With scientists warning that this year’s summer could be one of the warmest on record, grandmothers and mothers – along with their children – joined forces to combat climate change.

People of all ages gathered in New York City this week as part of the “Summer of Heat,” a series of nonviolent climate-change protests scheduled throughout the season, to demand that Wall Street’s most powerful elite stop financing big oil companies. This most recent action was part of “Elders Week,” which encouraged retired women and men in particular to gather outside Citibank headquarters — a top funder of fossil fuel expansion — to tell stories to children about the negative effects of climate change.

Liat Olenick, an organizer of Climate Families NYC – the environmental justice organization that co-hosted the event – says there’s power in having multiple generations come together. “A lot of times, activism is dismissed as a youth thing,” says Olenick, 38 of Brooklyn. “But it’s like, no, this is what all of us want and need.”

Olenick told The Story Exchange that she was first inspired to get involved in the movement after an extreme weather event — specifically, Hurricane Sandy in 2012. She was a first-year teacher at the time, and she recalled that her school was closed down for a week, which “spurred me to think more about the climate crisis.” 

Liat Olenick, organizer at Climate Families NYC.

Another significant moment – the one that pushed Olenick to get active with climate organizing – was reading the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2018 climate report, which stated that “we had 10 years left to save humanity,” she added.

The situation is growing increasingly dire. According to Scientific American, 2023 was the hottest summer recorded in the past 2,000 years — and each previous summer was the warmest on record for 10 years running, NASA reported. Worse, researchers anticipate 2024 being another record-breaker, which heatwave researcher Chloe Brimicombe summed up as “very scary” to CNET. 

One main driver of climate change? Gas, oil and coal, the sourcing and use of which is causing about 90% of carbon dioxide emissions and 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations says. Rising temperatures are causing increasingly erratic weather patterns that pose “many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth,” the international organization adds.

Climate activist Chris Stahl, 74, was also at this week’s “Summer of Heat” event. She recalled to The Story Exchange the shocking realities of climate change during a hiking trip with her son to the Alps in France. “We had to hike very, very early in the morning – because by midday, it was too hot to hike anymore,” says Stahl, of Poughkeepsie, New York. “You could just see these empty craters, where there weren’t any more glaciers — and then you get to the edge of a glacier that was drip, drip, drip, dripping away.” 

At the event, Stahl stood with her young granddaughter – one of the many children who “can be involved in making a positive change,” she added.

Chris Stahl and her granddaughter at the climate change protest outside Citibank in New York City.

Meanwhile Katherine Keeney, 69, says the 1991 wildfires in Oakland, California sparked her involvement in the cause. Keeney, who had a toddler at the time, says she watched the fire “jump from house to house,” and eventually had to evacuate. Years later, she still reports suffering from PTSD – and finds herself wondering every summer: “Is it gonna burn again?”

Now, as an elder, she feels her purpose is to make the world a safer place for the people she loves, one protest at a time. “I feel it’s my job and our job as elders to protect our children.”