Leslie Wharton, spokesperson for Elders Climate Action (ECA), is in the midst of organizing a growing number of “old hands” into a nationwide network of people who, instead of just talking, are getting together and taking action.
“If I were 12 to 20 [years old] right now and looking at our chaotic future, I would be terrified and angry,” Wharton says. “A year or so ago, some of the youth groups started referring to our generation as the ‘boomers,’ in a bad sense: ‘You boomers, you’re the ones who really caused all these problems.’ That sort of thing. So, we decided we would call ourselves the Boomer Brigade. We are here, as a brigade of boomers, to deal with climate change.”
ECA’s parent organization, Elders Action Network (EAN), is a…