--- title: Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’ | TIME description: 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. canonical: https://time.com/video/SZUlIAHy/ og:title: Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’ og:description: 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. og:url: https://time.com/video/SZUlIAHy/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/SZUlIAHy/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’ twitter:description: 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. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/SZUlIAHy/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * Ideas # Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’ > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’ [Watch (HLS stream): Jane Fonda Wants Americans to ‘Vote For Climate Champions’](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/SZUlIAHy.m3u8) (15:11)  _Published 2024-04-24. 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._ --- Apr 30, 2024 3:53 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [ Jane Fonda Says She Is 'Ashamed' of Her Silence on Weinstein Allegations](/video/CSdFVbco/) ### Jane Fonda Says She Is 'Ashamed' of Her Silence on Weinstein Allegations [Golden Globes 2015: Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda Joke About Male Comedians](/video/Ws7JTw8G/) ### Golden Globes 2015: Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda Joke About Male Comedians [Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin to Star in New Netflix Original Series](/video/BpT6gEnl/) ### Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin to Star in New Netflix Original Series --- ## Transcript So much Jane welcome and kissing before we go is there I'd like to just look back on your many previous acts Junior on the cover of time this month for receiving our second timer that Ward honoring the work that you've done to create climate action. You're actually first on the cover of time in 1970. This was a piece of artwork done by you said your friend Andy Warhol featuring you your father and your brother under the headline the flying Fonda's. The number of people who've been on the cover of time across the span of more than a half-century could probably fit inside an Uber and so we are here to recognize your achievements across as many decades. I'm curious if you reflect what the Jane Fonda of 2024 would want to tell the Jane Fonda of 1970. Keep going. It's going to get better. Don't give up. I don't know a whole lot of other things. Outlive them all your outlive them all. See, I knew you had more to say about that have a lot more to say but we have so little time and I want to talk about climate. On on your work on climate. What what do you say to people who think actors should stay out of politics? They're wrong. In a democracy, we all play a role in facts historically actors artists poets writers have always had a an outsize role in changing history and changing things way back to the Greeks. We don't tolerate tyrants and we believe in Freedom and so we stand up and and we have every right just like anybody else does now we carry weight because we're famous. So we have to be careful to understand and talk correctly, but it's important that we speak up and historically we have Your next act as climate action climate activism. You've been an activist know for more than a half-century. How does your work in climate connect to those previous actions that you've taken? well You know when you're at when you really are committed to something you drill down and you really understand it and for me in the past, it's been patriarchy what it's done to women. What women should be able to do. It's been the history of what we did to indigenous people in this country has been a lot of things like that coming to climate. I realize climate is like Russian nesting dolls. You open it up and everything else is in that there would be no climate crisis if there was no racism there be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy it's a mindset and so when we address the climate crisis, we have to also address the way we feel about all kinds of other things it all goes together. You've always had this connection to Nature and when you've talked about this, you know growing it was a lot more of it when I was born. I was born in nineteen thirty-seven. Okay, and in Los Angeles, there was no free way. There was no smog. There were only in the world to billion people that makes a big difference and And so I had and I was a tomboy and things weren't so great at home. And so nature was where I found solace and and and then as nature began to disappear. I noticed not everybody notices maybe but Do you know there are three billion fewer birds in North America than there were in 1970. That's not so long ago, you know when I grew up with the sound of metal ox and mourning doves and you know, it's great being old because I know what it's supposed to be young people don't realize it's not normal to drive fast on the freeway and not have bugs splatter on your windshield. They don't know that it's not normal to hear bird songs. They don't know that it's not normal to that. There are kids who never smoke to get taken to hospital suffering from Black Lung because of fossil fuel pollution. I mean things are out of balance now and and we have to reconnect with nature and fight for it. is there is there a moment that you look back on where you believe your climate Journey began? Absolutely. I mean I didn't environmental us all my life. But you know, I have a platform and I wasn't really using it full album in about 5 years ago. I was I come from a long line of depressed people so I can go down a rabbit hole of Despair and it was 112 degrees in Los Angeles. The sky was orange brown because of the wildfires. It was apocalyptic birds were falling dead out of the sky over Arizona and New Mexico and I just went down a rabbit hole. I'm going to I'm not do I knew I wasn't doing enough and I didn't know what to do and I received a manuscript of Naomi Klein book on fire. She's my friend. It's not a long book and I read it and I close the book and I said, okay very inspired by Beretta tuneberg. I'm going to put myself on the line. I'm going to leave my comfort zone and raise a Ruckus. And so this is the smartest thing I ever did. I called Annie Leonard who was the director of Greenpeace at the time because Greenpeace is such a brave organization and I said, I'm going to move to DC and I'm going to commit to this and long story short. It turned out to be firedrillfriday, which we did for about 5 months and everybody engaged in Civil Disobedience and risk getting arrested because we knew that a majority of Americans were really concerned about climate 30% of them said that they would be willing to engage in Civil Disobedience. And when asked why they hadn't they said because nobody asked me so fire drill Fridays in DC was aiming at the great on the app. And I turned 82 in jail there and I figured to see if I do this a whole lot of people with it will got a chicken do it. I guess I can do it and people came from all over the country. Mostly women with gray hair like me. And and first time at a rally first time getting this is what we want to build up activism because one of the parts of the solicitor to part solution and I'm not talking like John Kerry. He's on the inside. I'm on the outside and one part is we have to organize unprecedented numbers of people that will go into the streets and put their bodies on the line non-violently. If you look at history, this is what changes history the other half is to be successful. You got to have hearts and ears on the inside that will hear you and act and the so many of our elected officials take money from the fossil fuel industry, you know, Joe manchin is just the most famous of them, but they're all over the country and they block all the really important legislation. That's commensurate with what science is asking for and so we have to get rid of them. If you can't change the people change the people. We have to elect climate. I've started a climate pack for this purpose. We have to elect climate Champions up and down up and down the ballot City council's Boards of Supervisors. Even Sheriff County executive's mayor's this is where the Rebus robust action on climate is happening now, and we you know, the the Republicans are they've known about this for a long time for decades. They just went about spending the Koch brothers money and getting all these right-wingers elected up and down the ballot and then suddenly Democrats woke up and said, oh my God, and we've seen what happens when you don't have to you know, when when Maga people have control of state legislatures and and executive positions and everything we have to end that and we have to do it really quickly. And that is why November is the first time that I've been able to this is an existential election who wins here is going to determine whether there are Do a lot to determine whether there is a livable future. And so when you go to vote have climate in your heart, you can find out if the person you're thinking about voting for takes money from the fossil fuel industry. Have they ever done anything Brave to stop at pipeline or or something like that vote for climate champions? Okay. As a climate activist, I'm angry at Joe Biden, but I will do everything in my power to get him re-elected. Here's why no matter what you feel. Let me nobody's perfect. You're not marrying him, right? But here's the thing Joe Biden provides us a context in which we can fight and he can be pressured. I know that he's preferable. The orange guy forget it. There's no space to fight or disagree or anything. This is going to become a fascist country if he is elected. So make sure that everybody you know understands this make sure that the young people, you know understand what's at stake. Okay, you don't have to love everything about him, but you can change him and the alternative is too horrible to think about You and I are you and I were talking backstage and it sounds like there's you tell me if I'm mischaracterizing it either fear or frustration that you feel like Generations different than yours. Don't Embrace that same vision that there isn't the same sense of the stakes of the selection among people across the ages right now. Do you think that's true? I think young people are absolutely enraged. And desperate about about what's happening to the planet. It's their future and they have had nothing to do with what is put the future at risk, by the way. Neither have we let us absolutely understand who is evil here. The fossil fuel industry have lied to us for 50 years. They knew exactly what was going to happen because their scientists told them only it's happening faster than their side just said they've lied to us and that's why we're facing a crisis if they had found out and then admitted it and said, okay. What are we going to do? Let's work on this we would not be in a crisis. We could have had a a gradual transition. The inevitable transition away from fossil fuels the John Kerry mentioned. I don't want I mean They can do that. I'm sort of tried to lay the groundwork for a pussy boycott so that you know, I'm kidding and Away Jordan, I mean lysistrata didn't but we have to remove social licence from these people, you know, and I'm glad that John Kerry is doing what he's doing because he's like I couldn't handle it frankly. I want to work with the people who are going to go into the streets like they did during the Great Depression and why the millions is what's needed by the millions and when they demanded of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you know, we want fairness and good salaries, and he said I agree with you now go out and make me do it. And that's our job. That's our homework. We have to go out and make we have to really like biting and then go out and make him do it. I don't think people are in the streets right now in support of the president. That's okay. I understand why people are young people I know from my own self. It's it's kind of great that so many young people who've never been passionate and active before are out there and I understand and totally sympathize with him. But but we have to be between now and November we all have to talk about the climate and the importance of voting with the climate in mind no matter what your other issues are cuz we're not going to get anything that we want if we don't address the climate present crisis. How do you convince a young person today? Maybe two doesn't believe that I'm trying to I'm trying to figure it out. I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure I'd love to know if any of you have ideas. But I think it's important to say that it's a list. Nobody's perfect. You're not marrying him. You're making a pragmatic decision for one side because it's a side that allows you to make a difference you can act if you try and the other side is a door slammed in the face of democracy and and there's nowhere to move there and we're going to all go down together. Change Honda got over is it over? This is also important but I know you're limited and I'm certainly limited. You told my colleague said he's a character one of the reasons. I'm so involved is I'm eighty-six years old. I have a feeling that people can say look at what she's doing at her age. If she can do it. I can do it together. Well, that's what I said when I turned 82 in jail, a lot of women said, well, you know, I don't like him do that too. And that's why so many gray hair ladies showed up in Washington. It's true. Also you seen you do tend to get braver when your women Women tend to get braver when they get older. I mean what the hell do we have to lose? Right? I'm not I don't have to sleep with some guy. That doesn't want me to be strong and brave anymore. 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