Earth Day, 1970, at the University of Michigan
Dear Joyce,
I love writing to you at Earth Day each year, because I know that there are many reading this who were there for the first one in 1970, when Americans poured into the streets, and as a result managed to change the country and the world. Ten percent of Americans protested that day, still a high water mark for American political action, and it gave us the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the EPA—the tools the world copied, and that the Trump administration 56 years later is trying to gut.
We’re at it again, obviously. We’ve been standing up not just to Big Oil but to Big Tech—to the small group of companies trying to take control of our landscape and our energy system in the name of AI and data centers. Thousands of you joined us on a call earlier this week as we worked toward a data center moratorium; around the country in the last months you’ve managed to get small-scale solar legislation in and through one state legislature after another.
We’re standing together for the same things that motivated people back in 1970: local control of resources, a vision of a world where everyone gets to flourish. Some of the issues have shifted: we weren’t talking about global warming or AI back then. And some of the tools have changed too: we didn’t have cheap solar power yet. But the basic idea remains: if we show up, in the street and in the legislature and in all the places that decisions are made, if we defeat the representatives of Big Oil and Big Tech—then we have a fighting chance.
So: thank you for what you’ve done and what you’ll do. This fight for the future just keeps growing!
Bill McKibben for Third Act
Upcoming Data Center Webinars
Fighting Data Centers: General Call
May 18, 2026 — 1:00PM PST / 4:00PM EST
Third Act is convening regular calls on data centers this year to cover multiple strategic pathways to counter the threat: we’ll cover legal, corporate, political, and narrative approaches to winning these fights. This webinar is specifically for Working Groups to learn ways to organize and get involved.
Fighting Back: The Corporations Behind Data Centers
June 24, 2026 — 3:00PM PST / 6:00PM EST
This online event will review opportunities to target corporations in order to stop data center construction.