Actor and climate activist Jane Fonda called for Americans to vote for “climate champions” up-and-down the ballot on Wednesday at the TIME100 Summit.
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00:00 Thank you all so much.
00:04 Jane, welcome.
00:05 Thank you, Sam.
00:06 So pleased to have you here.
00:07 The title of our conversation today is an ICONS Next Act.
00:12 But before we go there, I'd like to just look back on your many previous acts.
00:17 Jane, you're on the cover of Time this month for receiving our second time Earth Award,
00:23 honoring the work that you've done to create climate action.
00:28 You were actually first on the cover of Time in 1970.
00:32 This was a piece of artwork done by, you said, your friend Andy Warhol, featuring you, your
00:36 father, and your brother under the headline, The Flying Fondas.
00:42 The number of people who have been on the cover of Time across the span of more than
00:45 a half century could probably fit inside an Uber.
00:49 And so we are here to recognize your achievements across those many decades.
00:55 I'm curious as you reflect what the Jane Fonda of 2024 would want to tell the Jane Fonda
01:01 of 1970.
01:03 Keep going, it's going to get better.
01:06 Don't give up.
01:07 I don't know, a whole lot of other things.
01:14 I've outlived them all.
01:18 You outlived them all?
01:19 See, I knew you had more to say about that.
01:22 I have a lot more to say, but we have so little time and I want to talk about climate.
01:29 On your work on climate, what do you say to people who think actors should stay out of
01:35 politics?
01:36 They're wrong.
01:37 In a democracy, we all play a role.
01:42 In fact, historically, actors, artists, poets, writers have always had an outsized role in
01:50 changing history, in changing things.
01:53 Way back to the Greeks, we don't tolerate tyrants and we believe in freedom and so we
02:04 stand up and we have every right just like anybody else does.
02:11 Now, we carry weight because we're famous, so we have to be careful to understand and
02:18 talk correctly, but it's important that we speak up and historically, we have.
02:26 Your next act is climate action, climate activism.
02:29 You've been an activist now for more than a half century.
02:33 How does your work in climate connect to those previous actions that you've taken?
02:40 Well, when you really are committed to something, you drill down and you really understand it.
02:47 For me, in the past, it's been patriarchy, what it's done to women, what women should
02:54 be able to do.
02:55 It's been the history of what we did to indigenous people in this country.
03:00 It's been a lot of things like that.
03:02 Coming to climate, I've realized climate is like Russian nesting dolls.
03:07 You open it up and everything else is in there.
03:10 There would be no climate crisis if there was no racism.
03:14 There'd be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy.
03:17 It's a mindset.
03:21 When we address the climate crisis, we have to also address the way we feel about all
03:27 kinds of other things.
03:29 It all goes together.
03:36 You've always had this connection to nature and you've talked about this growing up.
03:41 Well, there was a lot more of it when I was born.
03:43 I was born in 1937, okay?
03:47 There was no freeway.
03:49 There was no smog.
03:51 There were only in the world two billion people.
03:54 That makes a big difference.
03:59 I was a tomboy and things weren't so great at home.
04:03 Nature was where I found solace.
04:06 As nature began to disappear, I noticed.
04:10 Not everybody notices maybe, but there are three billion fewer birds in North America
04:17 than there were in 1970.
04:19 That's not so long ago.
04:21 I grew up with the sounds of meadowlarks and morning doves and whippoorwills.
04:27 It's great being old because I know what it's supposed to be.
04:32 Young people don't realize it's not normal to drive fast on a freeway and not have bugs
04:36 splatter on your windshield.
04:38 They don't know that it's not normal to hear bird songs.
04:42 They don't know that it's not normal that there are kids who've never smoked who get
04:46 taken to hospitals suffering from black lung because of fossil fuel pollution.
04:52 Things are out of balance now and we have to reconnect with nature and fight for it.
05:04 Is there a moment that you look back on where you believe your climate journey began?
05:08 Absolutely.
05:09 I've been an environmentalist all my life, but I have a platform.
05:16 I wasn't really using it full out.
05:18 About five years ago, I come from a long line of depressed people, so I can go down a rabbit
05:24 hole of despair.
05:25 It was 112 degrees in Los Angeles.
05:28 The sky was orange brown because of the wildfires.
05:31 It was apocalyptic.
05:33 Birds were falling dead out of the sky over Arizona and New Mexico.
05:38 I just went down a rabbit hole.
05:41 I knew I wasn't doing enough and I didn't know what to do.
05:46 I received a manuscript of Naomi Klein's book, On Fire.
05:51 She's my friend.
05:53 It's not a long book.
05:54 I read it and I closed the book.
05:56 I said, "Okay, very inspired by Greta Thunberg.
05:59 I'm going to put myself on the line.
06:01 I'm going to leave my comfort zone and raise a ruckus."
06:06 This is the smartest thing I ever did.
06:07 I called Annie Leonard, who was the director of Greenpeace at the time, because Greenpeace
06:13 is such a brave organization.
06:15 I said, "I'm going to move to D.C. and I'm going to commit to this."
06:21 Long story short, it turned out to be Fire Drill Friday, which we did for about five
06:26 months and everybody engaged in civil disobedience and risked getting arrested, because we knew
06:34 that a majority of Americans were really concerned about climate.
06:38 30% of them said that they would be willing to engage in civil disobedience.
06:44 When asked why they hadn't, they said, "Because nobody asked me."
06:49 Fire Drill Fridays in D.C. was aiming at the great unasked.
06:53 I turned 82 in jail there and I figured, "See, if I do this, a whole lot of people would
06:58 say, 'Well, God, if she can do it, I guess I can do it.'"
07:02 People came from all over the country, mostly women with gray hair like me.
07:08 First time at a rally, first time getting ... This is what we want to build up activism,
07:13 because one of the parts of the ... It's a two-part solution.
07:16 I'm not talking like John Kerry.
07:18 He's on the inside.
07:19 I'm on the outside.
07:21 One part is we have to organize unprecedented numbers of people that will go into the streets
07:26 and put their bodies on the line nonviolently.
07:30 If you look at history, this is what changes history.
07:33 The other half is to be successful, you've got to have hearts and ears on the inside
07:38 that will hear you and act.
07:41 So many of our elected officials take money from the fossil fuel industry.
07:46 Joe Manchin is just the most famous of them, but they're all over the country and they
07:50 block all the really important legislation that's commensurate with what science is asking
07:56 for.
07:57 So we have to get rid of them.
07:58 If you can't change the people, change the people.
08:02 Do you.
08:03 Right?
08:04 We have to elect climate ... I've started a climate pact for this purpose.
08:11 We have to elect climate champions up and down the ballot, city councils, boards of
08:18 supervisors, even sheriffs, county executives, mayors.
08:22 This is where the robust action on climate is happening now.
08:28 The Republicans, they've known about this for a long time, for decades.
08:33 They just went about spending the Koch brothers' money and getting all these right-wingers
08:37 elected up and down the ballot.
08:40 And then suddenly Democrats woke up and said, "Oh my God."
08:44 And we've seen what happens when MAGA people have control of state legislatures and executive
08:51 positions and everything.
08:52 We have to end that and we have to do it really quickly.
08:55 And that is why November is the first time that I've been able to ... This is an existential
09:01 election.
09:02 Who wins here is going to determine whether there ... Or is going to do a lot to determine
09:07 whether there is a livable future.
09:10 And so when you go to vote, have climate in your heart.
09:14 You can find out if the person you're thinking about voting for takes money from the fossil
09:18 fuel industry.
09:19 Have they ever done anything brave to stop a pipeline or something like that?
09:24 Vote for climate champions.
09:27 Okay?
09:29 Now, as a climate activist, I'm angry at Joe Biden, but I will do everything in my
09:39 power to get him reelected.
09:43 Here's why.
09:44 No matter what you feel.
09:46 I mean, nobody's perfect.
09:47 You're not marrying him, right?
09:51 But here's the thing.
09:53 Joe Biden provides us a context in which we can fight.
09:58 And he can be pressured.
10:00 I know that.
10:01 He's pressurable.
10:04 The orange guy, forget it.
10:08 There's no space to fight or disagree or anything.
10:11 This is going to become a fascist country if he is elected.
10:15 So make sure that everybody you know understands this.
10:19 Make sure that the young people you know understand what's at stake.
10:23 Okay?
10:24 You don't have to love everything about him, but you can change him.
10:28 And the alternative is too horrible to think about.
10:31 [Applause]
10:32 >> You and I were talking backstage, and it sounds like there's -- you tell me if I'm
10:42 mischaracterizing it.
10:43 Are there fear or frustration that you feel like generations different than yours don't
10:48 embrace that same vision, that there isn't the same sense of the stakes of the selection
10:52 among people across the ages right now?
10:55 Do you think that's true?
10:56 >> Well, I think young people are absolutely enraged, furious, and desperate about what's
11:02 happening to the planet.
11:03 It's their future.
11:05 And they have had nothing to do with what has put the future at risk.
11:09 By the way, neither have we.
11:11 Let us absolutely understand who's evil here.
11:14 The fossil fuel industry have lied to us for 50 years.
11:17 They knew exactly what was going to happen because their scientists told them.
11:22 Only it's happening faster than their scientists said.
11:25 They've lied to us, and that's why we're facing a crisis.
11:27 If they had found out and then admitted it and said, okay, what are we going to do?
11:31 Let's work on this, we would not be in a crisis.
11:34 We could have had a gradual transition, the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels
11:39 that John Kerry mentioned.
11:40 But they didn't.
11:41 >> I think Secretary Kerry would say -- and I hate to put words in his mouth -- that we
11:44 have to work with these companies, with the fossil fuel companies.
11:47 That's his job.
11:48 I don't want -- I mean --
11:49 [Laughter]
11:50 He can do that.
11:54 I've sort of tried to lay the groundwork for a pussy boycott.
11:58 So that -- I'm kidding in a way, sort of.
12:01 I mean, Lisa Strada did it.
12:02 But we have to remove social license from these people.
12:07 And I'm glad that John Kerry is doing what he's doing because I couldn't handle it, frankly.
12:13 I want to work with the people who are going to go into the streets like they did during
12:17 the Great Depression.
12:19 By the millions is what's needed.
12:21 By the millions.
12:23 And when they demanded of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you know, we want fairness and
12:28 good salaries.
12:30 And he said, I agree with you.
12:33 Now go out and make me do it.
12:36 And that's our job.
12:37 That's our homework.
12:38 We have to go out and make -- we have to reelect Biden and then go out and make him do it.
12:43 I don't think people are in the streets right now in support of the president.
12:46 No, but, you know, that's okay.
12:49 I understand why -- you know, young people, I know from my own self, it's kind of great
12:56 that so many young people who've never been passionate and active before are out there.
13:00 And I understand and totally sympathize with them.
13:04 But we have to -- between now and November, we all have to talk about the climate and
13:11 the importance of voting with the climate in mind.
13:14 No matter what your other issues are.
13:16 Because we're not going to get anything that we want if we don't address the climate crisis.
13:22 >> How do you convince a young person today who maybe doesn't believe --
13:26 >> I'm trying to figure it out.
13:28 I mean, I'm not sure.
13:30 I'd love to know if any of you have ideas.
13:32 But I think it's important to say that it's -- nobody's perfect.
13:39 You're not marrying him.
13:41 You're making a pragmatic decision for one side, because it's the side that allows you
13:47 to make a difference.
13:48 You can act if you try.
13:51 And the other side is a door slammed in the face of democracy.
13:56 And there's nowhere to move there.
13:59 And we're going to all go down together.
14:02 >> Jane Fonda?
14:03 >> Is that over?
14:04 Is it over?
14:05 [ Laughter ]
14:06 >> This is all so important.
14:09 But I know you're limited.
14:10 And I'm certainly limited.
14:12 >> You told my colleague Stephanie Zekaric, one of the reasons I'm so involved is I'm
14:16 86 years old.
14:17 I have a feeling that people can say, look at what she's doing at her age.
14:21 If she can do it, I can do it, too.
14:24 >> I said when I turned 82 in jail, a lot of women said, well, you know, I can do that,
14:31 too.
14:32 And that's why so many gray-haired ladies showed up in Washington.
14:36 That's true.
14:37 Also, you see, you do tend to get braver when you're -- women.
14:43 Women tend to get braver when they get older.
14:46 I mean, what the hell do we have to lose, right?
14:50 I don't have to sleep with some guy that doesn't want me to be strong and brave anymore.
14:56 So you know, let's do it.
15:01 >> On that note, Jane Fonda.
15:06 Thank you for coming to the Time 100 Summit.
15:07 >> Thank you.
15:08 >> Thank you very much.
15:09 >> Thank you.
15:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]