Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: What a way to end the day, Jane Fonda and
Speaker 2: it's amazing.
Speaker 3: So we have so much to talk to you about, Jane,
Speaker 3: Megan and I are so excited.
Speaker 2: I know the audience is excited.
Speaker 3: And I want to start by asking you because I
Speaker 3: guarantee you there are people in this room who are
Speaker 3: climate activists who think about the environment because of you, fair.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: That wasn't as enthusiastic as I was hoping for, but
Speaker 3: we'll get you there.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I think of climate because of some
Speaker 1: of the people.
Speaker 3: In the right, probably true. So to that end, what
Speaker 3: ignited you? What made you think about this back in
Speaker 3: the day.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that I was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven and spent the first ten years of my
Speaker 1: life in California was important. There were only two billion
Speaker 1: people on Earth, then is this working? Two billion people?
Speaker 1: And guess what two billion people is the caring capacity
Speaker 1: of Earth When it comes to us, guys, sustainability means
Speaker 1: there can be two billion of us. Well, US has
Speaker 1: already been mentioned. There are more than eight billion now,
Speaker 1: and demographers said that there'll be ten billion by the
Speaker 1: middle of the century. You know, what are we going
Speaker 1: to eat? Well, we'll eat cell grown fish, I guess,
Speaker 1: but no, really, we're destroying our So you all know
Speaker 1: that is better than I do. But what that meant
Speaker 1: for me was most people in the thirties they lived
Speaker 1: in the country. They didn't live in cities, and that
Speaker 1: meant there was a lot of nature. I lived on
Speaker 1: the top of a mountain overlook it kind of like this,
Speaker 1: overlooking the Pacific Ocean, only not so close farther away,
Speaker 1: and there was no smog. There were no freeway, there
Speaker 1: was no plastic. And we did just fine. We did.
Speaker 1: It was maybe more difficult, but it was just fine.
Speaker 1: But you know, I grew I woke up and went
Speaker 1: to sleep to the sound of coyotes. I heard mourning
Speaker 1: doves and nightingales and meadow larks and bobcats and mountain lions.
Speaker 1: And I grew up with animals, and I was always outside,
Speaker 1: like a lot of you probably you know, it was
Speaker 1: the solace for me. It was not so great inside
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah, there's something wrong. Oh well, anyway, I
Speaker 1: came back. I moved away. I came back forty years later,
Speaker 1: lived near the beach, and people were getting cancer. Lifeguards
Speaker 1: were getting cancer. This ocean that I swam in every summer,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go in. People's eyes were burning,
Speaker 1: my kids got asthma. It's like this was not the same.
Speaker 1: And then I was married to a man named Tom Hayden,
Speaker 1: who was a movement leader at the time, and he
Speaker 1: we focused a lot on petrol chemicals. There was a
Speaker 1: hole in the ozone, there was the cancer, there was
Speaker 1: Dow Chemical was one of the main villains at the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So I've always cared about the environment. I've always cared
Speaker 1: about the creatures, the wildlife. And then we discovered through
Speaker 1: the work against petrol chemicals that corporations were running the government. Actually,
Speaker 1: my husband interviewed Jimmy Carter when he was in the
Speaker 1: White House, and Carter said to him, one of the
Speaker 1: things that I've realized now is the corporations are running
Speaker 1: this country. That was the president that said that. So
Speaker 1: so I've always cared. I've always, you know, loved nature
Speaker 1: in the environment and didn't like what corporations were doing
Speaker 1: to it. And then but I didn't really follow the science.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know until like twenty twenty eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: the degree to which the climate was being challenged primarily
Speaker 1: by the burning of fossil fuels, and that wasn't being
Speaker 1: talked about then. All that most of the big green organizations,
Speaker 1: with the exception of Greenpeace and Oil Change International and
Speaker 1: a few others, they talked about the alternatives, you know,
Speaker 1: the things that we were working for, but they never
Speaker 1: said what was the primary cause of the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: And you can't solve the climate crisis unless you talk
Speaker 1: about what's causing it primarily. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 1: started reading Naomi Klein's a couple of books that she
Speaker 1: wrote that made me realize this is existential, This is
Speaker 1: different than anything that we have ever faced before. And
Speaker 1: and I got very, very depressed. I know what that
Speaker 1: feels like, because I knew I wasn't doing enough. And
Speaker 1: I called Annie Leonard, who was running green Peace at
Speaker 1: the time. She's here, She's the bravest, smartest, most strategic
Speaker 1: person I know. And I said, I want to move
Speaker 1: to DC and create a ruckus. I want to camp
Speaker 1: in front of the White House and I'm going to really,
Speaker 1: you know, cook up some good trouble. I was worried
Speaker 1: about what.
Speaker 3: It's at poop I've done this before and I'm going
Speaker 3: to do it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pooping was a problem. I didn't know, how do
Speaker 1: you do what do you I know, what to do
Speaker 1: in a blizzard or in the country or in a forest,
Speaker 1: but well, how what do you do with your poop
Speaker 1: when you're camping and protesting in a city?
Speaker 2: Think about that?
Speaker 1: But she said, you don't have to worry about pooping
Speaker 1: because it's not allowed anymore out to camp out. And so,
Speaker 1: long story short, we created fire drill Fridays, which meant
Speaker 1: every Friday, we you know, we would focus on a
Speaker 1: particular topic involving the climate crisis, and then we would
Speaker 1: engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. I mean, this is what
Speaker 1: changes history people. If you look at the history of
Speaker 1: non violent civil disobedience, it's what's really changed things a lot.
Speaker 1: And so we did that and it changed us a lot.
Speaker 1: Our goal was not to pressure the government Trump was
Speaker 1: in office. We wanted to We knew that about sixty
Speaker 1: five to seventy percent of Americans were concerned about climate
Speaker 1: We wanted to move from concern to action. And I
Speaker 1: was I turned eighty two in jail that that fall,
Speaker 1: and I knew that was very important because a lot
Speaker 1: of people said said, well, if she can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, people came from all over the country, mostly
Speaker 1: gray haired women like me, and they came they'd never
Speaker 1: been at rallies before, they'd never been arrested before, and
Speaker 1: and it really mattered. It made a big difference. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of new activists came out of that.
Speaker 1: And when COVID hit, we took it online and for
Speaker 1: a year we had nine million people that would join
Speaker 1: us across all platforms. When when COVID ended, and Annie
Speaker 1: and a very small team the board that we have,
Speaker 1: it's a small group of people coven it's not a covet.
Speaker 1: So we've all for decades marched and protested and lobbied
Speaker 1: and written books and and we have not gotten the
Speaker 1: legislation that we needed that was commensurate with what science
Speaker 1: was saying that we needed. Why because so many people
Speaker 1: that we elect to office take money from the fossil
Speaker 1: fuel industry and they won't move. And so we said, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you can't change the people, change the people, we're
Speaker 1: gonna kick them out and get climate champions elected. And
Speaker 1: we decided to focus down ballot because that's where you
Speaker 1: have a lot of influence. That's where a lot of
Speaker 1: the struggles for climate justice and fossil fuel infrastructure and
Speaker 1: all this this is where it happens. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't imagine how down ballot, state and local officials have
Speaker 1: such power when it comes to the fossil fuel industry,
Speaker 1: to saving properties, to stopping fossil fuel infrastructure. Plus it's
Speaker 1: less expensive. We didn't we were just new and we
Speaker 1: couldn't make a debt in the presidentialial election. It's not
Speaker 1: strategic what we did. I think what we're doing is
Speaker 1: the most strategic thing all over the country. Governors, mayors,
Speaker 1: city council, state legislatures, county executive school boards, public utilities.
Speaker 1: These things make such a difference. So we've had I
Speaker 1: don't know, something like one hundred and seventy candidates that
Speaker 1: have won. We have a two to one running ratio.
Speaker 1: We win two to one. We have forty four thousand
Speaker 1: donors around the country. We have thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: volunteers that we can get to come out to local campaigns.
Speaker 4: And can you tell us a little bit more about
Speaker 4: one of the key issues you're focused on right now?
Speaker 1: With the pack climate climate we focus on climate. We
Speaker 1: study the candidates a lot. We work with local people
Speaker 1: on the ground because they know the best about who
Speaker 1: are the good potential candidates? Can they really win? We're
Speaker 1: not a protest Pack. We were in it to win it.
Speaker 1: Can they win? Can Jane Pack make an appreciable difference
Speaker 1: if we endorse? Is this in a heavily industrial area
Speaker 1: where people are sick and dying and have absolutely no
Speaker 1: help from city councils or supervisors or governors?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That wonderful presentation by the woman what's the name of
Speaker 1: the river? Oh? Yeah, that place? As you all know,
Speaker 1: there's places like that all over the country, and we
Speaker 1: go there and try to help them. Get an electoral
Speaker 1: advocate for them, you know, get people elected that are
Speaker 1: going to help them. These are the kind of things.
Speaker 3: And so, Jane, how often are you finding the candidates
Speaker 3: and how often are they finding you?
Speaker 2: How is that evolving? Well?
Speaker 1: Where? You know, when we started, none of us had
Speaker 1: ever done anything like this before. We built the plane
Speaker 1: as we were flying it, and we didn't know whether candidate.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm you know, I'm popular now, but I'm
Speaker 1: not all I've been not so popular, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know whether you know they would come. They're coming, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are, They're coming because when I show up, you know,
Speaker 1: instead of getting seven people to volunteer canvas, they got fifty,
Speaker 1: you know, or they raised triple the amount of money
Speaker 1: they and the morale is boosted. And it's very it's
Speaker 1: really strategic what what we're doing. We're building a firewall
Speaker 1: against what Trump is attempting, because they could this is
Speaker 1: the place where people are going to be able to
Speaker 1: say no, we're not going to do that, you know,
Speaker 1: or fight back on developing public land anything.
Speaker 3: And when you say this is the place you're talking
Speaker 3: about at the local level and with the utilities and
Speaker 3: things like that. Is there a surprising place that you found.
Speaker 3: Is there an example of one where you thought, oh,
Speaker 3: this is this is how this is going to work.
Speaker 1: Well, they teach us what's going to work. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we've had a we flipped the Virginia Legislature. We
Speaker 1: had fourteen candidates running for the this is in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three for the Virginia Legislature and thirteen of them
Speaker 1: one and it flipped Democratic. Yeah, so that's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that we try to do. Is you all
Speaker 1: know now I've forgotten the word trifecta. Is that what
Speaker 1: it is? When you get governor, state Senate, and state House,
Speaker 1: you got a trifecta. We're going for the trifectas. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot more try There's many more. I have
Speaker 1: the numbers down here someplace, many more democratic trifectas since
Speaker 1: Trump's first there's all kinds of reasons on the ground
Speaker 1: in state and local levels. Well, I were in a
Speaker 1: very better, much better shape than we were the first
Speaker 1: time he was elected. We've got more good people in office,
Speaker 1: we have more trifectors, we have more democratic governors and
Speaker 1: so on. I mean, we're I see, I'm not depressed.
Speaker 1: I am, And it's because you know, Greta Greta Tunberg says,
Speaker 1: everybody goes looking for hope, no look for action, and
Speaker 1: hope will come. And I know personally in my heart
Speaker 1: and soul that that's true. The more you do, the
Speaker 1: less depressed you're gonna be, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons to be hopeful.
Speaker 4: Jane, have you seen a moment like this before in
Speaker 4: your over six decades of activism and and how did
Speaker 4: you get through it?
Speaker 1: I have never seen no, We've never never in human
Speaker 1: history has a situation like this existed where the Trump
Speaker 1: stuff is this working?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yes, we got.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just you all are facing this way,
Speaker 1: but we're facing this way and we're looking at that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm from Los Angeles. This is like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is why we have to fight this. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was the question?
Speaker 2: Historically?
Speaker 3: I mean, you've you've been through some bad moments where
Speaker 3: the country has gone in a way that you didn't
Speaker 3: agree with.
Speaker 1: No, this has never happened. Yeah, I mean, we have
Speaker 1: two crises, two essential crises, and for both it's now
Speaker 1: we're never democracy and climate and they are absolutely interlinked,
Speaker 1: and we have to solve them together. We're losing the
Speaker 1: democratic infrastructure and norms to deal with the climate, and
Speaker 1: we're losing the climate stability that is essential for a democracy.
Speaker 1: We have to solve them together. And we've never fail,
Speaker 1: especially in America. We've never faced a threat like this
Speaker 1: to our democracy at a time when it's a perfect storm,
Speaker 1: at a time when we're being told by climate scientists,
Speaker 1: some of you may be in this room, that we
Speaker 1: have to cut our emissions, fossil fuel emissions in half
Speaker 1: in five years. Now, you know, when I started to
Speaker 1: realize what was happening, it was twelve years and we
Speaker 1: haven't done it, and now it's five years. By twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to cut our emissions in half and then gradually,
Speaker 1: not suddenly turn off this picket, but gradually phase out
Speaker 1: to zero by mid century. And we can do it
Speaker 1: because the alternatives are It's not just that they're there,
Speaker 1: but they're ready and they're being used all over the world.
Speaker 1: I urge you all to read Bill mckibbon's new article
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker. It's about the sun. It's about
Speaker 1: the how robustly solar energy has taken over the world,
Speaker 1: and no trust is and his minions are going to
Speaker 1: be able to turn it around because it's safe, it's cheap,
Speaker 1: it's forever, and it's job intensive. There's way more jobs
Speaker 1: in that sector than in the fossil fuel sector. So
Speaker 1: I mean, what's not to love. We just have to
Speaker 1: love it to life, not love it to death, love
Speaker 1: it to life. Well, that's a good slogan.
Speaker 2: You saw it happen right here. This is great, Jane.
Speaker 4: I feel like you know everybody in this room. I'm
Speaker 4: speaking for myself, but I would also think everybody in
Speaker 4: this room that's been working in climate for years is
Speaker 4: probably feeling a little bit depressed right now and just
Speaker 4: the shift that has happened. What advice can you give
Speaker 4: to us all to keep us all going and make
Speaker 4: us continue to fight the fight, and what can we
Speaker 4: do in times like this that are is the most effective.
Speaker 1: I think that the thing the most important things to do,
Speaker 1: very specifically is elect climate champions up and down the
Speaker 1: ballot all over the country starting yesterday. You know, there's
Speaker 1: there's We've already got about twenty eight special races this
Speaker 1: year and it's an off year, right, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't we can't just deal with elections, you know, like
Speaker 1: after Labor Day on the year of the election, when
Speaker 1: the election is November. We have to This is a
Speaker 1: year round thing. Find out who's good, let us know,
Speaker 1: let the other organizations know that are working in this sector.
Speaker 1: Run yourselves. I mean, god, imagine if all of you
Speaker 1: were elected to office. WHOA, it'd be a title a
Speaker 1: tsunami coming at the fucking fossil fuel people. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is totally non secutary. I mean whatever, But Toyota,
Speaker 1: I bought my first Prius from Toyota. I thought Toyota
Speaker 1: was a good guy. Toyota is the biggest funder of
Speaker 1: anti climate work. They fund disinformation and they stop any
Speaker 1: progress that can happen. Did you know that? Most people
Speaker 1: don't know that. So I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: So, Jane, you know, it was interesting to we're listening
Speaker 3: to the session when we were backstage with the Paradise
Speaker 3: folks about climate storytelling. You're a storyteller. You have been
Speaker 3: a storyteller for a long time. You're absolutely Academy Award
Speaker 3: winning actor, filmmaker. How does being a creator, as the
Speaker 3: kids say, how does that influence your activism? And how
Speaker 3: does your activism influence the choices you make in terms
Speaker 3: of roles that you take or think projects you decide
Speaker 3: to pursue.
Speaker 1: Well, I've always wanted to support and fight for working women,
Speaker 1: so I made nine to five. I don't like solar energy.
Speaker 1: Solar energy, I mean nuclear energy. I don't care what
Speaker 1: they tell you about these new small modular reacts. I've
Speaker 1: done some research. It's not the solution to the climate crisis. Okay, okay, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. Time is of the essence, and these things
Speaker 1: the fastest take ten years. Most of them take twenty years,
Speaker 1: and guess who ends up paying for it us. Speaking
Speaker 1: of you asked me what to do, vote for Climate Champions.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is make people aware that in
Speaker 1: that horrible bill that just passed is I think around
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars of our tax money goes to the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel industry and the form of subsidies and tax
Speaker 1: rebase and things like that. Most people don't know what's
Speaker 1: in the bill. And when they know that their medicaid
Speaker 1: is being taken away and their food stamps are being
Speaker 1: taken away, and the prices are going up because of
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel industry, and at the same time that
Speaker 1: that's all being taken away from them, we're giving twenty
Speaker 1: billion dollars to the people that are killing us. People
Speaker 1: have to know this. If we can, we have to
Speaker 1: raise the the heat under the under them by letting
Speaker 1: people know what it is that he's done and he's
Speaker 1: getting away with it. The other things speaking of not
Speaker 1: getting we have to keep him from getting away with it.
Speaker 1: We have to protest all the time, constantly, all kinds
Speaker 1: of protests, including civil disobedience. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: about you but every time I see a documentary about
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement, for example, or anti apartheid, where
Speaker 1: people are really being you know, the batons and the
Speaker 1: dogs and the hoses, and and I, you know, I
Speaker 1: ask myself, would I be brave enough? Could I have
Speaker 1: stood up to that? And I've realized I don't have
Speaker 1: to ask anymore. This is it. This is our documentary moment.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sure you have people, young people whose
Speaker 1: lives you know, you'll die and they'll go on and
Speaker 1: what it's going to be like, so you want to
Speaker 1: do everything. You cancel, they'll know that you tried, that
Speaker 1: you fought for them and for their future. This is
Speaker 1: our documentary moment. So we have to and we have
Speaker 1: to talk about what's in the bill. We have to
Speaker 1: let people know. We have to make them mad. We
Speaker 1: have to call their attention to the fact that we're
Speaker 1: being made to pay for the things that are making
Speaker 1: us sick. I think that those are the those are
Speaker 1: the things that we have to do, and if we
Speaker 1: do them, we won't be depressed. Well that is at
Speaker 1: least that's my and I know a lot of other
Speaker 1: people too. Hope is a muscle, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: the heart. It's different than than optimism, you know, and
Speaker 1: optimism says everything's going to be fine and they don't
Speaker 1: do anything to make it.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: Hope is the opposite. Hope is you're doing it, and
Speaker 1: you're working hard, and you're giving it, you're all and
Speaker 1: then and you don't you don't get depressed.
Speaker 2: What keeps you the most hopeful?
Speaker 1: My active and my team, see, I've I've been through
Speaker 1: hell in terms of people hating me and being attacked
Speaker 1: by the government and everything. I know what it feels
Speaker 1: like it's going to get worse than that. Though. Nixon,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like kindergarten coming here. I mean Nixon,
Speaker 1: you know, the first Earth Day was so huge that
Speaker 1: Nixon created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act,
Speaker 1: and the EPA. That was Nixon, a Republican who did that.
Speaker 1: So things are worse. What was it that you asked me?
Speaker 1: What keeps you hopeful? What I do and the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm not alone. I'm part of a movement. I
Speaker 1: have a a board of of people here, and then
Speaker 1: people believe it in what I'm doing. That keeps me.
Speaker 1: Michael Bloomberg, I mean, I guess it's appropriate to talk
Speaker 1: about him for a second. I've done some billionaires up
Speaker 1: close in person, and they're different. You know, some people
Speaker 1: are billionaires and give away a lot of money because
Speaker 1: they want to go to heaven and they wanted to
Speaker 1: be considered a good guy. And then there's Michael Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: and it blows my mind. Here is this white male
Speaker 1: billionaire in New York who understands that in this climate space,
Speaker 1: what's strategic is listening to black women on the ground
Speaker 1: in Louisiana. It's unbelievable what his petrochemical philanthropies has done
Speaker 1: in the area which is the hotspot of the climate crisis,
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico, a lot, Texas and Louisiana, where
Speaker 1: are shrimp and clams and oysters and fish come from.
Speaker 1: Don't eat them if they come from there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen it up close and personal. They're killing people.
Speaker 1: They're wiping out entire communities, like every house has somebody
Speaker 1: in it that has cancer. And Michael Bloomberg is doing
Speaker 1: something about it. He is, really It just blows my mind.
Speaker 1: And another group that I think is represented here is
Speaker 1: Patagonia and hold Fast and their CEO, and they've been
Speaker 1: very generous to the pack too, so that gives me
Speaker 1: hope and being with you know, with with with a
Speaker 1: great board. My pack has a small board of experts,
Speaker 1: and then just listening to the people that have talked
Speaker 1: to you. There's so many people that are involved in this,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think that we're gonna let it.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're gonna let it go.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt you're gonna You're not letting it go.
Speaker 1: I think, well, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it matters a great deal. And I
Speaker 3: know that I speak on behalf of the audience. We
Speaker 3: can pick those up on the way out. We really
Speaker 3: appreciate your time, Jane, thank you so much for coming up.
Speaker 1: But everybody, rise up, protest, make yourself heard, make people
Speaker 1: understand what's in that bill. You know, let's just not
Speaker 1: sit around talking about it. Let's really do it. Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many raise your hand if you
Speaker 1: come from this area. Okay, I wish I could take
Speaker 1: all of your names, because we're coming back. We have
Speaker 1: to do something really brave here. This is worth saving.
Speaker 1: And I learned from my friend Jay Insley, you've already
Speaker 1: lost that tremendously important help forrest that was here, that's gone.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things going. So if I
Speaker 1: come back and we put out the word, I hope
Speaker 1: all of those people who raise their hands will join
Speaker 1: us doing something fun. Trouble, good, trouble. Okay, thank you
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks Shane fund Man,