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What a way to end the day, Jane Fonda and it's amazing.
So we have so much to talk to you about, Jane, Megan and I are so excited.
I know the audience is excited.
And I want to start by asking you because I guarantee you there are people in this room who are climate activists who think about the environment because of you, fair.
Man.
That wasn't as enthusiastic as I was hoping for, but we'll get you there.
And I'm sure I think of climate because of some of the people.
In the right, probably true. So to that end, what ignited you? What made you think about this back in the day.
I think the fact that I was born in nineteen thirty seven and spent the first ten years of my life in California was important. There were only two billion people on Earth, then is this working? Two billion people? And guess what two billion people is the caring capacity of Earth When it comes to us, guys, sustainability means there can be two billion of us. Well, US has already been mentioned. There are more than eight billion now, and demographers said that there'll be ten billion by the
middle of the century. You know, what are we going to eat? Well, we'll eat cell grown fish, I guess, but no, really, we're destroying our So you all know that is better than I do. But what that meant for me was most people in the thirties they lived in the country. They didn't live in cities, and that meant there was a lot of nature. I lived on the top of a mountain overlook it kind of like this, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, only not so close farther away,
and there was no smog. There were no freeway, there was no plastic. And we did just fine. We did. It was maybe more difficult, but it was just fine. But you know, I grew I woke up and went to sleep to the sound of coyotes. I heard mourning doves and nightingales and meadow larks and bobcats and mountain lions. And I grew up with animals, and I was always outside, like a lot of you probably you know, it was the solace for me. It was not so great inside
the house. Yeah, there's something wrong. Oh well, anyway, I came back. I moved away. I came back forty years later, lived near the beach, and people were getting cancer. Lifeguards were getting cancer. This ocean that I swam in every summer, I didn't want to go in. People's eyes were burning, my kids got asthma. It's like this was not the same. And then I was married to a man named Tom Hayden, who was a movement leader at the time, and he
we focused a lot on petrol chemicals. There was a hole in the ozone, there was the cancer, there was Dow Chemical was one of the main villains at the time. Anyway, So I've always cared about the environment. I've always cared about the creatures, the wildlife. And then we discovered through
the work against petrol chemicals that corporations were running the government. Actually, my husband interviewed Jimmy Carter when he was in the White House, and Carter said to him, one of the things that I've realized now is the corporations are running this country. That was the president that said that. So so I've always cared. I've always, you know, loved nature in the environment and didn't like what corporations were doing to it. And then but I didn't really follow the science.
I didn't really know until like twenty twenty eighteen nineteen, the degree to which the climate was being challenged primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, and that wasn't being talked about then. All that most of the big green organizations, with the exception of Greenpeace and Oil Change International and a few others, they talked about the alternatives, you know, the things that we were working for, but they never said what was the primary cause of the climate crisis.
And you can't solve the climate crisis unless you talk about what's causing it primarily. And it wasn't until I started reading Naomi Klein's a couple of books that she wrote that made me realize this is existential, This is different than anything that we have ever faced before. And and I got very, very depressed. I know what that feels like, because I knew I wasn't doing enough. And I called Annie Leonard, who was running green Peace at
the time. She's here, She's the bravest, smartest, most strategic person I know. And I said, I want to move to DC and create a ruckus. I want to camp in front of the White House and I'm going to really, you know, cook up some good trouble. I was worried about what.
It's at poop I've done this before and I'm going to do it again.
Yeah, pooping was a problem. I didn't know, how do you do what do you I know, what to do in a blizzard or in the country or in a forest, but well, how what do you do with your poop when you're camping and protesting in a city?
Think about that?
But she said, you don't have to worry about pooping because it's not allowed anymore out to camp out. And so, long story short, we created fire drill Fridays, which meant every Friday, we you know, we would focus on a particular topic involving the climate crisis, and then we would engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. I mean, this is what changes history people. If you look at the history of non violent civil disobedience, it's what's really changed things a lot.
And so we did that and it changed us a lot. Our goal was not to pressure the government Trump was in office. We wanted to We knew that about sixty five to seventy percent of Americans were concerned about climate We wanted to move from concern to action. And I was I turned eighty two in jail that that fall, and I knew that was very important because a lot of people said said, well, if she can do it.
You know, people came from all over the country, mostly gray haired women like me, and they came they'd never been at rallies before, they'd never been arrested before, and and it really mattered. It made a big difference. There were a lot of new activists came out of that. And when COVID hit, we took it online and for a year we had nine million people that would join
us across all platforms. When when COVID ended, and Annie and a very small team the board that we have, it's a small group of people coven it's not a covet. So we've all for decades marched and protested and lobbied and written books and and we have not gotten the legislation that we needed that was commensurate with what science was saying that we needed. Why because so many people that we elect to office take money from the fossil
fuel industry and they won't move. And so we said, Okay, if you can't change the people, change the people, we're gonna kick them out and get climate champions elected. And we decided to focus down ballot because that's where you have a lot of influence. That's where a lot of the struggles for climate justice and fossil fuel infrastructure and
all this this is where it happens. I mean, you can't imagine how down ballot, state and local officials have such power when it comes to the fossil fuel industry, to saving properties, to stopping fossil fuel infrastructure. Plus it's less expensive. We didn't we were just new and we couldn't make a debt in the presidentialial election. It's not strategic what we did. I think what we're doing is
the most strategic thing all over the country. Governors, mayors, city council, state legislatures, county executive school boards, public utilities. These things make such a difference. So we've had I don't know, something like one hundred and seventy candidates that have won. We have a two to one running ratio. We win two to one. We have forty four thousand donors around the country. We have thousands and thousands of volunteers that we can get to come out to local campaigns.
And can you tell us a little bit more about one of the key issues you're focused on right now?
With the pack climate climate we focus on climate. We study the candidates a lot. We work with local people on the ground because they know the best about who are the good potential candidates? Can they really win? We're not a protest Pack. We were in it to win it. Can they win? Can Jane Pack make an appreciable difference if we endorse? Is this in a heavily industrial area where people are sick and dying and have absolutely no help from city councils or supervisors or governors?
You know.
That wonderful presentation by the woman what's the name of the river? Oh? Yeah, that place? As you all know, there's places like that all over the country, and we go there and try to help them. Get an electoral advocate for them, you know, get people elected that are going to help them. These are the kind of things.
And so, Jane, how often are you finding the candidates and how often are they finding you?
How is that evolving? Well?
Where? You know, when we started, none of us had ever done anything like this before. We built the plane as we were flying it, and we didn't know whether candidate. I mean, I'm you know, I'm popular now, but I'm not all I've been not so popular, and I didn't know whether you know they would come. They're coming, Yeah, they are, They're coming because when I show up, you know, instead of getting seven people to volunteer canvas, they got fifty, you know, or they raised triple the amount of money
they and the morale is boosted. And it's very it's really strategic what what we're doing. We're building a firewall against what Trump is attempting, because they could this is the place where people are going to be able to say no, we're not going to do that, you know, or fight back on developing public land anything.
And when you say this is the place you're talking about at the local level and with the utilities and things like that. Is there a surprising place that you found. Is there an example of one where you thought, oh, this is this is how this is going to work.
Well, they teach us what's going to work. I mean, we we've had a we flipped the Virginia Legislature. We had fourteen candidates running for the this is in twenty twenty three for the Virginia Legislature and thirteen of them one and it flipped Democratic. Yeah, so that's the kind of thing that we try to do. Is you all know now I've forgotten the word trifecta. Is that what it is? When you get governor, state Senate, and state House, you got a trifecta. We're going for the trifectas. And
there's a lot more try There's many more. I have the numbers down here someplace, many more democratic trifectas since Trump's first there's all kinds of reasons on the ground in state and local levels. Well, I were in a very better, much better shape than we were the first time he was elected. We've got more good people in office, we have more trifectors, we have more democratic governors and so on. I mean, we're I see, I'm not depressed.
I am, And it's because you know, Greta Greta Tunberg says, everybody goes looking for hope, no look for action, and hope will come. And I know personally in my heart and soul that that's true. The more you do, the less depressed you're gonna be, because there's a lot of reasons to be hopeful.
Jane, have you seen a moment like this before in your over six decades of activism and and how did you get through it?
I have never seen no, We've never never in human history has a situation like this existed where the Trump stuff is this working?
Oh yeah, oh yes, we got.
I mean it's just you all are facing this way, but we're facing this way and we're looking at that. I mean, I'm from Los Angeles. This is like, wow, this is why we have to fight this. Yeah, what was the question?
Historically?
I mean, you've you've been through some bad moments where the country has gone in a way that you didn't agree with.
No, this has never happened. Yeah, I mean, we have two crises, two essential crises, and for both it's now we're never democracy and climate and they are absolutely interlinked, and we have to solve them together. We're losing the democratic infrastructure and norms to deal with the climate, and we're losing the climate stability that is essential for a democracy. We have to solve them together. And we've never fail,
especially in America. We've never faced a threat like this to our democracy at a time when it's a perfect storm, at a time when we're being told by climate scientists, some of you may be in this room, that we have to cut our emissions, fossil fuel emissions in half in five years. Now, you know, when I started to realize what was happening, it was twelve years and we
haven't done it, and now it's five years. By twenty thirty, we're supposed to cut our emissions in half and then gradually, not suddenly turn off this picket, but gradually phase out to zero by mid century. And we can do it because the alternatives are It's not just that they're there, but they're ready and they're being used all over the world. I urge you all to read Bill mckibbon's new article
in The New Yorker. It's about the sun. It's about the how robustly solar energy has taken over the world, and no trust is and his minions are going to be able to turn it around because it's safe, it's cheap, it's forever, and it's job intensive. There's way more jobs in that sector than in the fossil fuel sector. So I mean, what's not to love. We just have to love it to life, not love it to death, love it to life. Well, that's a good slogan.
You saw it happen right here. This is great, Jane.
I feel like you know everybody in this room. I'm speaking for myself, but I would also think everybody in this room that's been working in climate for years is probably feeling a little bit depressed right now and just the shift that has happened. What advice can you give to us all to keep us all going and make us continue to fight the fight, and what can we do in times like this that are is the most effective.
I think that the thing the most important things to do, very specifically is elect climate champions up and down the ballot all over the country starting yesterday. You know, there's there's We've already got about twenty eight special races this year and it's an off year, right, you know, we don't we can't just deal with elections, you know, like after Labor Day on the year of the election, when the election is November. We have to This is a
year round thing. Find out who's good, let us know, let the other organizations know that are working in this sector. Run yourselves. I mean, god, imagine if all of you were elected to office. WHOA, it'd be a title a tsunami coming at the fucking fossil fuel people. By the way, this is totally non secutary. I mean whatever, But Toyota, I bought my first Prius from Toyota. I thought Toyota was a good guy. Toyota is the biggest funder of
anti climate work. They fund disinformation and they stop any progress that can happen. Did you know that? Most people don't know that. So I'm telling you.
So, Jane, you know, it was interesting to we're listening to the session when we were backstage with the Paradise folks about climate storytelling. You're a storyteller. You have been a storyteller for a long time. You're absolutely Academy Award winning actor, filmmaker. How does being a creator, as the kids say, how does that influence your activism? And how does your activism influence the choices you make in terms of roles that you take or think projects you decide to pursue.
Well, I've always wanted to support and fight for working women, so I made nine to five. I don't like solar energy. Solar energy, I mean nuclear energy. I don't care what they tell you about these new small modular reacts. I've done some research. It's not the solution to the climate crisis. Okay, okay, no, it's not. Time is of the essence, and these things the fastest take ten years. Most of them take twenty years,
and guess who ends up paying for it us. Speaking of you asked me what to do, vote for Climate Champions. And the other thing is make people aware that in that horrible bill that just passed is I think around twenty billion dollars of our tax money goes to the fossil fuel industry and the form of subsidies and tax rebase and things like that. Most people don't know what's
in the bill. And when they know that their medicaid is being taken away and their food stamps are being taken away, and the prices are going up because of the fossil fuel industry, and at the same time that that's all being taken away from them, we're giving twenty billion dollars to the people that are killing us. People have to know this. If we can, we have to raise the the heat under the under them by letting people know what it is that he's done and he's
getting away with it. The other things speaking of not getting we have to keep him from getting away with it. We have to protest all the time, constantly, all kinds of protests, including civil disobedience. You know, I don't know about you but every time I see a documentary about the civil rights movement, for example, or anti apartheid, where people are really being you know, the batons and the dogs and the hoses, and and I, you know, I ask myself, would I be brave enough? Could I have
stood up to that? And I've realized I don't have to ask anymore. This is it. This is our documentary moment. And so I'm sure you have people, young people whose lives you know, you'll die and they'll go on and what it's going to be like, so you want to do everything. You cancel, they'll know that you tried, that you fought for them and for their future. This is our documentary moment. So we have to and we have to talk about what's in the bill. We have to
let people know. We have to make them mad. We have to call their attention to the fact that we're being made to pay for the things that are making us sick. I think that those are the those are the things that we have to do, and if we do them, we won't be depressed. Well that is at least that's my and I know a lot of other people too. Hope is a muscle, you know, it's like
the heart. It's different than than optimism, you know, and optimism says everything's going to be fine and they don't do anything to make it.
So.
Hope is the opposite. Hope is you're doing it, and you're working hard, and you're giving it, you're all and then and you don't you don't get depressed.
What keeps you the most hopeful?
My active and my team, see, I've I've been through hell in terms of people hating me and being attacked by the government and everything. I know what it feels like it's going to get worse than that. Though. Nixon, you know, he's like kindergarten coming here. I mean Nixon, you know, the first Earth Day was so huge that Nixon created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the EPA. That was Nixon, a Republican who did that. So things are worse. What was it that you asked me?
What keeps you hopeful? What I do and the fact that I'm not alone. I'm part of a movement. I have a a board of of people here, and then people believe it in what I'm doing. That keeps me. Michael Bloomberg, I mean, I guess it's appropriate to talk about him for a second. I've done some billionaires up close in person, and they're different. You know, some people are billionaires and give away a lot of money because they want to go to heaven and they wanted to
be considered a good guy. And then there's Michael Bloomberg, and it blows my mind. Here is this white male billionaire in New York who understands that in this climate space, what's strategic is listening to black women on the ground in Louisiana. It's unbelievable what his petrochemical philanthropies has done in the area which is the hotspot of the climate crisis, the Gulf of Mexico, a lot, Texas and Louisiana, where are shrimp and clams and oysters and fish come from.
Don't eat them if they come from there. I mean, I've seen it up close and personal. They're killing people. They're wiping out entire communities, like every house has somebody in it that has cancer. And Michael Bloomberg is doing something about it. He is, really It just blows my mind. And another group that I think is represented here is Patagonia and hold Fast and their CEO, and they've been very generous to the pack too, so that gives me hope and being with you know, with with with a
great board. My pack has a small board of experts, and then just listening to the people that have talked to you. There's so many people that are involved in this, and I just don't think that we're gonna let it. I don't think we're gonna let it go.
I have no doubt you're gonna You're not letting it go.
I think, well, that doesn't matter.
Well, I think it matters a great deal. And I know that I speak on behalf of the audience. We can pick those up on the way out. We really appreciate your time, Jane, thank you so much for coming up.
But everybody, rise up, protest, make yourself heard, make people understand what's in that bill. You know, let's just not sit around talking about it. Let's really do it. Okay. I don't know how many raise your hand if you come from this area. Okay, I wish I could take all of your names, because we're coming back. We have to do something really brave here. This is worth saving.
And I learned from my friend Jay Insley, you've already lost that tremendously important help forrest that was here, that's gone. I mean, there's so many things going. So if I come back and we put out the word, I hope all of those people who raise their hands will join us doing something fun. Trouble, good, trouble. Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you. Thanks Shane fund Man,