We six elder citizens of Connecticut, all members of Third Act CT, were recently arrested in New York City for “disorderly conduct” at Citibank World Headquarters. Our action has attracted much interest as the 60 arrests that day may have been the largest arrest of senior citizens demonstrating for justice in our nation’s history.
Why would people ranging from 60 to 80+ put their bodies on the line in front of Citibank? The answer is simple: We did so because we want to change the trajectory of the climate emergency for the sake of our grandchildren and all inhabitants of this planet.
Yet of course it is more complex than that. Since the Paris Climate Accords in 2015, Citibank has invested close to $400 billion in fossil fuel projects. They continue to undermine the wellbeing of the planet and all its life forms for the single purpose of profit-making. In those international Accords, world leaders pledged to do all they could to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Centigrade. We have now reached that threshold and for the last year every month has been the hottest ever recorded. Fossil fuels are the primary source of the extreme rise in planetary temperatures. If we are to avoid devastating impacts on life and health, urgent action is essential.
Of all the global banks, Citibank ranks in the upper echelon of corporations ignoring the Accords and flaunting their non-cooperation. They head the list of banks underwriting new fossil fuel exploration.
As a result of their refusal to respond to repeated urgent requests, we believe the only way we can turn the present trend (highlighted by extremes of global temperatures, floods, fires, and storms) is by confronting fossil fuel banks like Citibank and disrupting their “business as usual.”
We were arrested for disorderly conduct as we blocked the front doors of their world headquarters. We believe it is Citibank that is guilty of disorderly conduct. The technologies to meet our energy needs without fossil fuels are available. Citibank needs to invest in them. Their assets should be supporting the preservation of this planet rather than its destruction.
The six of us include a science professor, an ordained minister, an environmental analyst, a psychologist, a molecular biologist and a high school principal. Only one of us had ever been arrested previously. Across our range of professions, we are united in profound worry for all who already, and those who will, suffer deeply as a result of the climate chaos Citibank and others are funding. It is a moral imperative that we step up and counter that chaos with a bit of “disorderly conduct” to call attention to the irresponsibility of corporations (and governments) that fail to act even as they know the consequences of their inaction.
As members of Third Act Connecticut, we are committed along with hundreds of others of our statewide membership, to do all that we can to create a more positive future for our grandchildren. If that means constructive disorderly demonstration of the urgency of the crisis, that is what we pledge ourselves to do.
The Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree of the United Church of Christ on behalf of herself and Third Act CT members Mary C. Sherwin, an Environmental Analyst; Thomas Mead, a high school principal; Katherine Kohrman, a clinical psychologist; Hedley Freake, a professor of nutritional sciences and David F. Englert, a molecular biologist.