Monica Weiss

Monica Weiss is a retired NYC public school teacher living in Queens. She first entered the climate movement shortly after retiring, in an effort to divest NYC public pensions from fossil fuels, with 350NYC. Her approach toward climate activism is informed by her faith, as a member of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Since retiring twelve years ago she has trained as a  Climate Reality Leader, helped bring Project Drawdown (a nonprofit focusing on 100 science and data-driven solutions to climate change) workshops to NYC, co-produced six major Climate Week NYC events at Ethical Culture, and most recently joined Third Act – a climate organization focused on engaging elders in activism and advocacy.

Monica Weiss 

She/her

Retired NYC Public School Teacher

Queens 

Q&A

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What originally drew you to the climate sphere? 

When I retired, somewhat by accident and somewhat intentionally I moved into the climate activism sphere. Once I began to collect my pension and realized that part of the fund’s investments were in fossil fuels, it felt antithetical to everything I had been doing my whole life. To have my pension funded in part by the very thing that is robbing my students of the future that I had promised them felt really hypocritical and disingenuous. When you suddenly know something, you can't unknow it and at that point I felt compelled to act.  About ten years ago, a third grader from a public school reached out to us at 350NYC about a petition he had started circulating in support of divestment. We invited him to a meeting, and he came with his parents. We gave him time to speak, and we were all so impressed with his understanding of the issue and his leap into advocating for a solution. He asked that we endorse his petition and promote it on the website which we did. Eventually, a few of us who were retired teachers requested an opportunity to address the TRS Board of Trustees, which we were granted. And the young boy, Ajani Stella, read his statement reflecting on his future in a world changed by global warming, as the adults in the room were nearly moved to tears. Four retirees also read statements about how it was immoral to profit at the expense of children’s futures.

Can you tell me about your work? 

My faith community is Ethical Culture, which is a non-theistic faith that puts ethical relationships at the center of everything. Ethical relationships cannot be purely transactional and that applies to our relationship with the natural world. In nature there is reciprocity and interdependence in all the systems that support life, and I've come to the conclusion, that a huge driver of the climate crisis is that we have failed to understand those relationships. Our lack of connectedness to the natural world and our lack of respect for other species is at the root of this problem. Human beings can't exploit everything and everyone all the time and not pay a very dear price for that. 

What scares you the most about the climate crisis?

Everything. […] Sometimes I feel rage that so much time was wasted when we should have been doing more, that the fossil fuel industry knew for many decades that their product was causing the atmosphere to warm and chose to spread disinformation rather than sound the alarm in time. We find ourselves with a smaller window of opportunity, when the crisis demands courage, big solutions, and a sense of urgency. And there's a lot of grief. I'm a Boomer and, you know, we were a very optimistic generation. There was so much change in my generation - the civil rights movement, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights, disability rights. And the climate crisis is an existential threat to all of life and it feels like the people with the most power and influence to make this the highest priority have not done so at the scale that is required. 

My generation grew up watching National Geographic, Jaques Cousteau,and Born Free- films that captured the enormity and magnificence of the natural world. We also had the benefit of being able to experience some of this firsthand, and for me, the ultimate grief is that future generations may not ever see these things. What have we taken for granted? It's a rude awakening. 

Has New York City brought any benefits or challenges to working in the climate sphere?

Everything's bigger in New York. What's bad is worse, and what's good is better. And so, the opportunities are extraordinarily rich. As the finance capital of the world, we have a big opportunity and a responsibility to address the role of the financial industry in climate change – in causing it, supporting it, financing it. Most recently, the climate movement has been calling out the role of the big banks in funding the climate crisis. Also, if the insurance industry decides that the next big oil or gas project is too risky and they don't insure it, banks cannot lend the money. 

What advice would you give to people who want to take action on climate solutions while staying hopeful?

Show up. Show up to a meeting, show up to an event, show up to a demonstration. You don't have to be the person who gets arrested. You don't have to be the person with the biggest sign. You can just show up to check it out. You can show up in solidarity. You can stand on the sidelines and be an observer. It's important to experience being part of a community of people who share your values and concerns, and you can see for yourself how showing up makes a difference.

I just think collectively that all of these little things that we do, the opportunities that just come up make a difference. I think there's a lot of that in the climate space, where you have to sort of see where the opportunities are, collaborate with people, support their message. The only way movements are successful, or those large-scale changes happen, is with a lot of people coming together. Change happens when you're strategic, when you're in a community with others, when you collaborate, and when you're sort of relentless – we have to be relentless. 

Who are your biggest inspirations in the field? 

Al Gore was the first one with “An Inconvenient Truth.” Bill McKibben with 350.org and his ongoing work with Third Act. I've worked with a lot of youth from Fridays for Future and Sunrise and will always support and uplift their messaging and demands. These are the biggest stakeholders in the future and we owe them (you) our best efforts. There are so many inspiring writers and scientists and many women leading the way – Sandra Steingraber, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ayana Johnson, Emily Atkin, Rose Abramoff, Mary Robinson, Xiye Bastida, Katherine Wilkinson, and groups like Our Children’s Trust who are suing the government for a livable planet. And Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. I want you to know that it was the first book I read in graduate school for my master’s in environmental education, and it blew my mind.