Article Excerpt:
When customers of America’s four largest banks visit their local branches on Tuesday, they might be greeted by an unfamiliar sight: activists in rocking chairs blocking the entrances.
It’s part of a national campaign to pressure banks to stop financing fossil fuels and heed warnings from leading scientists about the need to rapidly phase out oil, gas and coal to avert the worst effects of climate change.
The rocking chairs are the brainchild of Third Act, a group that seeks to engage Americans 60 and older — those in their “third act” of life — in environmental activism. But the demonstrations have drawn attendees of all ages in about 100 cities across 29 states, according to the 53 groups organizing the events.
The protests add to the mounting environmental pressures on Wall Street from politicians of both parties. Liberal lawmakers have pleaded with large financial institutions to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry, while conservatives have attacked what they see as “woke” capitalism, a reference to companies that treat climate change as an economic risk.
Caught in the middle are four banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo — that rank as the world’s largest lenders to the fossil fuel industry, according to a report released last year by Rainforest Action Network and other environmental groups. Since the 2015 adoption of the Paris climate accord, the four firms together have provided more than $1 trillion in lending and underwriting to companies building new coal plants, natural gas pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure.