On Tuesday, the streets outside America’s financial giants looked less like corridors of commerce and more like staging grounds for climate resistance. In Boston, a man wielding a solar-powered chainsaw sawed through giant cardboard credit cards outside a Bank of America branch while more than 200 demonstrators marched from Chase to Citi, demanding an end to fossil fuel financing. Across the country—in rain-soaked San Francisco, in the capital’s humid air, and even as far as Juneau, Alaska—activists gathered under a single message: banks must stop underwriting the expansion of oil, gas, and coal.
The coordinated day of action was organized by Third Act, a climate network notable for its demographic makeup. Founded by author Bill McKibben, the group mobilizes retirees who see their generation’s accumulated wealth and political clout as leverage. “For once, it’s not just being left up to young people,” McKibben told a crowd in Washington, D.C. “Older Americans have about 70% of the country’s financial assets. So it’s particularly appropriate that they’re putting pressure on here.”
That generational reckoning echoed in Boston, where 61-year-old Mary McCabe held a poster of her son as a baby. She said it was her first protest, spurred by headlines warning of the narrowing window to avoid catastrophic climate change. “This decade is critical for us to take action,” she said, voice shaking.
The timing wasn’t accidental. Just a day earlier, the United Nations released a sobering report warning that current emissions trajectories point toward catastrophic warming. At the same time, the authors stressed that existing technologies—renewable energy, storage, efficiency measures—are ready to deploy at scale if governments and corporations act quickly.
Yet in many places, activists aren’t waiting for world leaders. In New York on Saturday, thousands marched down Park Avenue and into the shadow of Trump Tower, rallying under the banner “Make Billionaires Pay.” Their demands sprawled across issues—immigration, gender justice, Gaza—but climate remained central. Signs and chants tied disparate struggles to a single throughline: concentrated wealth and power come at the expense of people and planet.
Some demonstrators carried towering puppets of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Others rolled out a 160-foot “climate polluters bill,” itemizing the economic damage wrought by fossil-fueled disasters. Tatiana Cruz, hoisting the puppet of Musk, said her own awakening came after two close friends were deported. “The monster up top is similar in a lot of different scenarios,” she said, linking her fight for migrant rights with the push for climate accountability.
For retirees like Bob Follansbee, who biked from Dorchester to Boston’s financial district, and for first-time marchers like McCabe, the actions were deeply personal. Follansbee admitted his generation bore responsibility for the climate crisis but insisted it was also their duty to help fix it: “I feel it’s incumbent on us to stand up for the next generations coming.”
The banks targeted Tuesday—Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America—offered varied responses. Citi pointed to its $1 trillion commitment to sustainable finance, while Bank of America declined comment. Analysts, meanwhile, remain skeptical that shareholder pressure alone will change lending practices. “Typically you need acts of Congress or much more elevated political pressure,” wrote Eric Compton, an analyst at Morningstar.
Still, momentum is building. Third Act claims over 17,000 pledges from customers willing to cut up credit cards or close accounts if banks don’t pivot. And if this week’s twin demonstrations—one against Wall Street lenders, another against billionaire elites—show anything, it’s that climate protest is expanding across generations, causes, and geographies.
The questions now: Will the institutions being targeted listen? And if not, how far are people prepared to go?
