This last week’s Optimist’s View on aging got us thinking about our seniors and how lucky we are to have a substantial older population. Longer life expectancies and a growing senior population mean holding onto our loved ones and benefiting from their perspective and experience. With an active senior population, we’re also afforded a compassionate and involved demographic helping with societal issues. 

When we started looking around for more senior-centered solutions, we found the Elders Climate Action group. 

This is a non-profit, national collective of senior citizens who are concerned about their children, their grandchildren, and the world that they will be leaving us. They have chapters all over the United States, and we can support them by joining in their efforts or donating. 

Elders Climate Action provides essential organization functions and leads non-partisan, action-focused initiatives to improve our planet, our society, and their mutual benefit. While any efforts to help our planet are valuable — from picking up trash to using sustainable materials and upcycling — Elders Climate Action’s focus is more top-down, aiming to affect change through policy. 

They lead letter writing campaigns, draft and collect signatures for petitions, promote votes on important climate legislation, and provide informational resources on environmentally helpful and harmful business practices. This can include drawing consumer attention to banks and financial institutions involved in the fossil fuel industry and calling on them to end their practices. 

Retirement is lovely, but many find it fulfilling to be active with their community and their planet in their later chapters of life. The Optimist Daily is a big fan of the Elders Climate Action group for being such a vibrant solution. They certainly need boots on the ground and financial support, so don’t be afraid to check them out and get involved, even if you aren’t a senior citizen.