♪ ♪ KERFOOT: Hello, everyone.

My name is Brittany Kerfoot, the deputy director of the events at "Politics and Prose".

And I'd like to welcome you all to P&P Live.

We are so excited to host the incomparable Jane Fonda for her new book on the climate crisis.

But before we bring her to the screen, I'd like to first introduce Annie Leonard, the executive director of Greenpeace USA.

Annie played an integral role in helping Jane organize the now famous "Fire Drill Fridays" and with one of the inspirations behind this book.

Hi Annie.

LEONARD: Hey, it's so wonderful to be here.

I'm delighted to introduce my two friends and fellow climate activists, Jane and Amber.

The last time that we three were together was protesting in Washington, DC.

And I am counting the days until we were able to do that again, the need is greater than ever, and I hope all of you will read this book and then be able to join us when we protest again.

So Jane Fonda needs no introduction.

Everybody knows Jane the actor and Jane the activist.

So I want to introduce a different side of Jane, another side, a side that you will see in her new book.

Jane is also a devoted hungry learner.

She seeks out and listens to voices on the frontline of climate impacts.

The voices that are often ignored leading with curiosity and inviting others to join her.

It has been such a joy to work alongside her this past year, and then to see it all captured in this book.

We also have Amber Valletta with us today to moderate the evening's program.

You will recognize Amber from her modeling work gracing, the covers of many fashion magazines, her acting work and movies and TV.

She's joined multiple "Fire Drill Friday" rallies speaking, marching and we were all arrested together in front of the Capitol building.

When we used civil disobedience to draw attention to the climate crisis, the impacts of which we're seeing unfold on the west coast and around the world today.

So Jane, Amber, it is great to see you both.

I wish I could give you a big hug.

FONDA: Thanks, Annie.

I got to say when I, when I, when I Amber, I think I've told you this, but you know, a year ago, it was just about a year ago when I realized that Greta Thunberg was right.

We had to get out of our, our, our comfort zones and behave like we're in a crisis because we are a true crisis, right away the person I knew I had to call was Annie Leonard, the director of Greenpeace.

I mean, is there a braver organization than Greenpeace?

I know that they embraced big, strong, powerful actions that wake people up.

And Annie is at the helm.

And it just means so much to me that because of Annie and Greenpeace, we were able to, to get this thing going and continuing it's continuing and growing.

VALLETTA: I know I can't wait to get to all of that and hear exactly how "Fire Drill Fridays" started.

And Jane, thank you for asking me to do this and thank you for "Politics and Prose" for hosting us and Annie for all your work and Greenpeace.

I love you guys.

And, um, it's been a real honor to march with you and to be arrested and to learn from you.

And, um, and I'm just feel so eternally blessed to be here tonight.

So, um, I just wanted to say when I, I was reading your book, um, Jane, I, I loved how personal this book was because you're talking about very big subjects.

You're talking about big issues that we're facing about climate change, and yet you interwove your own personal history and your own stories.

And I just found it so inspiring and it helped for me make it human and connect the dots.

And so I hope that others will, will find that.

I just wanted to start by saying that to you.

FONDA: Thanks, Amber, yea.

VALLETTA: loved hearing all the stories and how people that showed up for you or from people, people from the past.

And it's just amazing.

Um, I know you've been an activist for many issues, but you, you were also keenly aware of the environmental issues even as early as the 70s, but what really led you, you know, actually a year ago now to start "Fire Drill Fridays", FONDA: I was pretty depressed because I kept asking, "What Can I Do?"

You know, I mean, I did all the personal things.

I got rid of single use plastics and I cut way back on meat and I have an electric car.

And, and, but I know that's the, that's the on ramp.

That's the first step.

But those of us who are celebrities have a platform, how do I use my platform appropriately?

And it was Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein's book.

And maybe some of the people watching have read it.

It was called "On Fire, the Burning Case for a Green New Deal."

And it was that book that really shook me.

And it was how she quoted Greta to get out of your comfort zone and, and, and put your body on the line.

And that was where I realized, okay, all right.

Actually, my first desire was, and I called Annie and I said, I want to move to DC for a year.

I'm going to live in a tent.

I'm going to camp out in front of the, the White House.

And I remember the silence on the phone.

And then she said, "that's, that's, that's great, Jane, that's great that you want to put yourself out there, but it's illegal.

We can't camp out anymore.

So we have to find another way."

And then we eventually worked out the once a week, "Friday Fire Drills".

VALLETTA: I loved how you guys came up to, with that name.

That was so interesting.

FONDA: We didn't know what to call it.

And, you know, there was a documentary film crew following us, and we spent a day in a room trying to figure out the name.

And we couldn't think of one that we were packing up to go.

And the sound guy on the documentary crew said, well, "What about 'Fire Drill Fridays'?"

He was, that's the one, yes.

VALLETTA: Incredible.

And you spoke about feeling kind of despair and, and, you know, I think we all, especially now, since COVID hit, we, we've all been challenged with feeling this despair and sort of what's going to happen coupled with, you know, what's happening right now, here in California or the floods that were happening, the massive hurricane that we had in Texas and in Louisiana, and not just here in the United States, but all over the world where we're seeing the effects of climate change, how do you stay above all that to keep fighting?

How do you stay above that despair?

FONDA: Well, sometimes I don't.

I mean, you know, it's just heartbreaking what's happening.

I mean, here in California, the, we have a governor who's who just today on the news said, you know, I, he, he will not tolerate people who are denying climate change, but he keeps signing, permits for further fossil fuel drilling and infrastructure and fracking.

And that's what we have to stop is the fossil fuels.

So when I see that somebody like Gavin Newsom and half his state is on fire and he claims to be and in many ways is a climate activist, but he can't stand up to oil.

So I get kind of down, but I don't know, it's talking to and being with the young climate strikers, many of whom have been on "Fire Drill Fridays" with me since I've been back in California, it's knowing how people change.

You know, when we started in DC a year ago, I think Annie was one of them.

I think 16 people got arrested.

And when we left, it was about, it was well over 300 people and yeah.

VALLETTA: I remember.

FONDA: Yea, you remember?

And, um, and now we're doing them.

We've been doing them for six months virtually.

And last Friday we had 750,000 people following us, which is pretty amazing.

And tens of thousands of people have signed up to be volunteers.

And they're doing things that really matter.

Calling and writing and texting and re-registering people who've been purged from the voting polls and loving how they feel that they're making a difference.

That's what buoys me up and helps me get over climate despair is activism.

VALLETTA: Yes.

FONDA: Yeah.

VALLETTA: Taking action.

Right?

What do you think since the first time you were arrested a year ago?

October 11th, almost.

It's almost a year that first rally so much has changed in, especially in the United States, but globally, too.

There's been a lot of upheaval, but here in the United States, we've seen, you know, a big summer full of protests and, um, just massive amounts of social change.

How do you feel now, when you think about that first arrest compared to now?

FONDA: I'm gladder than ever that I, that I was there and that I did it and that Annie, and all those other wonderful people were there with me on that first day and that we kept at it.

I mean, it was real scary in the beginning.

We didn't know, you know, there were more photographers than there were protesters.

Um, we didn't know if it was going to gain traction, but in the midst of the triple crises that we're facing now, there's the climate, there's the COVID pandemic, and there's uprisings following George Floyd.

I mean, this is a, this is an important time.

It's a time when, I mean, not only do we have to deal with the election and making sure that that Biden gets elected, we also have to really dig deep into ourselves and figure out who we are, who do we want to be?

VALLETTA: Yea.

FONDA: And we have to fundamentally, and I hope we will, and I think we will, we have to change the way we think and feel, and function and, and learn to care for each other and, and not let these dog whistling politicians, um, who really don't care about, about us at all.

That lead us down a, a dead end road, which is what's happening now.

But, you know, I always tend to look at the bright side.

COVID has, COVID didn't break us.

COVID exposed where we were already broken.

And so people saw things that I don't think they were aware of.

I think they didn't realize how our federal government is, has been so weakened and crippled by the guy that's in the White House right now.

And when you're facing a pandemic and a climate crisis, you need a strong federal government that's coordinated and strategic and prepared, and people are now faced with what happens when you don't have that.

That's one thing, another lesson from COVID is pay attention to the experts, the medical experts and the scientists, which has not been happening.

And I think people see what happens when you don't do that.

And, um, and then I think that people are seeing the essential workers, you know, the farm workers, the nurses, the domestic workers, the delivery people, the, all the people that make our lives function that are risking so much and getting so little in return clapping for them in the evening isn't enough.

We have to really fight for them not just for now, but in the future that they're able to earn a decent living so they can support themselves.

So all these things that reflect on who we are as a people are happening at once.

And I think that we're being shaken awake.

So I feel very hopeful.

VALLETTA: Yes, we are.

I mean, that's one of the things that I've come to realize since really getting involved in, in different types of activism is that all of these paths converge that racial justice women's issues, indigenous issues, labor issues, sustainability, and even things like clothing.

I mean, everything, oil industry, clean air, everything emerges into one, like all paths lead to Rome.

And I think that people just don't realize how interconnected everything is.

And so I know that you brought so much of that to light in "Fire Drill Fridays".

You that's what each "Fire Drill Friday" was about a different issue, but you also had people speaking from different backgrounds and you collaborated with people from different backgrounds.

Can you talk about why it's so vitally important that we collaborate, why we are also, um, that we collaborate with different movements as well?

FONDA: Yeah.

Well, we're not going to win unless we collaborate.

And you're absolutely right.

Amber, when, when you say they're, they're all interconnected, the mindset.

That is, I'm sorry to say the foundation of the United States that built the economy of the United States, is slavery.

VALLETTA: Yes.

FONDA: It's a mindset that people are fungible, that the land is to be used and overused, and then discarded and move on.

There's always a place you can move to.

There's always a, a new frontier.

We, we, we treated human beings and the land and nature as, um, disposable.

And it's it's this, and now we are at the far extreme of that mindset and what it has given birth to its late stage capitalism, globalism.

And it's staring us right in the face and it's all the same thing.

So we have to get over.

We can't just have a new politician and a new, and some new policies.

We have to have a new civilizational paradigm, which guides us into the future.

VALLETTA: Yes.

It's all about a new paradigm shift.

I, I think that's one of the things that is so important to having that big shift is listening to the youth and hearing how, um, you know, they feel so they don't understand how we could have pissed away their future.

And I know that you had a lot of young activists come and work with you during "Fire Drill Fridays", and I'm even friends with some of these young people on Instagram, now, when I talked to you personally, talk about that, how you merged your, you know, you, you are a woman of, you know, uh, you didn't necessarily need to do that.

And you guys at Greenpeace all joined together with these young people.

FONDA: Imagine if, if I hadn't.

Imagine if this aging movie star from Hollywood had bopped into DC and started these actions on Friday without ever meeting with the folks that had been there every Friday for a year already, I mean, it would not have worked it's to Annie's credit that she, she knew that in order for this to work before anything was done, we have to sit down with the people that had already been there that included the young climate strikers, but it also included the heads of all the other environmental organizations that believe in actions.

You know, there are some environmental organizations that are about conservation and they don't do big actions.

Um, so we, we got the organizations together that, that understand the value of actions and really it was together that we figured out what we needed to do.

And a lot of them later spoke at the rallies.

And then, and then I brought in celebrities who were my friends, because not to pretend that they were experts, although Ted Dansen knows a lot about the oceans, but, um, to be the ones that introduced the frontline people, these, these people of color, these young women, these, these young indigenous people from Standing Rock people whose voices are not heard normally, um, we wanted to use our celebrity to give them a platform.

And boy, their stories were potent and heartbreaking and important.

And, you know, but there was one which was that it was an environmental justice, I think, was this particular Friday, what a lineup.

There was a young girl, um, Jacelyn Charger from Standing Rock.

And then there was Abby Disney.

The niece of Walt Disney was, um, Ariana from, um, from Houston who lives in the shadow of a refinery.

And describe what it was like growing up in a place where people couldn't breathe and everybody had lung disease and so forth.

And then it was Bobby Kennedy.

So it was, it was just beautiful and it made me so happy.

And one of the things that I love about this book is that when, when you look at the pictures, you can see how it was centered in joy, love.

You can see all the love in people's faces.

It was great.

VALLETTA: There's there was a lot of support.

I know when I was there several times, there was a lot of love and support.

I brought my mom to the last, very last "Fire Drill Friday" in DC, and, um, Martin Sheen spoke and he gave that amazing.

I I'm not even sure whose speech it was, but he, it was so powerful.

And he was so generous and gracious with so many people.

And, and there were so many, you know, um, other incredible people that came that day and Joaquin and, and, um, and then you have these activists and, uh, people from all over, and it was just, it's just powerful.

You did an amazing job.

I want to talk about was some of the, the real, um, demands you all were making for "Fire Drill Fridays".

And the, one of the biggest, or not the biggest, but you talk about it a lot in the book.

And I don't know if a lot of people fully understand the Green New Deal.

Would you just give a very quick if it's possible, you know, summary so that people who are listening can understand why it's so important, why we need this to pass?

FONDA: Let me.

I think that it's easy to understand it.

If I start off describing what happens, if we don't... VALLETTA: There we go.

FONDA: Have a new deal.

We're phasing out of coal.

And there all these coal miners, a lot of them have black lung because of their work and West Virginia, Kentucky, the mines have closed down.

The owners of the mines have canceled healthcare for these people.

There's a fund that's supposed to support mine workers, you know, that was disappeared.

And so there are all these out of work, coal miners who see no future who have no institutional help.

VALLETTA: Right.

FONDA: Right?

They are the victims of the transition away from fossil fuels that cannot happen.

We need to make sure that when we move from a fossil fuel based energy economy, that the workers and communities and families who are impacted by that transition are trained for new jobs, where they live in their communities, um, union jobs with the right to collective bargain so that they don't lose anything.

Except now their jobs are healthy and clean.

And they're still earning a decent salary because, you know, in the fossil fuel industry, very, it's a unionized.

A lot of the workers are unionized, so they can earn 85, $100,000 a year.

It's a good, it's a good living.

We can't ask them to leave that, to go to work, making solar panels for $30,000 a year, $40,000 a year.

You know, so what the Green New Deal does, it's a, it's a resolution.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a vision of how to move forward in such a way that we leave no one behind that we, that we raise up, not just that we don't just retrain the fossil fuel workers to work in the green economy, but we raise up those who work in the low carbon sectors, the ones that we call essential workers now, and that they are lifted to a place where they don't live in constant anxiety about how much money they're earning that they would earn a decent salary and they would be respected and they would have family leave.

And, and, um, you know, they could, they could have maternity leave and paternity leave and, and they were taken care of when they were sick.

We should take care of our people, our working people, the Green New Deal gives us a way to do that, to move away from fossil fuels, into a caring, clean, sustainable economy.

Now it's kinda like what Roosevelt did in the 30s when he was trying to lift this country out of its despair after, during the Great Depression.

And by the way, you know, he didn't just do it cause he was this great guy.

There were millions of people who forced him to do it.

And he said to them, at one point, "I agree with you now go out and make me do it."

We have to go out and we have to make them do it because the same kind of people that were opposed to him.

And, and I was once married to a guy whose father, while he was already dead the father, but he would've killed me, I think if, if he'd been alive knowing that his son was marrying somebody who loved Roosevelt and my father, the only time I saw him cry was the day that Roosevelt died.

I mean, that, that was very part of our, of our DNA as a, as a, as a family, big, brave, bold actions to lift people up.

And, um, that that's what the Green New Deal does.

Um, it's not just, let's just take a green paint and paint over the Civilian Conservation Corps and what all those programs with the Green New Deal, with the original New Deal, it requires, it requires changing the way we think and the way we live and, and all the people that are opposed to it, you know, they say, "Well, it's too expensive."

"It's not real," "Sounds like socialism".

Just with the way they did was Franklin Delanor Roosevelt in the 30s.

But one of the things that the COVID pandemic has shown that when there's an emergency, the government can come up with money, right?

So now we just have to have them, the money needs to be used, not to put us back where we were before, but use the COVID money after the elections.

And please God that we make it turn out the way it needs to the money needs to go to, um, putting people to work in a green economy, that's us and we need, and we need, you know, our country is not resilient.

We don't have a country that can stand up to what's coming.

I mean, look, what happened in California?

Look, what is happening in Houston and Louisiana, we lack resilience, our homes, our stores, our schools, our hospitals, our healthcare systems need to be shored up and restructured so they can withstand the assaults that are coming.

VALLETTA: Absolutely.

I mean, even when you look at all of our bridges, our roads, our riggers are our bandwidth with, with, uh, internet, uh, electrical, everything... FONDA: Our water systems, all pipes, aren't bad, pipelines are good.

So let's move them away from piping oil to piping, clean water in Flint, Michigan, and all the other places that don't have clean, clean water.

That's another victim of the climate crisis is the lack of water.

We, we it's scary.

VALLETTA: Directly to that point, you know, looking at Flint and talking about lack of water and, and, and drinkable water, how, um, how much this country, our racial and economic inequalities are intricately linked to the climate crisis.

I mean, talk about the disparity between, you know, you have this white privilege, you'd never have an oil drill or no clean water in Santa Monica.

You wouldn't have oil drills, you know, shooting out chemicals and poor air quality for people in, in this sort of white privileged neighborhood.

Whereas you do in low, uh, low income housing and, and indigenous communities there, they're being fracked and drilled.

And so there's this huge disparity, even though we all will feel the change eventually, right?

We'll all be part of the crisis, we'll all feel those effects.

But talk about how linked, um, these racial inequalities are to climate change.

FONDA: You know, I, I write about it in the book, Annie, after she got out of school and she studied, I don't know how I can't, I don't know how she describes it, but she studied things like why you would, how you would choose where to put up an oil rig or a refinery or a, or a waste or something like that.

And in school she was taught, well, you don't, you don't put it close to an aquifer.

You put it in this kind of a geological place for obvious reasons.

When she got out of school and face reality, there was a study that came out.

I think it was 1987, if I'm not mistaken, that showed how the decisions were made about where to put the fossil fuel infrastructures and refineries and incinerators and everything in communities of color and low income communities, where it is assumed they don't have the power to fight back.

And so generation after generation has rose up in these situations where, you know, kids are constantly having to use inhalators when they're playing sports, because the refineries are flaring methane, right over there, playing fields.

And people are dying of cancer and heart disease and all kinds of things, because they're called sacrifice zones, these places, you know, and we focused on that several times with the "Fire Drill Fridays" an hour south of here is a whole community Wilmington, where you can just smell it in the air and the pumps are, you know, they're, they go up and down drilling their oil right next to a home, or right next to a school because they're Hispanic.

So they can't fight back, it is thought, well, they're fighting back now.

And we're all standing together in this fight back, cause that has to stop.

And it's one reason why those communities are so much more vulnerable to the COVID pandemic.

Cause they're already suffering from lung diseases and other things that make them very vulnerable.

VALLETTA: Exactly.

I know that women are also disproportionately affected by climate change.

Many, many of the refugees we're seeing around the world are women... FONDA: 80% VALLETTA: 80%, and they're also caregivers.

And generally they're the ones who are going out and working and taking care of the children at the same time.

So how do you see women leading this climate change?

This, this climate movement?

FONDA: There's a lot of reasons why I think women are in the leadership.

Um, there's also a lot of really good men, Bill McKibben, for example, there's a lot of really good men that are leading, but you know, we noticed month after month after month in DC that like two thirds of the people there were women and a lot of them had gray hair and, uh, you couldn't miss it.

And I think there's, there's a lot of reasons for it.

Older women tend to get braver.

A lot of that is hormonal, men to get men tend to get less, they become a little more sedentary, a little more there's more estrogen than, than testosterone in the men, whereas our estrogen drops in the test, so there's more testosterone.

So we get pretty feisty.

Also we're less, women are less vulnerable to the disease of individualism and we're, we're conditioned socially to depend on each other more.

But it's also, I think evolutionary, I mean, way back in the hunter/gatherer days, it was the men who would go out to try to find meat, which often never happened because they couldn't find any, but it was us sitting around the campfire, helping each other, give birth and take care of the young children.

The older women telling the younger women where the tiger was, uh, hiding or where the, where the water was better or where the poisoned weeds were growing and we became, we became conscious of being entered dependent.

And then that grew into sewing circles and quilting bees and book clubs.

And we, we hang together and the way we relate to each other is, is just different.

It is, we relate face to face, eye to eye on a soul level.

And you know, I feel kind of bad cause men are kinda side to side looking out at the car races or the sports or whatever.

You know, it's not, it's a little bit less on a soul level, the way they relate to each other.

So, and that's, this is extremely important right now because the people who are in charge want us to believe that individualism is a good thing, that they they're trying to make the word collective a bad word and women don't fall for that.

So I think it's, it's one of the reasons that we, and also we relate to the earth more viscerally than men do.

And then we were the ones that bear the children and boy, do children suffer with the climate crisis because we carry toxins in our body fat, we have more body fat than men do.

It affects the, um, you know, we see the toxins go into fat.

That's why whales, you know, they, I can't remember the word now, but when, sequester whales sequester carbon in their fat, women sequester toxins in our body fat goes into the fetus, goes into the breast milk and kids are getting really sick in huge numbers all over the world.

I want to know why right to lifers don't get on the bandwagon to stop the climate crisis if they care so much about children, right?

So there's all kinds of reasons that women are in the leadership of this vital movement in Africa, uh, you know, they, they come up with the ideas of having solar panels to heat schools and, and, and bring light into, into cottages well, you know, so the babies aren't born and surgeries aren't done by candlelight and they're just, and also all the countries that have women in leadership roles tend to be the ones that sign the climate treaties.

Huh?

VALLETTA: And they've also done better during COVID.

FONDA: During COVID, yeah, that's right.

Good point.

Yes.

VALLETTA: Beautiful.

Who are your heroes?

I'm just curious.

I know you have such, you're surrounded by incredibly... FONDA: I am, yeah.

VALLETTA: Powerful women and amazing women... FONDA: My heroes are my friends, my women friends, Eve Ensler, and Laura, Laura Flanders and Elizabeth Lesser and Annie Leonard.

And you know, you, I mean, my friends are my heroes.

VALLETTA: Well, we love you, Jane.

You're our hero.

Um, this doesn't seem like it would be connected to climate change, but war, you know, we're talking about women now war is generally, uh, driven by men and not to bash men at all, but it is driven by that, um, that power.

And I don't think most people even think that the two are connected, but climate changes is vastly connected to, to war in the last 80 years, all the wars have been fought over oil.

FONDA: Right.

VALLETTA: Oil is our number one offender.

Talk about how we could possibly change that.

And, you know, could we move some of the military budget over to the Green New Deal.

FONDA: Now you're talking.

I didn't realize how connected the military is to the climate crisis.

The Pentagon is the world's largest user of fossil fuels.

VALLETTA: Wow.

FONDA: Now this really blew my mind, the military has been exempted, the Pentagon has been exempted from environmental regulations and as a result, Superfund sites are all around military bases.

Guys are getting sick.

I mean, lethally sick from the toxins that are in and around military basis.

Then, you know, you have what, what the US forces did in, um, in, in Iraq, just, you know, uranium spent uranium things just tossed into villages.

And you know, they're not going to get in trouble because they're not going to be held to account by environmental regulations.

Then on top of all that, we have the largest, it's not just the largest military budget in the world, our military budget is larger than let's see Russia, Iran China, North Korea, all the big countries combined.

Our military budget is bigger.

You know?

It's, we have bases, I don't know, I can't remember now how many, but we have bases all over the world.

Other countries don't have that many bases.

We have, I don't know, a dozen aircraft carriers.

Russia has maybe a one it's just ridiculous.

It's like a huge portion of every dollar in America goes to the military.

Is it making us safer?

No, it's not.

It's um, what makes us safe is children who don't have asthma and you know, homes that will withstand storms and people not worried about eating or things like that, that's what makes you, so we have to take that money, we have to take the money away from the fossil fuel industry, right now we spend $20 billion a year, we do taxpayers to support the fossil fuel industry.

Take that money, take the Pentagon money and, and put it into the Green New Deal, put it into a green future.

VALLETTA: Education, innovation, collaboration.

FONDA: There you go.

VALLETTA: Right?

FONDA: Yea.

VALLETTA: Um, what about water?

We know water is life.

I loved when you talked about in your book, how important whales were.

And I never, I mean, of course everybody loves a whale and, and you know, an important mammal, but how important they are to actually climate change.

They sequester so much carbon and things like algae and plankton, we don't realize that those species or those plants, they actually are creating the, helping us, with the air we breathe and cleaning it and taking the carbon out.

So when we disturb all of that, we harm ourselves... FONDA: We pay the price.

You know, the ocean is one of our greatest allies in addressing the climate crisis, the water in the ocean, the plankton in the ocean, the whales, all those animals and planktons that are absorbing our poisons and our carbons and our heat they absorb so much of our heat.

And as a result, it's becoming acidified.

And what happens is the plankton, the phytoplankton that creates, um, supplies us with our oxygen are being damaged.

And that's pretty scary.

I mean, what's going to happen when the ocean can't supply us with oxygen anymore.

And we're, you know, look what's happening in the Amazon as it's burning down.

So, you know, our life support system is unraveling.

The scientists tell us we have 10 years to cut fossil fuel emissions in half, and then begin to gradually phase out to zero by 2050 by mid-century.

That's a huge undertaking.

It's a greater task than has ever happened before in human history.

But the scientists tell us that we can do it.

We have the smarts and the money, the technology, we have everything we need, except numbers of people ready to roll up their sleeves and make it happen.

And that's why I'm so committed to "Fire Drill Friday" and Greenpeace.

Water, um, so much good is being done though, around water.

There's Maude Barlow, who I met.

VALLETTA: Love her, I was there.

FONDA: Yea, on the, on the "Fire Drill Friday" that we did on water, um, Annie Leonard got Maude Barlow to come, which was a big coup cause Maude is like the water person in the world.

She knows more about water and what to do.

And she has been creating all over the world, they're called... VALLETTA: Are they blue, blue.. FONDA: Blue tones, blue municipalities.

But whether it's a community, a church, a university, a whole city, a whole country can make the determination that it's going to go blue, which means it's going to not have privatized water.

Water will be a public right, taken care of for people.

We will have a pipe system to transport it, that is clean and resilient.

I mean, a huge percentage of water management firms in the United States are really worried that they won't withstand any more extreme weather events.

They're too vulnerable right now, though.

That's the system that takes up our water relies on that system to be strong.

I mean, it is scary.

There's so many millions of people in the world who don't have clean, potable water and it's going to keep expanding.

So water is something that we need to be you know really, really, really careful about.

And we will be, and we're going to fight for it and we're gonna win.

VALLETTA: Well, I mean, that's what the Green New Deal will do.

It will fix all of these problems, we keep talking about, you know, um, before we go to questions, I think I would love for you to talk about what's in store for you in the next year and what people can do.

Well, I'm sure we'll address more things about what people can do, but what's, what's in store for you this next year?

FONDA: I don't go back to work on "Grace and Frankie" until mid-January.

So a lot depends on what's going to happen with the COVID pandemic.

Um, I'm itching to get back into the streets.

VALLETTA: Me too.

FONDA: Um, uh, I don't know what I'm going to do, except that I'm waiting to, I'm staying as healthy as I can.

Um, I'm staying as positive as I can, and I'm trying to stay on top of things.

I'm doing a lot of reading and when the time comes, I'm going to go back out with the "Fire Drill Friday" community and Greenpeace and, and make it happen.

You know, we have to, we have to really do everything we can to make sure that that Joe Biden gets elected.

And, um, you know, Annie and I run into a lot of young people who were big Bernie supporters, and they're not sure they can bring themselves to vote for, for Biden.

I don't know if I've already said this, cause I've done so many interviews today, but this is what Annie says to them, and she, she let me use her phrase, "It's better to push a Centrus than fight a fascist."

VALLETTA: Amen.

FONDA: So we have to work real hard, which "Fire Drill Friday" and Greenpeace's doing a lot of other, many, many other organizations to make sure that as many people are registered to vote and will vote.

You know, I have had two postal worker union people on "Fire Drill Friday", the last several weeks and they are quite confident that the postal service can handle mail-in ballots, but we have to do it soon.

We have to make a plan, but then once the election is over, no matter who is elected, we have to roll our sleeves up and make sure that on day one, they start doing what's, what's needed.

VALLETTA: Absolutely, absolutely.

We have a bunch of questions, so, all right, sorry, I'm going to have to look down at my phone, but, um, I think you kind of spoke to this, actually, the first question was about a new administration, What do you hope Biden and Harris will do to address the damage that's already been done, um, by this current administration denying climate change and doing nothing.

Um, do you feel, do you want to put a little more on that or do you feel... FONDA: Well I think, um, there's actually a list of 10 things that he can do by executive action in the first 10 days.

You know, he has 10 days, we have 10 years and starting on day one, he has to with executive action, do things like declare climate emergency, get us back into the Paris Climate Treaty and then no new fossil fuel permits, no new fracking permits on public land begin a gradual phase out.

There's a few more that I can't think of right now, but we're going to have to force him to do that.

We're going to have to shut down the government if necessary, but we have to force him to do that.

And it's, it's not going to be easy, which is why we need many people to read this book and to sign up Jane at, you text "Jane" to 877877 to become a volunteer and to actually do something and join this army that we're building a nonviolent army to make him do it.

VALLETTA: Yes, absolutely.

The other question is whether there's view, I keep hearing that non-voters tend to lean left.

Is it the despair and hopelessness that keeps them on the couch?

How do we convince them to vote this year?

FONDA: I don't know if that's true.

I, I don't, I'm not an expert in why people do or don't vote and things like that.

So I'm not sure, uh, that there tend to be liberal people who don't vote.

I'm not sure that that's true.

VALLETTA: Um, what advice would you give, uh, for small environmental advocacy groups doing local on the ground work from your perspective, what are the most pressing priorities for pressing for change within local governments and communities?

That's from (inaudible).

FONDA: It's really important for people to realize that it's, yeah, it's good to have a president who we can work with and a Senate and a House that we can work with, but, oh my God, how important are governors?

How important are Secretaries of State and Sheriffs and Boards of Supervisors and City Councils, you know, down ticket is critical.

You know, who knew this, right?

The Koch brothers and the Mercers and all these oligarchs in America under the radar, created all these operatives and think tanks and political organizations that little by little took over, um, and won state legislatures, governorships, and so forth.

And then suddenly there they were and people thought it'd happened overnight, but it was working silently under the radar to make this happen.

Now, granted they many billions of dollars that they were willing to spend on this, but those down ticket races are, are really, really important.

People have to pay close attention, don't vote for somebody that's taking money from the fossil fuel industry.

It just says a whole lot about them, if they take money from people that are killing us and leaving their trash behind.

What?

VALLETTA: How does someone find out who people are taking money from?

FONDA: I think you can go into their, their campaign donation records and find out who, who gives the money.

Yeah.

VALLETTA: (inaudible) by law.

FONDA: Yea.

VALLETTA: That's really good to know.

I didn't know that.

FONDA: And also, you know, I don't know, who's all watching, but if any of you who are watching, um, have stocks invest in stocks, um, make sure they're not in fossil fuels or Pentagon related, you know, investments or things like that.

And try to make sure that your school, your church, your university, your city, that whatever institutions you're involved with divest from the fossil fuel industry stop the money pipeline is what we're calling this part of the movement.

And it's really, really many trillions of dollars have already been taken out of the fossil fuel industry because of these efforts.

And it has to continue and get more.

VALLETTA: Absolutely.

Um, have you been surprised by any pushback or support for your mission from other people in the entertainment industry that's from Cassandra?

FONDA: Um, no.

I haven't been surprised by pushback and I haven't been, no, I haven't been surprised.

Maybe I'm missing something, but no.

VALLETTA: That's a good one.

Um, somebody, um, I had the privilege of being arrested during a "Fire Drill Friday", and I'm so thankful to have had the opportunity to be welcomed into the movement.

My question is how can we stay focused without burning out when there are so many disasters at the moment COVID, racial justice, the ongoing crisis at the border, et cetera, on the top of literal fires of climate change.

And that (inaudible).

FONDA: Yeah, I think that personally, I think that it's good to look at this moment is, "Aren't I lucky to be alive at a time that is so crucial?"

The entire future of humankind is at stake.

I'm so glad I'm alive right now, where I can play some role in fighting for that, for that future.

It's a generational responsibility that we're lucky to have, you know, with every tiny little increase in warming, millions of lives of humans and species will be lost.

So what a great responsibility we have to make a difference and to save lives of ourselves and our, and our species.

So that's what I, that's what I think when I look at the fires and the protests, they fill me with hope that not the fires but the protests were so wonderful because of the diversity on every, on every level.

So this is a, it's a terrifying time, but it's also, I wouldn't want to miss it for the world.

I'm so glad I'm still alive and able to do something.

Even if I couldn't leave my home.

Even if I was in a wheelchair, there's so much you can do.

We talk about it every Friday.

And this book, every chapter is about a different aspect of the climate crisis.

And at the end of each chapter is a section called, "What can I do?"

written by Annie Leonard, um, and other experts, um, and it's very user friendly and very practical.

Um, so this, this like has everything that we need to move forward the right way.

VALLETTA: I love how you state problem, solution, problem, solution.

FONDA: Yeah, exactly.

VALLETTA: (inaudible) own personal stories and make it, um, human, like connect the humanness for all of us.

And I think that's, what's so vitally important right now is that we realize how connected we are to the planet and to each other.

You're amazing.

FONDA: You're talking like we're done, I don't know.

VALLETTA: Five more minutes.

I would like to talk, (inaudible) I would like to talk about civil disobedience.

Um, lastly, because as this summer has been, there has been a lot of civil unrest and rightly so, um, and we had the privilege of getting arrested.

Um, I would say in a way, um, because we, we did it for something we believe we aligned our values in our, and our bodies.

Would you talk about, um, you know, your, your birthday's coming up in December and you spent your birthday last year being arrested and spending the night in jail, what is the, the importance of yes, peaceful protest, but also civil disobedience?

And why is it so important?

I know it's not safe right now necessarily for a lot of us to go out and do that cause of COVID, but why will it continue to be vitally important?

Not just signing petitions to get our voices out there?

Can you talk about that?

FONDA: Well, history has shown that civil disobedience is what works.

It's not where you start, but for 40 years, we've petitioned, we've marched, we've protested, we've written articles, we've pleaded, we've, we've done, we've used all the levers that democracy makes available to us and we haven't been heard sufficiently.

So the next step is civil disobedience, Gandhi did it to free India from colonial rule by the British, Martin Luther King and those, all those wonderful kids in the south who sat in the lunch counters to, to break a law saying black people can't sit at these counters, that's civil disobedience, and they were beaten badly for it and put in jail, Rosa Parks, when she refused to sit in the back of the bus, that's civil disobedience that she was arrested for, breaking bad laws and being willing to get arrested for it is what works, historically.

It changes history.

It may be the only thing that does.

And when we started "Fire Drill Fridays", and I write about that in the book, we, we were aiming for people who know, who know there's a climate crisis who know it's caused by humans, but they don't know what to do.

They're not sure what to do.

We offered them something to do.

And boy, did they start coming from all over the country.

And Annie and I would ask them, have you ever done this before?

No, they were newbies.

And the Yale Project on Climate Communication says there are 13 million people in America who say they would do civil disobedience, but nobody's asked them.

So I know think in terms of the great unasked, we have to go out and ask the great unasked to come and join us.

And it's a wonderful feeling to put your body in alignment with your values.

It's like stepping into authenticity and, and, and empowerment.

It's wonderful.

It's very transformative.

VALLETTA: It definitely transformed me.

Definitely did.

And thanks to you.

I learned so much, and I know that everybody who came, who had never been arrested, learned so much.

FONDA: And they kept coming back.

VALLETTA: Yeah, we came back for more.

FONDA: And it was so diverse.

VALLETTA: Yes, yeah.

Jane, thank you so much.

FONDA: Amber, thank you.

VALLETTA: For your time.

FONDA: It just sped right by!

VALLETTA: I know, it's amazing.

I think we're, we're actually right on time.

It's a miracle.

KERFOOT: You did great, thank you Jane, Amber, thank you so much.

And thank you to Annie Leonard from Greenpeace, for doing this.

FONDA: And all the money from the book goes to Greenpeace.

KERFOOT: Yes.

All of the, all of the proceeds go to Greenpeace.

FONDA: Yes.

KERFOOT: So consider it your donation.

This is one of those books that is imperative to buy right now.

Um, and I just am so honored to have two both and Annie here, um, to talk about this extremely pressing issue and just thank you so much for everything that you've done for, for the movement.

FONDA: Thank you.

And thank you to all the people that tuned in.

I really appreciate your presence and your questions.

Thanks.

KERFOOT: Yea, thank you to everyone.

Everyone have a good night.

Please stay safe and stay well-read.

FONDA: Thank you.

That's a yes, well read.

ANNOUNCER: Books by tonight's authors are available at Politics and Prose bookstore locations or online at politics-prose.com.

(music plays through credits)