for the better.

People over sixty  in the North Carolina Working Group are motivated to implement individual and collective actions to help stabilize the climate, allow people to flourish in their environments, and restore and support our democracy.  We are so aware that we follow in the footsteps of those North Carolina founders of the national environmental justice movement that began in Warren County and of the early leaders of the national Civil Rights movement who in 1960 sat in against racial segregation at a lunch counter in Greensboro.

We seek to address the dual crises of climate change and attacks on our democracy, bearing in mind that in North Carolina the climate crisis is inextricably connected to the crises of environmental injustice that especially affect our state’s Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor people.   The attacks on democracy in North Carolina are pointed attacks on the political and  economic rights of our working population, including people of color – a legacy of the Jim Crow South.

To confront and overcome these two crises, we realize that we need a broad and diverse movement that welcomes and engages everyone. We need ideas, energy, leadership and participation from all occupations, races and ethnicities, gender identities, faiths and abilities.  We aspire to work with  and support the lead of young leaders in the climate movement, and to support Black, Brown and Indigenous leaders and organizations, who are closest to those who are first to lose their democratic rights in working to preserve our democracy.

Who We Are

Third Act North Carolina is just getting underway, and we are learning as we grow.   We are intentionally building a group of people who are over sixty and reflect the diversity of our state, including racial and ethnic identities, class backgrounds, cultures, faith traditions, differently abled, genders, and communities. We are committed to following the Working Principles of Third Act in working within our own North Carolina  communities to implement Third Act’s goals and campaigns.

We do this through a state-wide coordinating committee of volunteers who work directly with Third Act’s national staff and volunteers to define overall direction, as outlined in its Working Group Agreements. In North Carolina, our coordinating committee will work at three levels.

First, our coordinating committee works at the national scale with the Third Act national organization to coordinate its campaigns within North Carolina.  As these national campaigns get underway, the coordinating committee and our members will work together with the Third Act national organization to maximize the impact of North Carolinians participating in these campaigns for climate justice and to protect democratic rights.  We look forward enthusiastically to participating in future campaigns with the Third Act national organization that will help move America to a more democratic and greener future without fossil fuels.

Second, our committee works with Third Act members at the state-wide scale to bring together Third Actors within a coalition to meet challenges by the fossil fuel industry and its allies in North Carolina that exacerbate climate change, and to oppose those who seek to limit our democratic rights through gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Third Act members will contribute to efforts underway by the state-wide coalition to regulate our state’s utility, Duke Energy, to end future fossil-fuel build-outs (new gas plants, new pipelines), increase its accountability for its coal ash pollution throughout the state, and to pressure it to include more democratic options for our residents to adopt solar and wind energy technologies.

Third Act will work with other organizations to protect our democratic rights throughout North Carolina to oppose gerrymandering and voter suppression, and intimidation of our state’s most vulnerable residents around environmental racism linked to climate injustice.

Lastly, our coordinating committee works with local Third Act groups and individuals to facilitate the exchange of information between our local communities across the state and offer support to those whose environmental and political rights are being threatened.

At the local level, our communities face many environmental and political challenges, like fracked-gas pipelines; polluted air and water from hog industry CAFOs that generate huge volumes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas; and destruction of our coastal forests by the wood-pellet export industry.   Also, there are many organized groups that seek to limit the rights of people in local communities to vote freely and without fear.

We’re looking for leaders from diverse backgrounds who are willing to work on or with the coordinating committee. If you are such a person, let us know by joining our group or emailing us at ThirdActNC@gmail.com .

We need everyone who shares our values of restoring and passing along a livable planet and a thriving and fully participatory democracy. This is no time for seniors to take a back seat and expect others to address these problems that many seniors have been party to.   Our time is now!

What We Do

Third Act North Carolina brings together seniors who are motivated to work together to protect and improve our democracy and to protect our world from the ravages of a climate crisis. We work toward becoming a diverse group in our racial and ethnic group identities, class backgrounds, cultures, faith traditions, and differently abled, and welcome all who share our aims. We are focused on preserving our planet, and righting wrongs in our system in coalition with other groups so that we leave a livable world with an equitable and just democracy.  We will seek to achieve these objectives by working at national, state, and local scales in North Carolina, using our skills, creativity, energy, money and not least, a sense of humor, as we do so. 

In the coming months, Third Act North Carolina will be recruiting new members and leaders (including coordinating committee members at ThirdActNC@gmail.com ).   We will be working with other Third Act groups throughout the U.S. leading up to the National Day of Action on March 21, 2023.  At the state level, we will focus on reforming and pressuring Duke Energy to reduce its fossil fuel investments and make a commitment to a green energy future for North Carolina.   At the local level, Third Actors will work on projects of their own choosing to limit climate change, environmental injustice, and to preserve and enhance democracy.

 

Banking On Our Future

Like previous generations, some of our generation are unwittingly helping fund the climate crisis by investing our financial resources – if we have them — in the Big Banks that loan our money to polluting fossil fuel extractive industries.   Many others of us have limited and fixed incomes, and we suffer from rising energy costs, which have added to inflation and our cost of living.   If we are poor people or people of color and live in frontline and fence-line communities, we suffer from fossil-fuel- caused air and water pollution and climate chaos induced extreme weather– the Big Banks don’t care, but nourish the fossil-fuel industries that harm us and our children and grandchildren.

Many banks tell us they will achieve “net zero emissions by 2050” to make us think they are part of the solution, but every year they continue to invest billions in new oil and gas wells, coal mines, pipelines, liquified natural gas export facilities, fossil fuel power plants and other facilities that will keep us in a fossil-fueled future.

We have the power to demand our banks divest our money from dirty fossil fuels in two ways. For some of us with retirement or other savings, we pledge that they will lose us as customers.  For those of us living on limited means, we have an even more powerful weapon: our energies translated into actions to threaten the reputation and influence of the Big Banks and make them change course.  We will all work on behalf of our and future generations to divest financial wealth from fossil fuels and toward more constructive ends.

Join us in Third Act North Carolina in the lead-up weeks to and on March 21, 2023’s Third Act’s National Day of Action against the Bad Banks, and take the Third Act Banking on our Future Pledge now to pressure the Big 4 Banks to stop their greenwashing and fossil fuel investing.

 

Join Us!

If you would like to join Third Act North Carolina, and are willing to subscribe to Third Act’s Working Principles, then please complete and submit the brief sign-up form below to join the Third Act North Carolina Working Group.    A Third Act volunteer will contact you within 1-2  weeks for a one-on-one conversation about your interests, and help you determine how you might develop your interests by contributing to our efforts.   With our collective experience, patience, wisdom, and (for some of us) money, we have our children, grandchildren and Earth to save, and a democracy to protect!