October News & Views
What better way to begin a monthly meeting of Third Actors last week than listening to a recording of Willie Nelson singing all about voting? Below read what TAF is doing to help get out the vote as part of our Uplift Democracy and Voting Campaign.
IN THIS ISSUE
Top Stories
— Third Act Faith’s New Logo
— Katharine Hayhoe at Nov. 7 General Meeting
Organizing News
Third Act Central
Stories Revisited
News from Our Partners & Friends
Did You Know?
Resources
Upcoming Events
TOP STORIES
Third Act Faith has a New Logo!
By Jane Ellen Nickell
Third Act Faith Co-Facilitator
Knowing the importance of logos in communicating an organization’s brand (think of the Apple apple, the Nike swoosh or the distinctive type and colors of the FedEx logo), Third Act turned to a New York ad agency, which developed one that speaks to its members’ bold activism, using distinctive colors and the striking typeface “Bayard.” Inspired by signs from the 1963 March on Washington and named for one of its chief organizers, Bayard Rustin, the typeface recalls the legacy of Civil Rights activism. The Third Act logo and related graphics for our 3.21.23 National Day of Action gave us high visibility and the Third Act “brand” was clear in photos from across the country.
Now, as Third Act grows, it is expanding that brand by creating a distinctive logo for each working group. The TAF Coordinating Committee wanted an image that shows we are a religious group — without reflecting a specific religion. After considering several images, we settled on a tree of life, which has been used in religions and cultures throughout the world to represent the force that connects all living things, the cycle of life and death and creation itself. Third Act Central has allowed us to share this sneak peek at our new logo, which we will roll out in the coming weeks.
The idea of a sacred tree dates to ancient times and is found in Daoist mythology, ancient Hindu texts and Mesoamerican cosmology. The Buddha achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree in India. In the creation story in Genesis, God creates the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as well as the tree of life, which is an important symbol in Judaism, especially the mystical Kabbalah tradition. The creation narrative in Islam mentions the tree of immortality, and a common pattern in Islamic architecture is based on palm leaves, representing spiritual growth.
Along with the “Faith” wordmark, the tree of life icon will make us easily recognizable as religious people who care about the Earth and seek justice.
Katharine Hayhoe to Speak at Nov. 7 General Meeting
World-renowned climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe will be the guest speaker at our next General Meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 7. The virtual meeting will begin at 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST). Register in advance for this meeting.
Chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, Katharine Hayhoe is a professor at Texas Tech University. Her TED talk has over 4 million views, and her book “Saving Us – A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World” is a best seller. She served as lead author of the second, third and fourth National Climate Assessments, and her PBS series, “Global Weirding: Climate, Politics and Religion,” continues its multi-year run.
Widely recognized as the world’s foremost communicator on the climate crisis, she makes climate science easily understandable and reaches across the political divide. As an evangelical Christian, she faces the challenge of climate change with hope and the belief that we can come together to act.
ORGANIZING NEWS
Members to gather for “Meet and Greet” today
Third Act Faith members will be gathering on Zoom today (Oct. 19), beginning at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT), for an opportunity to meet and learn about our working group and upcoming actions. Coordinating Committee members Dan Terpstra and Kathleen Dickson, who also serve on our banking and program committees, respectively, will host the gathering. Register here.
The next “Meet and Greet,” hosted by Coordinating Committee members Ace Leveen and Mary Jane Cherry, will be at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) Dec. 4. Look for registration details in the November newsletter.
THIRD ACT CENTRAL NEWS
September’s News & Views reported that Third Act Central had begun organizing Third Act’s three national campaigns to “Democratize Energy, ”Advance Fossil-free Financing” and “Uplift Democracy & Voting.” Read on for reports from our campaign liaisons.
Campaign to Democratize Energy
Most U.S. households are tied to monopoly electrical grids that do not necessarily act in our interests, even though we fund them. Consequently, Third Actors, organizing a “Democratizing Energy” campaign, are ramping up to change this, using the tools of governance itself to do so.
We’re doing this in three ways:
First, we are learning about our state Public Utility Commissions (PUCs), the bodies appointed to regulate the utility companies that both power and depend upon us. In some states, fortunately, these commissions function democratically, with rate payers’ interests in mind; unfortunately, in other states, a revolving door between the boards and the industries they are supposed to oversee means they serve the monopolies and not their customers. We can help change that. Dr. Leah Stokes, professor of environmental politics at the University of California Santa Barbara and author of Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States, spent time this summer teaching Third Actors how PUCs operate and how we might influence their decisions.
Dr. Stokes also promotes the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), the U.S.’s most wide-ranging and effective law ever to reduce greenhouse gases, foster environmental justice and create clean jobs. (Read here how Stokes decarbonized her own home with help from the IRA.)
A second emphasis of Third Act’s Democratize Energy efforts is to protect and publicize this legislation, primarily by spreading word of its benefits. The IRA offers billions of dollars in tax credits and rebates to households, businesses, nonprofits and congregations to increase efficiency and electrify everything — thus fighting climate change and protecting our pocketbooks. With it, we can stop burning fossil fuels. We can install highly efficient electric heat pumps (either ground-source or air-source), efficient appliances, solar panels and, where needed, battery storage. Significantly, while some of these benefits have been available to households before, the IRA uniquely allows congregations and nonprofits to take advantage of its tax credits for the very first time. For Third Actors who belong to faith communities, this means we can go green and save green where we worship as well as where we live and work.
Third, all of this democratizing of energy systems will be supported by Third Act’s emphasis on legislative advocacy in our states and country, ensuring that these benefits will be protected and strengthened for as long as we need them.
To learn what it means to electrify everything in our homes and buildings, get to know Rewiring America. Download this handbook to learn the basics. This calculator will tell you how much your household can save.
Third Actors are needed for these large and vital efforts. If you are interested in helping improve public utility commissions, promoting the benefits of the IRA, or advocating with your legislators, please contact Third Act Faith today. (Submitted by Trisha Tull, TAF Campaign Liaison)
Campaign to Advance Fossil-Free Finance
If you watched the Third Act All-In Call on Sept. 28, you already know what we’re talking about: the “Costco: Clean Up Your Credit Card” campaign is official and underway! If you want to know more about this campaign, there are many resources on the Third Act website, including this FAQs page.
Of course, one of the first things we all can do to support this campaign is sign the petition that calls on Costco to drop Dirty Bank Citi as its credit card partner because of Citi’s role in funding catastrophic climate change.
The next thing you can do is help Third Act Central coordinate its campaign activities by completing a short survey so they can know more about activating working groups and their members.
The third thing you can do as a member of Third Act Faith is to help us brainstorm ways to customize this campaign to engage our faith communities. Does a bulletin insert work in your worshiping context? What about an announcement during a worship service? Does your congregation have a Creation Care Team or something equivalent? Maybe there are ways you can make this a project.
This is an excellent opportunity to apply some moral suasion to Costo, and encourage them to live into their motto: “Do the right thing”! Who better to do that than Third Act Faith?
Third Act Central is working on a Costco Toolkit that should be available soon, containing strategies and art that can be adapted to the work of Third Act Faith. We’ll keep you posted. (Submitted by Dan Terpstra, TAF Campaign Liaison)
Campaign to Uplift Democracy & Voting
With Election Day (Nov. 7) only 19 days away, a particular urgency comes with this month’s report on Third Act’s campaign to protect voters’ rights and safeguard democracy. So right now we’re involved with Activate America’s postcard campaign, working to mobilize Third Actors to send out 10,000 postcards to voters in five states with tight races: Arizona, California, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Not up for sending postcards? Visit Activate America and sign up for their other volunteer opportunities — phone banking, texting, canvassing and amplifying.
The stakes are high with these elections, reports Activate America. Ohioans have “the opportunity to enshrine abortion protection in the state constitution.” Flipping three representative seats in California can help determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024. Gun violence is an issue in the race for Arizona’s next U.S. Senator, and in races in New York for three seats in the U.S. House. And, in Pennsylvania’s school board races, voters will be choosing between extremists and “highly qualified school board candidates who support all children and their freedom to learn” and “oppose book bans and bigotry.”
As Third Act explains on its website, postcards are a “proven tactic” to help win elections, and we need to win several elections and ballot initiatives in 2023 and build “voter enthusiasm now so we can take back the House, protect the Senate, and win the Presidency in 2024.” Third Act is partnering with Activate America because it works with local experts and national organizations, thus ensuring “our efforts are coordinated, our messages are evidence-based and your time is used well by focusing on lower information voters in places where elections will be close.”
If you decide to send postcards, you can find clear, thorough instructions at Third Act’s postcards campaign page, or go directly to Activate America to sign up. Activate America will send you a list of voter addresses and the postcard script within 48 hours. You will be responsible for providing the postcards and postage, but you can find sources for appropriate postcards on the Activate America and the Third Act websites.
Third Act Central wants to know if you participated. Drop the campaign organizers an email letting them know how many postcards you sent (on your own or with a postcard party), or share a photo of your postcards, your name, and something about yourself or how many postcards you wrote. Email this to takingaction@thirdact.org — and please contact info@thirdact.org if you have questions about Third Act’s Safeguarding Our Democracy activities. (Submitted by Mary Jane Cherry, TAF Campaign Liaison)
Stories Revisited
Lobbyist watchdog is set to help working groups
Third Act has a new partner, F Minus, a lobbyist watchdog that has built an impressive cross-reference database of fossil fuel industry lobbyists. Third Act can help working groups connect with F Minus, which will work with any Third Act working group to provide data about lobbyists and their clients from fossil fuel companies, utilities and government officials and agencies! Please pass along this information to your state or community working group. An F Minus team can help your group build a narrative for an initiative targeting a specific politician, agency or law as you engage with voting and democracy.
The #NoFoxFee campaign is ramping up!
Common Cause is collecting signatures to demand that cable companies stop Fox News from profiting off cable customers by raising our bills. If you have not already, please add your name to the #NoFoxFee petition.
NEWS FROM PARTNERS & FRIENDS
Join the ‘Holy Heat Pumps’ webinar Oct. 25
At Interfaith Power & Light's Oct. 25 webinar “Holy Heat Pumps,” you'll learn how heat pumps work, and how to lower the costs of installing them at your congregation with the new government funds available to faith communities. The webinar begins at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT). Learn more and register here to attend (or receive the recording afterward). This program is co-sponsored by United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Women in Faith, Blessed Tomorrow, IPL and Third Act Faith.
Climate activists welcome the Pope’s ‘Laudate Deum’
Anticipating November’s COP28 summit in Dubai, Pope Francis released an Apostolic Exhortation, “Laudate Deum of the Holy Father,” urging world leaders to confront the climate change crisis. “With the passage of time,” the Pope writes, “I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”
The encyclical, released by the Vatican on Oct. 4, does not mince words in holding climate deniers, oil companies and rich nations accountable. “Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident,” says the Pope. The principal challenge, the exhortation states, is addressing the effects of climate change being borne “by the most vulnerable people, whether at home or around the world.” In a year’s time, if global temperatures increase by more than two degrees, he warns, “the icecaps of Greenland and a large part of Antarctica will melt completely, with immensely grave consequences for everyone.”
The Guardian reports that the encyclical calls “for a decisive acceleration of energy transition’ from fossil fuels to renewables, but cautions against relying on new technology such as carbon capture and storage, which he says is ‘like pushing a snowball down a hill.’”
Climate activists welcome the Pope’s intervention, according to the Guardian story, which includes a comment by Third Act founder Bill McKibben: “The work of spiritual leaders around the world may be our best chance of getting hold of things. Yes, the engineers have done their job. Yes, the scientists have done their job. But it’s high time for the human heart to do its job. That’s what we need this leadership for.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Religious leaders face climate skepticism among most faithful
Leadership of religious organizations has for years urged action to save the environment. Last year the National Association of Evangelicals spoke out on the "biblical basis" for environmental activism. The year before that, faith leaders nationwide had urged Congress to act on climate justice as the “moral responsibility of our nation.” Reform Judaism, the Islamic Society of North America and Hindu leaders have all urged environmental justice.
Yet a recent story from Inside Climate News, “Religious Leaders May Be Key to Breaking the Climate Action Gridlock,” reports that a pair of recent surveys (from Pew Research Center, here and PPRI, here) found that people who “strongly identify” with their religious beliefs “tend to dismiss the overwhelming scientific consensus that the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate and humans are behind it.”
Part of the problem, according to the story, is that despite leaders speaking out, church members are bombarded with right-wing media “framing efforts to address climate change … as an attack on personal, cultural and religious freedoms.”
“Conservative media persistently erode trust in scientists by likening climate change to a ‘religion’ ad nauseum,” Media Matters America, the progressive media watchdog group, said in a 2015 report. “By doing so, they implicitly frame climate change skeptics as ‘brave dissidents against an oppressive set of beliefs.’”
There’s nuance to the survey data, though. PPRI’s 2023 survey asked respondents if they believed climate change was caused by humans — and only 39% of those saying “religion is the most important thing in their lives” agreed. But among those who said religion was “one among many important things,” 56% agreed that humans were causing climate change.
Considering that, and a recent statement by Bill McKibben upon the release of Pope Francis’ new encyclical (see related story), Inside Climate News noted that “the findings suggest that spiritual leaders could be key in alleviating the political gridlock that continues to stymie global climate action.”
RESOURCES
Readings about climate
”Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States” by Leah Stokes, Oxford University Press, 2020.
“Moving Forward: A Guide to Climate Action For Your Congregation and Community” by Fête Crews, Anita and James Crocker, ecoAmerica, 2019.
“We Can’t Afford to be Climate Doomers” by Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, July 26, 2023.
Readings about voting
“What Voting Rights Mean for the Planet: The Inextricable Link between Voting Rights and Environmental Justice” by Derek Z. Jackson, Grist, Feb. 1, 2022.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Oct. 25: Holy Heat Pumps (Zoom), IPL webinar, 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT). Register here.
Oct. 30: Welcome to Third Act: Let’s Get Started (Zoom), 7:30 p.m. EDT (4:30 p.m. PDT). Register here. (Next meetings: Nov. 13 and 27).
Nov. 2: Third Act New Hampshire Launch (Zoom), 7 p.m. EDT. Register here.
Nov. 5: Daylight Savings Time ends. Turn clocks back one hour at 2 a.m.
Nov. 7: Climate Scientist Katharine Hayhoe at TAF General Meeting (Zoom), 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST). Register here.
Nov. 9: Third Act Tennessee Launch (Zoom), 7 p.m. EST. Register here.
Nov. 14: Third Act Faith Connecticut Launch (Zoom), 7 p.m. EST. Register here.
Send Us Your Photos and Stories
Third Acts of Faith is published the third week of each month. Please send us your news (up to 300 words) and photos by the 7th day of each month, and help keep our members updated on what you and your faith communities are doing to safeguard our democracy and beloved Earth. Send the submission to thirdactfaith@gmail.com