National Senior

Conservation Corps

Passing to the Next Generation the Custody of the Planet

The Pledge

To the best of my ability, in the limited years that remain, I pledge to protect from harm this Earth that bears me, to cherish the variety of species keeping me company on my short journey, to honor those laws of nature making this fragile planet habitable, and to conserve for the future the resources whose abundance, now waning, has made my life possible. 

The National Senior Conservation Corps, Inc.

The NSCC is dedicated to helping senior citizens in the United States and elsewhere: conserve natural resources, reduce the pollution of earth’s air, water, and soil, protect the environment, and preserve the climate from assault by global warming. It seeks to fulfill this mission in three stages:

Green Teams in Retirement Communities. The first stage is the mobilization of seniors living in retirement communities. Of the over 2500 continuing care retirement communities in the United States, fewer than 1 percent have organized Green Teams working to help their communities protect this ailing planet. Even fewer of the 37,000 other assisted living communities are so engaged. But these communities are populated with still active, civic-minded and resourceful people. With help from the NSCC, they can:

1)   Arrange for energy audits in their communities and individually reduce their use of air conditioning, electric lights, hot water, and heating.

2)   Reduce CO₂ emissions by consolidating their errands, sharing rides, using community vans and buses, using trains for distance traveling, and just plain driving less often.

3)   Reduce waste and recycle more efficiently, individually and collectively.

4)   Purchase goods and services so as to reduce depletion of resources (endangered fish and forests) and to reduce their carbon footprints.

5)   Build in conformity to LEED standards of green excellence.

6)   Garden and maintain lawns so as to conserve water and reduce the use of pesticides.

7)   Conserve paper (and therefore forests) by selective catalog subscriptions, reducing junk mail, reducing use of virgin paper, using electronic for paper communication.

8)   Educate themselves, their communities, and both staff and management in the best practices of conservation.

Green-Gray Networks: formal programs for the elderly outside retirement homes include adult day care centers (about 150,000 persons), as well as senior programs at YMCAs, public libraries, Institutes for Learning in Retirement, veterans organizations, Masonic lodges, associations of retired professionals, and other organizations where the elderly gather, work, socialize, and play.  The second stage is to mobilize these active elderly with energy and social spirit to enlist in the cause of conservation. The NSCC can find them by following the filaments that lace together our civil society.        

Older Individuals in Society.  The third stage is to locate and mobilize the 37 million (in 2050 it will be 71 million) seniors living independently or with their families. Studies show this hidden cohort to be conscious of the threat of global warming, but confused on what, if anything, can be done to relieve the threatened damage. For many, family members are sources of trusted information (“Grandma, did you know you can save energy with fluorescent bulbs?”). For others, the link to the world, or a version of the world, is TV. If AARP can reach them, so can we. The Older Americans Act of 1965 established a network of offices in every state; NSCC will use them. One third of the elderly have access to the Internet. The NSCC will find these allies in waiting, comfort them, and enlist them in the Great Gray-Green Army that can change the course of nature by changing human behavior.

Board of Directors (August 2008)

Neva Goodwin, Co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute
Robert E. Lane, Eugene Meyer Professor Emeritus of political science, Yale University
James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
William Ellis

Officers

Robert E. Lane, President
Bonnie Turner, Secretary and Webmaster
Lisa N. Davis, attorney
Executive Director (to be appointed)

Join the NSCC

The National Senior Conservation Corps, Inc. has two kinds of members:

(a) Group memberships in retirement communities pay annual dues of $25.00 entitling the community to free services along the lines of the program outlined under Green Teams, above.

(b) Individual members living independently or in retirement communities without NSCC membership. The “fees” for individual members are whatever they can afford to help maintain the work of the NSCC.

Payment

Checks should be made out to the National Senior Conservation Corps and sent to P.O. Box 600-B, 200 Leeder Hill Drive, Hamden, CT 06517. (The NSCC has applied for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.)

Aeolus is angry! Pacify him.