[COPY] Revised January 21st Third Act Educators' Newsletter
Stay up to date and take action!
Next Third Act Educators Working Group Meetings:
Feb. 8th, 6pm EST/3pm PST.
Bill McKibben will be our guest speaker.
All Third Act Educators are encouraged to send in the questions/topics they would most like to hear Bill speak about.
Send questions/topics to: thirdacteducators@gmail.com
Register for the call here.
Start getting ready!
On March 21st, Third Act initiative groups will be hosting a Day of Action to make an impact, garner publicity, and make more third actors! If you want to inspire others and be a part of something bigger than yourself, click here to learn more!
We are in motion with our Educators’ Initiatives for the Third Act Day of Action 3/21.
We have three excellent groups: Divestment; Teach-ins; and K-12 Climate Education Legislation. Please take time to read through the descriptions below and then complete the form indicating which project team you are interested in joining.
**THIRD ACT EDUCATORS’ DIVESTMENT PROJECT of 2023
TA Educators Divestment Project of 2023: K-12 Teachers Pension Funds, and College and University Endowments. These are among the key Third Act objectives following the Day of Action.
State Teacher Pension Divestment Project
Third Act Educators is teaming up with Climate Safe Pensions Network for this project. As CSPN puts it, “With more than $46 trillion in assets worldwide, pension funds are among the largest institutional investors in fossil fuels. The fastest way for pensions to address climate change is to divest from their fossil fuel holdings and invest in just and equitable climate solutions.”
Teacher pensions invested in fossil fuels present a particularly tragic irony for Third Act Educators: Our retirement dollars are being used to destroy the future of the young people whose future it has been our whole life’s work to improve.
Working with CSPN Educators will be plugged into pension divestment movements where they exist, and help initiate campaigns in locations where they don’t yet exist. We are also being provided access to their superb master resource depository. And please make use of their new email tool to write your state representatives to demand divestment: email-to-target-tool.
We will also continue our research on teacher pension fund divestment across the nation and seek to publish the results of our work in major K-12 teacher news outlets.
College and University Endowments
Some 80 percent of institutions of higher education with $2 billion or more in endowments have not yet divested. Upwards of a trillion dollars of higher education endowment may still be invested in fossil fuels.
Third Act Educators will be engaged in outreach to alumni associations and student climate action groups—both those in their particular areas, as well as those of which they may be alumnae/alumni—to advance institutional divestment.
Educators continue to be engaged with TIAA-Divest! and encourage all our members to join their effort by signing their petition here. Further discussions with Vanguard-SOS will also be taking place.
So there is a lot of work to do, and we need all hands on deck. If you are interested in joining our divestment project team, please use this form. .
**TEACH-IN PROJECT
As Third Act educators, we are engaged in Third Act’s mission to muster political and economic power to move Washington and Wall Street in the name of a fairer, more sustainable society and planet. To that end, Sheryl and I would like to invite everyone with a passion for drawing on our expertise as educators to join the Teach-ins team.This project team envisions designing, developing and providing teach-ins focused around 32123, to be held up to and including the day of action. This team needs members to curate content, to write scripts, to proofread, to curate images, to create Google slide decks or learn to create Google slide decks for each teach-in. January and February may be intense for this team as the goal is to complete the design/development of the teach-ins of extraordinary value to our working group and to Third Act by March 1 and to facilitate them ramping up to and on the day of action.
Possible topics will be determined by the team and may include:
Local actions a Third Actor might take as an individual:
Climate change
The 4 big banks and uncovering the relationship between cash and carbon
Divestment
Responsible Finance with a focus on credit cards and banks
Climate Education Legislation
We invite all those engaged in the mini action teams to continue their good work and join us under the umbrella of teach-ins for our day of action. Following 32123, the team will continue to design, develop, and hold teach-ins in areas they feel will meet the needs of our working group supporters and other Third Actors. If you'd like to join us, please use this form.
**K-12 CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATION LEGISLATION PROJECT
Our project team will:
Examine the current state of Climate Change Education Legislation
Develop templates to encourage states to pass Climate Change Legislation
Identify and cultivate relationships with key allies in state legislative bodies and Climate Change Education advocacy groups
Mobilize key groups to increase support of public education, climate change education, and green school infrastructure bills in order to create the groundswell of support needed to pass Climate Change Education Legislation.
If you are interested in joining in this work to assure all young people are given the information they will need to be informed, active citizens in the times to come, please use this form to sign up.
Wondering What You Can Do in the Next Two Weeks?
We've got you covered!
All in Call: January 2023
January 25, 2023, 8:00 pm ET/5 pm PT
Join us for 60-minutes of music, campaign & organizing updates, and Day of Action news!
Responsible Finance #4: Retirement Planning
January 26, 2023 3:00 pm ET/12 noon PT
In this webinar you will learn how to use your retirement plan to reflect your social and environmental values!
Community Conversations: Intergenerational Activism
January 31, 2023 6:00 pm ET/3pm PT
Our 60-minute Intergenerational Activism discussion will be a great place for youth and elders to gain inspiration for video contest projects, intergenerational community building, and creative discovery.
Click Here for more information about the Intergenerational Video Contest Guidelines
Educators’ Initiatives at a Glance
Join the TIAA-Divest-Volunteers email list:
TIAA is the investment company that holds the highest amount of teacher retirement funds in the United States. We are asking them to divest from fossil fuel companies. Join this campaign!!
To join, please email Kish@browncow.com and he will be happy to handle all requests.
You can also subscribe to the newsletter or take a look through the newsletter archive.
Celebrations/Hope
Ozone Recovery:
The ozone layer depletion has plagued the world for decades, but a new UN assessment says most of the ozone layer will be completely recovered by 2040. Read more here.
Plastic Roads:
5 U.S states are bulldozing their way through the plastic problem by recycling plastic waste into our roadways. See the article here.
Green Hydrogen:
A promising source of clean-burning energy is getting a boost with a new $4 billion factory being planned in Texas. Check out green hydrogen here.
Future Leaders:
More students are asking about how they can have careers in climate change and make a difference. See the article here.
Greatest Hopes of Third Act Educators:
We asked all Third Act Educators at the last Working Group meeting to share their greatest hope right now. Here is what they shared. There is great power in our hope!
Bruce — Success in the day of action
Sheldon — A powerful and successful teacher pension divestment movement!
Marcia — A National teach in….
Lani — My greatest hope is that we will become a mighty force for good for our planet, informing and persuading others through our fierce determination to leave this country and this planet a better place for our children and grandchildren.
Lenore — My greatest hope is in divestment making a powerful difference
Deborah — Our mutual support moves things forward.
Rick — My greatest hope is that Third Act becomes a fully functional organization, with people connected at all levels, both face-to-face and in subgroups like this one.
Eileen — An intense and joyous gathering of concerted energy
Mark — Raise awareness of the urgency of the need to limit climate change.
Tiffany — Activate retired teachers to support current teachers in their area to teach and TAKE climate action. 🌍💪🏼
Laurie — My greatest hope is that we (and others) will finally convince CalSTRS to divest.
Joseph — That we are in action mode in the newly launching group in SoCal
Carolyn — I hope that we can get people to listen and understand how immense the climate crisis is and how much work we have to do.
Liz — Divestment and spreading ideas of hope and good work
Marilyn — My greatest hope is a plan to register all 18 years olds
Gene — That we come together and pool our resources to effect significant change through our actions. We can do it!
Seth — Creation of education programs and a team to deliver them to help new members better understand issues and challenges
Julie — Pension divestment success- particularly CalSTRS
Carl — My greatest hope is to see the development of an active network of sharing educators who use their educative skills and perspectives to create change. “Activist Educators.”
Mary Kay — Acceptance of the diversity that may help us find workable solutions for our mounting challenges.
Margaret — That our actions make a real difference.
Michael — Elect those who 'get it' when it comes to climate-friendly policy.
Eliza — That we can find creative, fun ways to actually become stewards of the earth. A new culture and new way of seeing the world.
David — National and regional Teach Ins
Robert — My hope is that we can help make steps towards repairing the world…
Resources
View past newsletter resources here.
View our ongoing accumulation of Third Act Educator Resources here
UNESCO provides vast databases, publications, and free courses to educate on sustainability. Find out more about them using this link.
“The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.”
― Barry Commoner