Mobilizing Older Adults for Climate Action With Simone Salvo

This episode features a conversation with Simone Salvo, Creative Director at Third Act, an organization harnessing unparalleled generational power to safeguard the climate and democracy. It was recorded in June 2024.

Simone’s work blends design, media, and technology to bridge generational and digital divides and drive impactful social change. In her role at Third Act, she leads the charge in building an accessible technological infrastructure for a powerful elder-led climate justice movement, amplifying the progressive activism of Americans over sixty, under the guidance of environmentalist Bill McKibben.

Previously, Simone was Head of Creative Communications at the Magnum Foundation, serving a global network of social justice-focused image makers, as well as committing herself to a research and communications fellowship at Human Rights First, a non-partisan organization working to right human wrongs.

She’s also an adjunct faculty member at the NYU-Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program, where she teaches courses on memory and immersive media, where her focus is on leveraging technology to enhance storytelling, rather than the other way around.

Amongst other things, Simone and I discussed the practicalities involved in engaging older adults on the climate, the enormous, largely-untapped structural power that this demographic brings to the table, and the unique ability of legacy to motivate people to take action.

Additional links:

Visit the Third Act website

Discover the Summer of Heat campaign

Read Bill McKibben’s article, “Photo editors get lazy in the heat”

Watch as a 100 year-old woman gets arrested on her birthday

See that photo of Dorothy Day and the Farmworker Movement