Jane Fonda has been committed to doing the right thing, and that includes her efforts in bettering the climate change situation. The actress and political activist has had a long history of flexing her First Amendment rights, first beginning in the 1960s when she took a stand against the Vietnam War. Her next call to action is a message for the sitting president, Donald Trump — or even next elected president’s, inaction over the current climate crisis.
“No matter who is elected in November, we have to hold their feet to the fire. If necessary, shut down the government, and I’m not kidding,” Fonda said per the Hollywood Reporter, while accepting the Visionary Women’s award on Thursday, ahead of International Women’s Day.
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Fonda went on to promise the crowd that she would be holding even the next elected president accountable to take action on the global issue.
The 82-year-old has had a whirlwind past four months, which she touts have been her happiest amid the “Fire Drill Friday” protests in Washington, D.C. and now California.
“[It’s been] my most happy four months of my life when I gave up my life, my comfort zone and myself 100 percent into a focus on the climate crisis,” Fonda said, “It’s very hard now to find ways to align your full body with your deepest values, and civil disobedience does that. … That has to become the new norm.”
The arrests also become empowering for the Grace and Frankie actress too: “To engage in civil disobedience and get arrested, you’re handcuffed and you’re put into a police wagon and deliberately put in a position of humility, kind of bent over. You’ve given up all control and you feel totally empowered.”
Fonda began the movement in September when she moved to Washington D.C. Her weekly protests resulted in her arrest five times. The protests focused on “the major banks and investors that finance fossil fuel exploration,” which demand “immediate action for a Green New Deal: cut carbon emissions in half by 2030, replace with clean, renewable energy, and no new exploration/drilling for fossil fuels.”
In an interview with ABC News earlier this year, Fonda called the crisis a “ticking time bomb hanging over our heads.
“You know, this isn’t one war or one issue in one place,” she said. “This is the future of the entire planet,” Fonda said. “There’s a looming catastrophe that will affect all of humanity. That’s what’s different. That’s never happened before in the history of humankind.”
Photo credit: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
