Jane Fonda Urges Young People to Vote in 2024 to Push Kamala Harris on Climate Change
Mark Hertsgaard
Tue, September 24, 2024
ANGELA WEISS/Getty Images
This article is co-published with The Guardian.
Young people’s understandable unhappiness with the Biden administration’s record on oil and gas drilling and the war in Gaza should not deter them from voting to block Donald Trump from again becoming president of the United States, the Hollywood actor and activist Jane Fonda has warned.
“I understand why young people are really angry, and really hurting,” Fonda said. “What I want to say to them is: ‘Do not sit this election out, no matter how angry you are. Do not vote for a third party, no matter how angry you are. Because that will elect somebody who will deny you any voice in the future of the United States … If you really care about Gaza, vote to have a voice, so you can do something about it. And then, be ready to turn out into the streets, in the millions, and fight for it.’”
Fonda’s remarks came in a wide-ranging interview organized by the global media collaborative Covering Climate Now and conducted by the Guardian, CBS News and Rolling Stone magazine.
Making major social change requires massive, non-violent street protests as well as shrewd electoral organizing, Fonda argued. Drawing on more than 50 years of activism, from her anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s to later agitating for economic democracy, women’s rights and, today, for climate action, Fonda said that: “History shows us that … you need millions of people in the streets, but you [also] need people in the halls of power with ears and a heart to hear the protests, to hear the demands.”
Jane Fonda *21.12.1937- actress, USA with Angela Davis (left) during a demonstration against the war in Vietnam, Campus of the University of Los Angeles, California
Jane Fonda with Angela Davis (left) during a demonstration against the war in Vietnam, Campus of the University of Los Angeles, Californiaullstein bild/Getty ImagesMore
During the Great Depression, she said, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed with helping the masses of unemployed. But FDR said the public had to “make him do it”, or he could not overcome resistance from the status quo. “There is a chance for us to make them do it if it’s Kamala Harris and Tim Walz [in the White House],” she said. “There is no chance if Trump and Vance win this election.”
Scientists have repeatedly warned that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by half by the next decade, Fonda noted, so a President Harris would have to be pushed “to stop drilling, and fracking, and mining. No new development of fossil fuels.” Trump, on the other hand, has promised to “‘drill, baby, drill.’ For once, let’s believe him. The choice is very clear: do we vote for the future, or do we vote for burning up the planet?”
Fonda launched the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee three years ago to elect “climate champions” at all levels of government: national, state and local. “The Pac focuses down ballot – on mayors, state legislators, county councils,” she said. “It’s incredible how much effect people in these positions can have on climate issues.”
Forty-two of the 60 candidates the Pac endorsed in 2022 won their races. In 2024, the Pac is providing money, voter outreach and publicity to more than 100 candidates in key battleground states and in California, Fonda’s home state. California is “the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and an oil-producing state”, she explained, “so what happens here has an impact far broader than California”.
Fonda is also, for the first time in her life, “very involved” in this year’s presidential campaign, “because of the climate emergency”. She plans to visit each battleground state, she said: “And when I’m there, we give our schedule to the Harris campaign. Then they fold in Harris campaign [get-out-the-vote events], volunteer recruitment, things like that … and then I do them for our Pac candidates” as well.
Her Pac has a strict rule: it endorses only candidates who do not accept money from the fossil fuel industry. The industry’s “stranglehold over our government” explains a crucial disconnect, Fonda said: polls show that most Americans want climate action, yet their elected officials often don’t deliver it. In California, she said, “we’ve had so many moderate Democrats that blocked the climate solutions we need because they take money from the fossil fuel industry … It’s very hard to stand up to the people that are supporting your candidacy.”
Fonda also faulted the mainstream news media for not doing a better job of informing the public about the climate emergency and the abundance of solutions. Watching the Harris-Trump debate, she thought that “Kamala did very well”. But she “was very disturbed that the No 1 crisis facing humanity right now took an hour-and-a-half to come up and was not really addressed”, she added. “People don’t understand what we are facing! The news media has to be more vigilant about tying extreme weather events to climate change. It’s starting to happen, but not enough.”
Given her years of anti-nuclear activism – including producing and starring in a hit Hollywood movie, The China Syndrome, released days before the Three Mile Island reactor accident in 1979 – it’s perhaps no surprise that Fonda rejects the increasingly fashionable idea that nuclear power is a climate solution.
“Every time I speak [in public], someone asks me if these small modular reactors are a solution,” she said. “So I’ve spent time researching it, and there’s one unavoidable problem: no nuclear reactor of any kind – the traditional or the smaller or the modular, none of them – has been built in less than 10 to 20 years. We don’t have that kind of time. We have to deal with the climate crisis by the 2030s. So just on the timeline, nuclear is not a solution.” By contrast, she said: “Solar takes about four years to develop, and pretty soon it’s going to be 30% of the electricity in the world.”
The reason that solar – and wind and geothermal – energy are not prioritized over fossil fuels and nuclear, she argued, is that “big companies don’t make as much money on it”. Noting that air pollution from fossil fuels kills 9 million people a year globally, she added: “We’re being poisoned to death because of petrochemicals and the fossil fuel industry. And we [taxpayers] pay for it! We pay $20bn a year [in government subsidies] to the fossil fuel industry, and we’re dying … We need that industry out of our lives, off of our planet – but they run the world.”
The two-time Academy Award winner’s decades as one of the world’s biggest movie stars has given her an appreciation of the power of celebrity, and she applauds Taylor Swift for exercising that power with her endorsement of the Harris-Walz ticket.
“I think she’s awesome, amazing and very smart,” Fonda said of Swift. “I’m very grateful and excited that she did it, and … I think it’s going to have a big impact.”
“My metaphor for myself, and other celebrities, is a repeater,” Fonda added. “When you look at a big, tall mountain, and you see these antennas on the top, those are repeaters. They pick up the signals from the valley that are weak and distribute them so that they have a larger audience … When I’m doing the work I’m doing, I’m picking up the signals from the people who live in Wilmington and the Central valley and Kern county and are really suffering, and the animals that can’t speak, and trying to lift them up and send [their stories] out to a broader audience. We’re repeaters. It’s a very valid thing to do.”
Climate activism is also “so much fun”, she said, and it does wonders for her mental health.
“I don’t get depressed anymore,” she said. “You know, Greta Thunberg said something really great: ‘Everybody goes looking for hope. Hope is where there’s action, so look for action and hope will come.’” Hope, Fonda added, is “very different than optimism. Optimism is ‘everything’s gonna be fine’, but you don’t do anything to make sure that that’s true. Hope is: I’m hopeful, and I’m gonna work like hell to make it true.”
Jane Fonda on Kamala, Taylor, and Our Existential Climate Crisis
Tue, September 24, 2024
ANGELA WEISS/Getty Images
This article is co-published with The Guardian.
Young people’s understandable unhappiness with the Biden administration’s record on oil and gas drilling and the war in Gaza should not deter them from voting to block Donald Trump from again becoming president of the United States, the Hollywood actor and activist Jane Fonda has warned.
“I understand why young people are really angry, and really hurting,” Fonda said. “What I want to say to them is: ‘Do not sit this election out, no matter how angry you are. Do not vote for a third party, no matter how angry you are. Because that will elect somebody who will deny you any voice in the future of the United States … If you really care about Gaza, vote to have a voice, so you can do something about it. And then, be ready to turn out into the streets, in the millions, and fight for it.’”
Fonda’s remarks came in a wide-ranging interview organized by the global media collaborative Covering Climate Now and conducted by the Guardian, CBS News and Rolling Stone magazine.
Making major social change requires massive, non-violent street protests as well as shrewd electoral organizing, Fonda argued. Drawing on more than 50 years of activism, from her anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s to later agitating for economic democracy, women’s rights and, today, for climate action, Fonda said that: “History shows us that … you need millions of people in the streets, but you [also] need people in the halls of power with ears and a heart to hear the protests, to hear the demands.”
Jane Fonda *21.12.1937- actress, USA with Angela Davis (left) during a demonstration against the war in Vietnam, Campus of the University of Los Angeles, California
Jane Fonda with Angela Davis (left) during a demonstration against the war in Vietnam, Campus of the University of Los Angeles, Californiaullstein bild/Getty ImagesMore
During the Great Depression, she said, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed with helping the masses of unemployed. But FDR said the public had to “make him do it”, or he could not overcome resistance from the status quo. “There is a chance for us to make them do it if it’s Kamala Harris and Tim Walz [in the White House],” she said. “There is no chance if Trump and Vance win this election.”
Scientists have repeatedly warned that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by half by the next decade, Fonda noted, so a President Harris would have to be pushed “to stop drilling, and fracking, and mining. No new development of fossil fuels.” Trump, on the other hand, has promised to “‘drill, baby, drill.’ For once, let’s believe him. The choice is very clear: do we vote for the future, or do we vote for burning up the planet?”
Fonda launched the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee three years ago to elect “climate champions” at all levels of government: national, state and local. “The Pac focuses down ballot – on mayors, state legislators, county councils,” she said. “It’s incredible how much effect people in these positions can have on climate issues.”
Forty-two of the 60 candidates the Pac endorsed in 2022 won their races. In 2024, the Pac is providing money, voter outreach and publicity to more than 100 candidates in key battleground states and in California, Fonda’s home state. California is “the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and an oil-producing state”, she explained, “so what happens here has an impact far broader than California”.
Fonda is also, for the first time in her life, “very involved” in this year’s presidential campaign, “because of the climate emergency”. She plans to visit each battleground state, she said: “And when I’m there, we give our schedule to the Harris campaign. Then they fold in Harris campaign [get-out-the-vote events], volunteer recruitment, things like that … and then I do them for our Pac candidates” as well.
Her Pac has a strict rule: it endorses only candidates who do not accept money from the fossil fuel industry. The industry’s “stranglehold over our government” explains a crucial disconnect, Fonda said: polls show that most Americans want climate action, yet their elected officials often don’t deliver it. In California, she said, “we’ve had so many moderate Democrats that blocked the climate solutions we need because they take money from the fossil fuel industry … It’s very hard to stand up to the people that are supporting your candidacy.”
Fonda also faulted the mainstream news media for not doing a better job of informing the public about the climate emergency and the abundance of solutions. Watching the Harris-Trump debate, she thought that “Kamala did very well”. But she “was very disturbed that the No 1 crisis facing humanity right now took an hour-and-a-half to come up and was not really addressed”, she added. “People don’t understand what we are facing! The news media has to be more vigilant about tying extreme weather events to climate change. It’s starting to happen, but not enough.”
Given her years of anti-nuclear activism – including producing and starring in a hit Hollywood movie, The China Syndrome, released days before the Three Mile Island reactor accident in 1979 – it’s perhaps no surprise that Fonda rejects the increasingly fashionable idea that nuclear power is a climate solution.
“Every time I speak [in public], someone asks me if these small modular reactors are a solution,” she said. “So I’ve spent time researching it, and there’s one unavoidable problem: no nuclear reactor of any kind – the traditional or the smaller or the modular, none of them – has been built in less than 10 to 20 years. We don’t have that kind of time. We have to deal with the climate crisis by the 2030s. So just on the timeline, nuclear is not a solution.” By contrast, she said: “Solar takes about four years to develop, and pretty soon it’s going to be 30% of the electricity in the world.”
The reason that solar – and wind and geothermal – energy are not prioritized over fossil fuels and nuclear, she argued, is that “big companies don’t make as much money on it”. Noting that air pollution from fossil fuels kills 9 million people a year globally, she added: “We’re being poisoned to death because of petrochemicals and the fossil fuel industry. And we [taxpayers] pay for it! We pay $20bn a year [in government subsidies] to the fossil fuel industry, and we’re dying … We need that industry out of our lives, off of our planet – but they run the world.”
The two-time Academy Award winner’s decades as one of the world’s biggest movie stars has given her an appreciation of the power of celebrity, and she applauds Taylor Swift for exercising that power with her endorsement of the Harris-Walz ticket.
“I think she’s awesome, amazing and very smart,” Fonda said of Swift. “I’m very grateful and excited that she did it, and … I think it’s going to have a big impact.”
“My metaphor for myself, and other celebrities, is a repeater,” Fonda added. “When you look at a big, tall mountain, and you see these antennas on the top, those are repeaters. They pick up the signals from the valley that are weak and distribute them so that they have a larger audience … When I’m doing the work I’m doing, I’m picking up the signals from the people who live in Wilmington and the Central valley and Kern county and are really suffering, and the animals that can’t speak, and trying to lift them up and send [their stories] out to a broader audience. We’re repeaters. It’s a very valid thing to do.”
Climate activism is also “so much fun”, she said, and it does wonders for her mental health.
“I don’t get depressed anymore,” she said. “You know, Greta Thunberg said something really great: ‘Everybody goes looking for hope. Hope is where there’s action, so look for action and hope will come.’” Hope, Fonda added, is “very different than optimism. Optimism is ‘everything’s gonna be fine’, but you don’t do anything to make sure that that’s true. Hope is: I’m hopeful, and I’m gonna work like hell to make it true.”
Jane Fonda on Kamala, Taylor, and Our Existential Climate Crisis
Charisma Madarang
Mon, September 23, 2024
The climate crisis has been keeping Jane Fonda up at night. “I was so angry, it was hard to go to sleep,” she says. “We are being killed with cancer, heart diseases, because of the burning of fossil fuel,” Fonda presses. “We have the solution to the climate crisis, why don’t we employ it, instead of allowing a bunch of rich people to destroy everything that’s been created by humankind? We’ve got to rise up.”
It’s early September and we’re sitting in a sunny Los Angeles living room. Outside, everything appears as if it’s business as usual: traffic humming, glossy palms swaying, and Hollywood Boulevard swelling with tourists. Speaking with Fonda just a day after the first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, however, it’s clearer than ever that the country is hurtling toward a seismic change.
Fonda, who has been an activist for over 50 years, beginning with her controversial opposition to the Vietnam War, has often called the 2024 election an “existential” one. It’s the first time she has actively endorsed a candidate, first with President Joe Biden. After he dropped out of the race, Fonda was one of the first leaders in Hollywood to support Harris.
She lays out the stakes in November with a candid urgency, drawing a clear distinction between Harris and Trump’s climate and energy policies. “Every candidate has issues. Nobody’s perfect, but the Harris-Walz ticket is the ticket that will allow us to fight, to get the solutions that climate scientists are saying we need,” she says. “They give us a chance, at least, to fight. They give us a platform on which we can try to pressure.”
The alternative, Fonda points out, is a man who “invited all the CEOs of the fossil fuel industry to Mar-a-Lago” and promised to “drill, baby, drill” and slash environmental regulations in exchange for raising $1 billion to help him win back the White House. “We don’t have four years to lose. We can’t afford to allow him to be elected.”
Herve Berville, secretary of state for the Sea of the Republic of France, Fonda, and Laura Meller of Greenpeace Nordic (from left) at a press briefing at United Nations HQ
When discussing young voters disillusioned with Biden’s and Harris’ handling of U.S. policy amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Fonda says, “I understand why young people are so upset, but to sit this out or to vote for a third party candidate, is to allow fascism.”
“That will elect somebody who will deny you any voice in the future of the United States,” she continues. “Vote for a voice if you really care about Gaza, vote to have a voice so that you can do something about it, and then be ready to turn out into the streets by the millions and fight for it… If the young people stay home, we’re going to lose. They have such power. So show us your power. Vote and then fight.”
With election month less than two months away, artists across the music and entertainment industries have used their voices in an effort to impact America’s future. Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel shortly after the debate and Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris, Fonda celebrated the news on television. “I think she’s awesome. She’s amazing and very smart, and I’m very grateful and excited that she did it,” says Fonda. “I think it’s going to have a big impact.”
When reflecting on her own choice to use her celebrity to garner attention to the climate fight, Fonda quips, “What other way would there be to spend it?”
Left: Fonda attends Fire Drill Friday on Feb. 7, 2020, in Los Angeles. Right: The activist is arrested during a protest on Capitol Hill on Oct. 18, 2019, in Washington, D.C.
Fonda has long emphasized the potency for civil disobedience to create systemic change. The two-time Academy award-winning actress co-founded Fire Drill Fridays in 2019, a recurring climate protest in Washington, D.C., during which she was arrested five times. She later founded the Jane Fonda Climate PAC in 2022 to financially back “climate champions” at the state and local level. “That’s where the really robust work is being done on climate right now — mayors, city council, state legislators, county executives,” Fonda points out. “It’s incredible how much effect people in these positions can have on climate. We have well over 100 candidates all over the country.”
“This is a collective crisis, and it requires a collective solution,” says Fonda. “[Trump] wants to do away with all regulations and open up the floodgates for the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear industry. So the choice is very clear, do we vote for the future, or do we vote for burning up the planet?”
While Fonda has called her activism in the climate fight all-consuming, she underlines that the work is to ensure a healthier planet for future generations. “When you’re on your deathbed, you want to feel that it’s been worthwhile,” she says. “You want people who love you around you, which means you have to deserve their love. And you want to feel that you’ve had meaning in your life. And for the first time, I felt my life has value.”
Fonda’s remarks came in a wide-ranging interview organized by the global media collaborative Covering Climate Now and conducted by the Guardian, CBS News, and Rolling Stone magazine.
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