On the evening of Dec. 10, 12 self-identified elder climate activists sat around the Christmas tree in the New York State Capitol, in Albany, singing carols as they waited to be arrested. The protesters, who were there to support New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, had been told by police they would face criminal misdemeanor trespass charges if they stayed put.

“Normally, for a protest like this, we’d expect to be written a citation rather than charged with a misdemeanor,” said Michael Richardson of Third Act Upstate New York, which helped plan the civil disobedience. “But there were enough of us ready to take the elevated charges. We knew it would have fewer consequences for us than a younger person.”

The next evening, another seven elders gathered around the Christmas tree in expectation of being arrested. Protests continued into a third day, dramatically capping off a campaign that had worked for two years to pass a state law making fossil fuel companies pay for damage caused by an escalating climate crisis.

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Photo credit: Fossil Free Media