May 2025 News and Views

May News and Views

May 22, 2025

May General Meeting Will Focus on Storytelling for Sun Day

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

If you’re wondering how to spread the word about Sun Day in September, we’re offering one way for you to do just that at our next virtual General Meeting!

Join Third Act Faith (TAF) on Tuesday, May 27 at 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET, as we gather to learn about Third Act Upstate New York’s “Storytelling for Sun Day” project from TAUNY members Joe Shedd and Steve Danna. You’ll hear how the storytelling concept was formed and how it’s being used to talk to others about Sun Day, a celebration of all things solar on September 21 being planned by Third Act (TA) and other grassroots organizations. Register for this Zoom meeting on our website.

Believing that personal stories can often sway climate skeptics, Joe and Steve will offer some examples of how to use storytelling to encourage others to take part in Sun Day, followed by some hands-on time to practice writing your own story and telling it to others. Our goal at the end of this meeting is for you to be equipped with a new tool that you can use back home in your own faith circles to not only encourage others to care about climate change, but also to highlight Sun Day activities and events being planned in your geographic area.

Visit TAUNY’s YouTube channel to hear stories by some of their members, including Marjorie McCoy, a retired lawyer, healthcare chaplain, and practicing Buddhist, as she talks about working with other people of faith to confront the changes they saw in the natural world.

Third Act and Others Launch Sun Day

As people of faith, we often see how setbacks lead to new opportunities. Third Act founder Bill McKibben and other have decided to turn the setback of the 2024 election into a golden opportunity by planning Sun Day the weekend of September 20-21. While the primary goal of Sun Day is to advance the green energy transformation, underlying goals include moving away from fossil fuel extraction and toward eco-justice and creation care. These broad goals can align us with hundreds if not thousands of groups and networks that are seeking to accomplish similar changes in our culture and economy.

Third Act Faith is grateful to those who attended our April 29 General Meeting to help generate ideas for how faith-based partners can get involved. Ideas ranged from having a bishop on a crane blessing solar panels to creating a video prayer service that individuals, working groups, or congregations could use. The TAF Planning Team is considering these ideas and will be sharing concrete plans in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile TA Central offers these ideas for what you can do now:

Visit the www.sunday.earth website to learn more.
Read Bill McKibben’s description of the 4/26 Sun Day launch event at Old North Church.
Sign up your creation care, eco-justice, or climate action team to be a Sun Day partner.
Plan to put a green light in your church’s steeple on the summer solstice (June 20) to signal the path to a green energy future.
Connect with the regional TA working group in your area to help design local events.
Spread the word by sharing this opportunity and the Sun Day website with others.
Join the TAF Sun Day planning team by emailing Patty.werner@live.com and writing “TAF SUN DAY” in the subject line.

Bill McKibben wrote, “Sun Day will have not just a technical heart, but an emotional one—lots of art and music, and if you’re into that sort of thing, a certain amount of divine inspiration.” He added, “our hope is that [Sun Day] will blaze up into something larger and more beautiful than we can imagine.”

This is our chance to turn the setback of the election and all our angst and anger about it into a positive step towards the future we envision for our children and grandchildren. Let’s get busy!

Journey Through “The Work That Reconnects” Continues

On June 10, we will offer the second session of Joanna Macy’s “Work That Reconnects”, “Honoring our Pain for the World.” This set of simple but profound practices is designed to help us build strength and resilience for our work to heal the world. Conceived as a spiral rather than a linear process, you can join at any point and do not need to have attended previous sessions.

TA CENTRAL NEWS

Third Act Partners with Other Orgs to Stand Up for Democracy

As we continue to see blatant violations of our democratic process, Third Act is partnering with other groups to organize demonstrations against such attacks. On April 5, Third Actors joined millions across the country for Hands Off! a national day of action, and TA members stood up for workers, working families, and the environment in the largest May Day demonstration in U.S. history as part of May Day Strong.

The next opportunity is No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance on June 14. On that day, Donald Trump plans a military parade in Washington, D.C., as a display of might intended to intimidate opponents and solidify his image as a strongman at taxpayers’ expense. In response, Americans across the country plan to rise up to show that our country’s power rests with the people.

You can read more and access the toolkits and hosting information online or look for an event near you. To host an event, use this link, which is specific to Third Act.

We will try to keep you posted as these opportunities come up, but given the unpredictable nature of this administration, demonstrations in response to specific actions may be planned with short notice. You can follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram to keep up with the latest information.

NEWS FROM PARTNERS AND FRIENDS

GreenFaith Encourages “Soular Power” on Sun Day

Our friends at GreenFaith are also taking part in Sun Day by encouraging Soular Power—“the fierce, radiant energy of people of faith rising together in courage, love, and sacred defiance.” They are calling on faith communities to help generate Soular Power for Faiths4ClimateJustice in public actions the weekend of September 19-21.

GreenFaith Executive Director Rev. Fletcher Harper writes that in the face of the deepening climate disaster and the revocation of decades of climate policy, “people of faith are called to respond with courage and clarity. Research shows that the most potent antidote to authoritarianism is when trusted leaders and communities speak out and take action….This is a moment for moral leadership rooted in love, justice, and faith.”

GreenFaith held two launch calls in May to teach folks how to organize an action in their community, how to build a Soular Circle, and ways to shine through prayer, protest, and public witness. As Harper writes, “Faith communities provide belonging and moral clarity and nourish the courage, joy, and solidarity needed to meet this moment.”

You can read more about their plans and how you can take part on the GreenFaith website.

RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS

We were deeply saddened by the death of Pope Francis, whose environmental commitments energized people of faith beyond the Catholic community. His 2015 encyclical, Laudato si’, was the first ever written by a pope on the subject of the environment, and TA founder Bill McKibben called it arguably the most important document yet written in this millenium. You can read about the impact of Laudato si’ here and listen to McKibben's tribute to the late pope at this online celebration hosted by the Laudato Si’ Movement.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV has expressed equal concern for the urgency of climate change, although he has not spoken extensively on the issue. Read more in this story from Fast Company.
After EPA Chief Lee Zeldin, a grandson and great-grandson of rabbis, installed a mezuza outside his office door, Jewish environmentalists questioned how his actions at the agency align with Jewish ethics, such as Tikun Olam (repair of the world). Read more in this New York Times article (free link).
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, eminent scholars and co-directors of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology (FORE), recently traveled to China to explore the idea of ecological civilization—a powerful concept shaping China’s environmental future and offering deep insights for our shared planetary wellbeing. Check the FORE website for news of their previous trips and reports to come from this journey.

From Bill McKibben:

Bill was a guest on Fr. John Dear's Nonviolent Jesus Podcast, where he talked about climate change and how to respond by joining movements, taking to the streets, and building political will.
Bill and TA Senior Advisor Akaya Windwood wrote an OpEd that ran under the headline “Why older Americans are Trump’s biggest nightmare” in newspapers across the country earlier this month.

CLIMATE GOOD NEWS

TAF is delighted to welcome Trisha Tull back to the Coordinating Committee and to have her compiling our Climate Good News each month. Trisha is a Presbyterian minister and A. B. Rhodes Professor Emerita of Hebrew Bible at Louisville Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. You can read about her Bible study addressing faith and environmental fairness in our March 2024 “Going Deep” essay.

Among the many uplifting, informative climate podcasts available to listeners is Climate One. (Others include Living On Earth, Volts, Outrage+Optimism, Climate Rising, and A Matter of Degrees.)

Climate One’s May 2 pod featured guests discussing why, despite the present U.S. administration, climate progress continues to expand. According to Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown, we already have the tools needed for climate solutions. He focused on local and low-tech solutions, such as the “right to repair” movement and composting to eliminate food waste.

Grist CEO Nikhil Swaminathan agreed, saying, “the energy transition is going to happen because [businesses] … want to make sure their shareholders are happy and their bottom lines are healthy.”

Jenny Odell, author of New York Times bestsellers How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, discussed the unpredictability of the future, which is non-linear in surprising ways. She used the example of a conversation, which can never be planned because the other person’s responses are unpredictable. Similarly, since we can’t predict what other people or history itself will do, we can’t assume decline. Volunteering on a local issue that produces speedy results promotes hope.

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 27: TAF General Meeting: The Storytelling Project and Sun Day. (Zoom), 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET. REGISTER HERE.

May 28: Hope & Joy: Behavioral Neuroscience, Activism, and You – A Conversation with Molly Crockett. (Zoom), 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET REGISTER HERE.

June 10: The Work That Reconnects: Honoring Our Pain for the World. (Zoom), 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET. REGISTER HERE.

June 14: No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance. Various locations and times across the country. Use this link to sign up as a member of Third Act.

June 16: Welcome to Third Act: Let’s Get Started. (Zoom), 4:30 PM PT / 7:30 PM ET. REGISTER HERE.

We encourage you to visit thirdact.org/events to see the full list of Third Act events, including virtual and in-person events that geographic working groups may be holding in your area.

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