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
Dickon: Hi, and welcome to Communicating Climate Change, a podcast dedicated to helping you do exactly that. I'm Dickon, and I'll be your host as we dig deep into the best practices and the worst offences, always looking for ways to help you, and me, improve our abilities to engage, empower, and ultimately activate audiences on climate-related issues.
This episode features a conversation with Simone Salvo, Creative Director at Third Act, an organisation 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 the age of 60 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 organisation working to right human wrongs. She's also an adjunct faculty member at the NYU University of New York's Tish Interactive Telecommunications program, where she teaches courses on memory and immersive media, and focuses 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. So, let's get on with it. This is Communicating Climate Change with Simone Salvo.
From your perspective, how can communication best contribute in humanity's response to the climate crisis?
Simone: Yeah, so about 70% of Americans, and I'm kind of speaking to that context because that's where Third Act is right now, know that we need to act on climate change. So the key really is getting enough of them to push our leaders to action. And from my perspective, my background is in documentary media, and I've always had an unwavering belief in the power of personal and human-centered stories. When I came into the field of journalism, journalism was in the midst of a massive sea change, and we were moving away from analog and print and towards digital forms of production and distribution. And citizen journalism was taking off, and these rectangles in our pockets were enabling more and more people to share and tell their own stories. So my career kind of followed this wave of emerging media, and started exploring more bleeding-edge forms like augmented reality and volumetric video. All this to say, I remember a moment when talking to my grandmother, and I was just absolutely humbled in trying to explain VR. And so, I don't know, I really became sort of motivated to work in the middle of that Venn diagram between intergenerational and digital divides. And my North Star has sort of always been, how do we use technology to serve the storytelling and not the other way around? Like my grandmother, Third Act’s demographic, people in their 70s, 80s, 90s, they've largely been left behind by technology. And they hold an incredible amount of experience and wisdom and are brilliant storytellers. So where my work is most impactful right now is actually under the hood and making our sort of technological infrastructure more accessible. So I often feel like I'm not actually curating or designing communications campaigns so much as I'm building an amplification system to uplift the stories and the work coming directly from Third Actors.
Dickon: For those listeners who aren't aware of Third Act, could you maybe give an introduction to the organisation and its goals?
Simone: Well, first I'll say if you're over 60, welcome! Please come find us at thirdact.org. Third Act is a movement of Americans over 60 who are fundamentally just determined to leave a safer planet for future generations. So we're volunteer-led, and we're focused on harnessing the experience, the wisdom, and most importantly, the structural power of older adults to tackle the climate crisis and safeguard our democracy. Why older Americans? This is a demographic that's been relatively over-resourced and overlooked, thus under-organized. And so that's really where Third Act comes in as an organizing home and a community builder for both new and seasoned activists.
Dickon: What unique perspectives, experiences, or superpowers do older adults bring to the table when it comes to addressing climate change? And how does Third Act make use of these?
Simone: Okay, so Dickon, I love how you framed this question because older adults like really do have superpowers. I don't know, it must be something, you know, when you get your senior citizen benefits, like you have these superpowers and they're really crucial to addressing climate change. So for one, it's the sheer amount of them. So there are more than 70 million Americans over the age of 60, and that number grows by 10,000 people each day. And they also hold two-thirds. They hold two-thirds of the nation's wealth as opposed to 5% of millennials. And so collectively, this gives them huge leverage as a block of consumers to hold politicians and financial institutions accountable for their fossil fuel investments. And they vote, always. They are such reliable voters. And what I've observed in my work at Third Act is that they're also like extremely patient and persistent. And this really becomes a secret weapon, especially in some of our more intricate, hard-to-explain work.
Things like strengthening energy policies by influencing public utilities commissions, I will tell you, just a year ago when I joined Third Act, I didn’t know what that meant. So, in this age of clicktivism, older people just have this unique stamina to untangle the spagetti bowl of jargon. And they are just showing up in droves to our trainings, learning about these public utility commission regulatory proceedings and using that knowledge to then be able to make comments on dockets, and give testimony as interveners.
And then on kind of like the more visual public-facing side it just creates a spectacle to like arrest older folks who are peacefully protesting. So, many in this demographic are just particularly willing to take bold steps because they feel a deep responsibility to future generations, and frankly, they have less to lose. Aging is a privilege, and not everyone gets to do it, and they want to put that privilege to work.
Dickon: But when it comes to outreach and connecting with this demographic, what is Third Act's approach? I mean you kind of hinted at the innovation that it demands. But when it comes to connecting them with the climate issues, what does it take?
Simone: I feel like actually, many older adults are already concerned about climate issues but the issue is that they feel really isolated, and so we use community and relationship building as sort of the cornerstone, and I was delighted to hear that like some of Third Act's first working groups began in retirement communities. We really approached people with an invitation to use their hard-earned skills. Third Act is full of retired union members, teachers, health care professionals, lawyers, artists, bankers, scientists, I mean I could go on, and they all have a really deeply important role to play and they're also parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and you've talked about in the show how you know legacy is sort of a powerful motivator. The recent episode with John Marshall he said that he was motivated by his son asking why he's not doing more and that really struck a chord because I hear that a lot and it's sort of become a rallying cry.
So, at a lot of protests and actions that we do, Third Actors will actually hold up signs of their kids and grandkids, and we've heard from people that are passing by and from you know maybe staff at the banks where they're protesting that these particular signs really resonate with them and get them curious as to how they can engage and how they can like escalate their concerns to their managers. And we've also heard from youth activists that they've been brought to tears by this kind of show of solidarity.
So, the outreach is using this sort of whisper campaign. It's like once you get elders out there, and they're talking to their friends and hosting postcard writing parties like, that just continues to build and build. It's actually a brilliant project because the Third Actors themselves are the ones activating older adults. They're just reaching out to their networks. So our outreach is really about like giving them the tools to do that.
Dickon: Can you share any specific examples of successful campaigns or initiatives that have effectively engaged this audience?
Simone: Yes, I'm gonna talk about actually a recent big victory because it kind of gives a good overview of how we work, both strategically and how our people showed up.
So this winter, you know, we all saw this big victory when the Biden administration paused approvals for permitting new LNG export facilities and we predict hopefully it's going to take months and months to come up with new criteria for deciding if and when to grant permits. So, a lot of groups like Sierra Club, Public Citizen are using that time to commission studies and marshal arguments. But in that time, leading up until this amazing news, which was a huge blow to the fossil fuel industry, Third Actors were backing frontline communities in the Gulf South, they were writing to the biggest banks, insurance companies, demanding that they follow dramatic change in U.S. policy, and so we were actually planning like a huge sit-in at the Department of Energy when the pause came through, and so it's kind of amazing because we really got to see that like the best actions are the ones that you don't have to take. So, we redirected all of this energy because we had hundreds and hundreds of people ready to come to DC, and so instead we held an in-depth training on non-violent direct action that they could then take back to their working groups, and then this fast forward just a couple of months came in major handy because just right now we've started this 12-week long summer of heat, which is this sort of coalition effort of 12 weeks of sustained non-violent direct action in front of banks and primarily targeting Citibank. And so just last week, 150 Third Actors came to New York and blockaded the entrance of Citibank in rocking chairs, and over 60 of them were arrested. This was a huge turnout like in this first launch week of the summer of heat, elders had the biggest turnout you know demanding justice for future generations. They're basically saying like, “Stop using our hard-earned retirement savings to fund the climate crisis” and so that's like a big example of breadth, like sort of this power in numbers, and then there's also examples of incredible depth you know I was talking about the public utility commission's work and all of that really sustained efforts that working groups do. In Connecticut, Third Actors helped get a really good fantastic PUC commissioner reappointed, and in Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina they have submitted hundreds of comments and shown up at hearings and published op-eds. So, this is really where kind of Third Actors shine too is in this work, it's both the visual image of coming together and in this sustained quiet work, because like, collectively they might not have the influential power on social media as younger generations, but they sure as hell can channel their decades of experience into showing up and making noise where it can be most impactful.
Dickon: I remember seeing a video of a lady, I think she was turning 100 years old, and she was asked, “If you could have anything for your birthday, what would it be?” And it was to be arrested because she'd never been arrested, and the police turned up and put her in the car and put her in cuffs, and she loved it. It was a thrill that she'd never had. I'm sure that that energy must be playing a role here too, like what a way to feel alive!
Simone: It truly is. Actually a really sobering story is that we had like a total beloved volunteer, and his goal was the same, to get arrested before he passed, and he unfortunately passed before that could be realised, and that became like such a source of inspiration to his fellow working group members.
All of these people that were maybe hemming and hawing about escalating to that level, because there's different roles you can play in a protest, but people really like hold that in mind as they do this. Like I said, aging is a privilege, and yeah, it's really special.
Dickon: What role do personal connections and community engagement play in mobilizing older adults to take action on climate issues?
Simone: This one is so easy, it could be one sentence: it's the most important role. Our relational organizing model is really based on building trusting relationships between people, and these are the same ideas that were at the heart of the civil rights and feminism and voting rights movements in the 60s, where a lot of third actors actually got their start. So, we really take this peer-to-peer and relational approach, that both like imparts skills and nurtures creativity and idea sharing and brainstorming so that Third Actors can actually lead themselves, and that's the idea of this volunteer-led model is to have them take charge of their fellow Third Actors.
Dickon: What forums is this happening in? I mean, you mentioned that some of the originators were in retirement homes, is that pretty common? I imagine they would all roll their eyes at me for saying this, but I'm thinking, one of the most popular books, at least in Britain at the moment, and I'm sure elsewhere is the 'Thursday Murder Club' which is about a bunch of people in a retirement home who get together on Thursday afternoons to solve murders. And so that's kind of what I'm imagining here, but in the climate context, is that a pretty common context?
Simone: Yeah, I think the group dynamics - I mean they're using the idea of showing up in groups and building community to plot and plan, and to do it while having fun. So that is like a huge thing, and our lead national organizer B always tells me people will come back if they're having a good time. And so that's kind of the brilliance of it again with combating feelings of isolation and loneliness give people a reason to come together and to keep coming back. I mentioned postcard writing parties, that's actually like a huge thing that they're doing, it makes me want to do it. I've been invited to several now, why am I not doing this? You know we're so focused on the affordances of technology that we do forget these other ways of interacting, though that is also the challenge and I'm sure we'll get into that.
Dickon: What are the major concerns and drivers of this audience and where do those concerns and drivers intersect with climate change?
Simone: Right now, Third Actors have major concerns about the presidential election and the state of our democracy and these are deeply intertwined with climate. Actually, we have a Third Actor, Lee, who is interviewing other Third Actors from across the country and making these videos, so I'll just go straight from the source.
So, Shalom in California said she wants her daughter to inherit fundamental rights like voting, loving freely, and making decisions about her own body which, you know, all within independent on a healthy and thriving earth. Katherine from Wisconsin is concerned about current laws protecting our air, water, food, and medicine being corrupted for corporate profits. And then from our retirement community in Michigan, Barry fears the undermining of democracy and worries that a win for climate change deniers is going to roll back progress and exacerbate the current suffering.
I mentioned that we kind of always ask, “What if we did this work joyfully?” So, when Third Actors talk about their fears, they also talk about their hopes. So Barry, who I just mentioned, he has five kids, 11 grandkids, and one new great-grandkid named Duke, who he calls The Duke, and Barry's motivated by a vision for the future where all world citizens, including Baby Duke, are seen and treated with respect, knowing that they belong.
So, it all really kind of comes down to this idea of legacy and we really see how climate change is so interconnected with these other struggles for democracy, which are really biting at our heels here at the moment.
Dickon: What challenges have you encountered in communicating climate change to older audiences and how have you overcome them?
Simone: Okay, so now I feel like we're gonna get into some of the meat about the technology stuff, so I'm gonna actually like flip this question a little bit, because the biggest challenge that I've encountered isn’t actually communicating climate change to older adults, it's figuring out how older adults communicate with each other, especially in these like highly distributed remote and digital landscapes.
I sort of hinted that Third Act is made up of these volunteer-led working groups. And so we have over 30 groups based in particular states or they're rooted in affinity, such as Third Act Virginia or Third Act Lawyers. And so, just this year, just a couple months ago, my team launched a network of websites all connected under the Third Act domain, which gives each working group its own blog and events calendar that they maintain completely. And so, that they can keep their own working group members, outside audiences, and each other informed of what they're doing. And then these feeds are also all aggregated together. So suddenly we have made visible hundreds of event listings and campaign updates that were previously just not anywhere or siloed, disconnected. There's a lot of big numbers and flashing metrics, but my favourite is that we have about a hundred Third Actors trained and working in WordPress for the first time ever. And it's growing every day. We've also developed a visual brand identity that extends to the working group. So it gives each working group sort of a unique logo mark that distinguishes them, but then also fits visually under the Third Act brand. And so together, these kinds of efforts like make visible the power of this collective. And you know, like the nuts and bolts of communications infrastructure is not what made me get into this work, it's not sexy, and it's not, you know, like the headline stories, but figuring out the common denominator of how people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond can collaborate is essential. We have a volunteer. She's amazing. Her name's Lonnie. And she came into activism at 76 years old. She was a teacher for over 40 years. And she's used that experience as a teacher to help us develop a cohort of volunteer coaches. So they provide support directly to Third Actors on things like how to crop an image. Or how to upload a document to the cloud. And this kind of like one-to-one, peer-to-peer approach matches perfectly with our relational organising model. And it also uses our greatest assets, which are experienced people to address our greatest challenge, which is, you know, older people being left behind by technology.
So not many of our working group members are comfortable with social media and fewer of them enjoy it. But on the other side, we have volunteers who have spent a whole career in software development and marketing. So we encourage people to play to their strengths, but then also create this space where people are learning and trying new things for the first time. So it goes the same for like an 85-year-old who's going to their first-ever protest. For every one of those, there's another person who's making their first Instagram post. And that's really how we kind of strengthen capacity and show up in force.
Dickon: This is the coolest thing I've ever heard. I bet they're roping in a couple of grandkids though. Come on!
Simone: It’s possible. And hey, I'm all for it. The intergenerational piece is big.
Dickon: I'm just also having flashbacks to trying to teach my mum how to use Skype.
Simone: We've all been there. And that's also why this model really works. We can understand it and we might get really frustrated. And that's why it's like train the trainers. When I was talking about how we've made all these networks of sites, like I really didn't have much insight into a lot of the work that was going on just because it wasn't anywhere that you could find it. So now I'm like looking and they are making resources way better than what I would ever make. I mean, they're spending like 10 minutes going really in depth, step by step, how to get to this page on the website, to access this resource, to then do this thing. And it's incredible.
Dickon: So, we're talking about older adults here, but presumably this demographic is just as diverse and complex as any other. How does this shape your campaigning?
Simone: Yes, that is very right, and so we try to lean strongly into that diversity of experience. You know, some people are still working, some people are busy caring for loved ones, and they kind of focus on signing and sharing petitions. Some are retired and have the time to do really deep canvassing, and some are homebound, and we find ways to create single person solidarity experiences when we have mass protests. So we really focus on meeting them where they're at with their opportunities. And I also think it's really important to highlight that there's a huge difference in experience between a 60 year old and a 90 year old. So we're talking about a large demographic, but it is not a flat one, and that comes up a lot. Maybe sometimes there's friction there with some of the organizing, but it's also kind of what makes this so special is that range of experience, but you know oftentimes people will talk about like intergenerational work as if it's this group and a younger group, but there's also intergenerational work happening within this group. I think about my mom who in her 60s took my grandmother who was in her 80s to go vote. I was joking with someone the other day from Third Act Massachusetts that it would be like saying that my five-year-old niece and I are in the same generation, so there you know, there really is this breadth of experience by nature of the ages and into where people are coming from.
And we also just really invest in educating newcomers and seasoned activists so this idea that just because you are coming fresh into activism there's no gatekeeping there that's actually a real asset, you know everyone really has a role to play.
Dickon: I'm sure a lot of people listening right now will be under 30, around 30, slightly over 30. That chasm, your entire life, is the difference. I mean, that's a lot of extra years of experience that to be frank is pretty often discounted. I love to hear that this is a way to activate, to connect, to excite. Amazing. What an opportunity!
Simone: We often hear that saying like, “you can't teach an old dog new tricks” I hate that saying now because it's so untrue!
Dickon: What advice would you give to other climate communicators who are seeking to better engage older or more mature demographics in their work?
Simone: Yes, thank you for asking this. Everyone's going to be really happy that you asked this.
Older folks are often stereotyped and left out of progressive conversations but this is like a huge mistake and source of untapped power so my number one is like don't presume that people get more conservative as they age or that they lose their sense of humour, and also like we've been talking about, don't discount their potential for digital savviness.
Liz, one of our national volunteers, put this really well, so I'm just going to use what she said, which is that, “It's not that older folks are completely untechnical, you just can't expect it to be automatic.” And so make your content accessible and pay attention to how they use their platform. So this is really basic but keep that contrast high, you know, keep that text size large, those buttons obvious, and don't forsake the iPad. Also, leverage the relative amount of free time that retired people have. When I asked a Third Actor recently, I needed help on a project and I asked how much time do you have? He was like, “I don't know as much time as my wife will allow.” They're ready to do stuff. And most of all, listen, not only do older people badly want to back up the youth that are driving the climate movement, but they also have the real structural power to make a major impact. And it's actually just purely impractical, our founder Bill McKibben talks about this all the time, just impractical to leave this problem to the next generation. We really do need as many people as possible to be engaged if we want to make change at the scale that we need in the time that we have left.
As we've talked about, so many older folks were active in the most defining social movements of our country, and in fact they've always played a special role and can make a lasting visual impression. So I'm thinking of this iconic image of Dorothy Day on the United Farm Workers' picket line, where she's facing off against the sheriff from a seated position on a portable golf stool, and that's so much the DNA of Third Act; they actually call themselves the rocking chair rebellion because we've really taken hold of this icon of the rocking chair, you know, to sit down comfortably in our power.
Dickon: You mentioned as we started the conversation, I think just before we hit record, that there is a fairly massive heat event taking place across North America right now. And you mentioned the vulnerability of this demographic. I wonder if you could maybe touch on that again or elaborate on that, because I think that it's a important thing to keep in mind as we think about the context also that these acts are taking place in.
Simone: This week, we are facing an enormous heat wave across the United States. 22.6 million people are under heat advisory and this is also happening during the hottest year on record. And yeah, as you're alluding to, older people are often the most vulnerable in these situations, so you know there's a part of this that plays into the whole messaging: I mean it's pretty hard to deny that there's a summer of heat going on in terms of the action when it's actually literally a summer of heat.
Bill McKibben actually just published a really brilliant Substack article the other day calling out photo editors for the images that they're using to depict the heat wave when you have pictures of people splashing around in pools and at the beach, it makes it look fun, that's hugely problematic. So, in a way, I guess these protests that are out in the open and in the sweltering heat draw attention to the real issue or, you know, another visual representation of it. But I can absolutely see that impacting people, and actually we have weekly meetings right now where Third Actors are coordinating and doing all the logistics of their planning because they have to move people, right? They have to get bus loads of people, they have to carry their rocking chairs and their signs, they have to gather to make these things. It's like a huge operation, and the danger of being out in the heat definitely casts a light on there.
And so I'm sure I'll be showing up to the meeting next Wednesday, I'm sure this is going to be a huge topic of conversation. You just start to think about all of the things that are going to take: you're going to have to make sure there's more water accessible; you're going to have to have contingency plans and safety plans, think about medical personnel, you know what happens when people get overheated. It's already kind of a dangerous intense situation when you're gathering in mass and there's police presence.
And that's one thing that I'll say that I think is really important is that there's a lot of that is really incredible about Third Actors is their commitment to non-violent direct action because they do it extremely strategically. So they have roles, you know, red, yellow, orange roles for how much they're escalating. You know you have your chant leaders, you have your police liaisons, they're incredibly organized about it. This idea of the massive heat wave is just gonna throw more logistics into the equation but they are ready for it.
Dickon: What’s the single most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our communication endeavours?
Simone: So, obviously I always want to say storytelling, but I think I'd be like preaching to the choir of communications professionals by saying that. So I'll say it's the way that we deliver these stories and the tools that we give people to drive them forward. So you know, whether that's traditional media or face-to-face interactions, we have to use a variety of distribution methods to ensure that this delivery is accessible, it's engaging, and that it empowers and fosters dialogue to foster action.
Dickon: What's the biggest mistake that you see communicators make when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues?
Simone: Yeah, I will say failing to foster a sense of urgency and hope simultaneously. It's really crucial to balance both the gravity of the situation with the actionable steps and a vision for a positive future, to mobilize people effectively.
Dickon: It was a lot of fun talking to Simone for this episode, but what in particular stuck with you from our conversation? What will you take from it and apply to your own work?
For me, I guess you could hear this pretty clearly, the conversation was nothing short of revelatory: senior citizens using WordPress? Facing off with the police at climate protests? Demanding structural rearrangement with their outsized financial influence? I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. This is a huge and growing section of society, how and where else can we involve and activate their power?
Besides mulling that one over, reflecting on the impact Simone's words have had on me, I also have to step back a bit and consider why that's been the case. In retrospect, she was doing exactly what Thomas Coombes, in the previous episode, was emphasising with one of his five narrative shifts: Recasting victims as everyday heroes.
If you’re coming away from this episode feeling as enlightened as I am, with a renewed respect for older adults and their ability to contribute to this challenge, then I think we’ve found a pretty good example of that narrative shift’s ability to make an impact. Where else can we apply this strategy?
But how about you? What did you hear? What will you be incorporating into your communications endeavors?
Thanks to Simone Salvo for sharing her time and insight with the show; it was great. You can find links to some relevant resources in the show notes. Thanks also to you for listening, Communicating Climate Change. If you enjoyed this episode, why not leave it a rating or a review? Your feedback not only helps to shine a light on the guests and themes that resonate with you the most, but also boosts visibility, meaning the series reaches more people, expanding the community and driving the conversation forward.
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