Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello,
Speaker 1: my friends in Progress. Today is a very special day
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Someone that I look up to so tremendously,
Speaker 1: who is larger than life and so inspirational, is taking
Speaker 1: time out of her day today to be here with us.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is Jane Fonda.
Speaker 2: You guys.
Speaker 1: Jane Vonda is an icon from her numerous Academy Award
Speaker 1: nominations and wins, by the way to her incredibly acclaimed
Speaker 1: career as an actor, a film and television producer. She
Speaker 1: even revolutionized the fitness industry. I mean hello Jane Vonda's
Speaker 1: workout in nineteen eighty two. You guys. This woman has
Speaker 1: done it all as a performer and as a leader,
Speaker 1: and most impressively to me, as an incredible activist. Jane
Speaker 1: has used the privilege of her platform to stand up
Speaker 1: for other people for her whole life as an anti
Speaker 1: war activist during the Vietnam War. Publicly launching into anti
Speaker 1: war work during the Vietnam era, Jane decided to travel
Speaker 1: the world and learn from people, whether they were Green berets,
Speaker 1: indigenous leaders, women on the forefront of feminist movements, for
Speaker 1: equity and equality and now for so many years, Jane
Speaker 1: has been leading on climate. As young climate activist Greta
Speaker 1: Tunberg said, our house is on fire and we need
Speaker 1: to act like it. Jane was so inspired by Greta,
Speaker 1: by Reverend Barber's moral Mondays, and by Randall Robinson's anti
Speaker 1: apartheid protests.
Speaker 2: She took all of that.
Speaker 1: Inspiration and launched fire Drill Fridays in collaboration with Greenpeace
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. She started in Washington, d C. With
Speaker 1: a series of peaceful actions and brought together frontline activists,
Speaker 1: youth leaders, indigenous leaders, climate experts, celebrities and activists and
Speaker 1: lovers of the planet to demand that our elected leaders
Speaker 1: act on the climate emergency. Since its inception, her movement
Speaker 1: to fight the global climate disaster has inspired millions of
Speaker 1: people to participate in nonviolent direct action and counted more
Speaker 1: than twelve million viewers joining virtually during the pandemic, Jane
Speaker 1: has inspired people around the world, and as we launch
Speaker 1: into an election year, she is here to talk to
Speaker 1: us about what matters for the nation, what matters for
Speaker 1: the planet, and for our fellow Californians. What matters to
Speaker 1: us here in our home state. So let's dive in
Speaker 1: and learn from the icon herself. So many things I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about. You know, there's such a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of work you do outside of you know,
Speaker 1: the work that you became known for as being such
Speaker 1: an incredible performer and you know, an award winning actor,
Speaker 1: and your activism has always been such a part of
Speaker 1: your identity. You've always spent the privilege of your platform
Speaker 1: to try to support people. And in recent years, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I have really been able to spend some
Speaker 1: time together working on activism around the climate crisis. And
Speaker 1: there's just there's so much that you do, you know,
Speaker 1: as the woman you are and with your pack and
Speaker 1: the way that you inspire all of us. But before
Speaker 1: we get to where we find ourselves today, I like
Speaker 1: to go back really to the beginning with people and
Speaker 1: learn about where you come from. Because I'm always very
Speaker 1: curious if now, you know, they say hindsight's twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: if when you look back at your life, even into
Speaker 1: your childhood, you see the through line of this woman
Speaker 1: who was always going to lead. Do you see her
Speaker 1: in yourself at you know, eight or nine or ten
Speaker 1: years old.
Speaker 2: You know, I guess, Sophia. What really matters, and it's
Speaker 2: harder to remember is the one, two, three, four year olds,
Speaker 2: you know, the really early stuff. But yeah, I as
Speaker 2: I was approaching sixty, which I considered my last act,
Speaker 2: I kind of divided my life into the first thirty years,
Speaker 2: first act, second years, and then the last act. Starting
Speaker 2: at sixty, I kind of I became very concerned because
Speaker 2: this is the last act. Last acts are important. How
Speaker 2: am I so post to navigate this? What should I
Speaker 2: do in this final act? And it occurred to me,
Speaker 2: and it really when I was fifty nine, looking at
Speaker 2: the next year that was going to raise the curtain
Speaker 2: on my final act, I thought, I just feel that
Speaker 2: in order to know where I have to go, I've
Speaker 2: got to know where I've been. And I began to
Speaker 2: research myself and what I found. You know, I spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time literally like I was somebody else,
Speaker 2: objectively researching this person. One of the things that I
Speaker 2: hadn't really realized is that I'm brave, and I've been
Speaker 2: brave always from the very beginning. You know. It's very
Speaker 2: The idea of resilience I find very interesting because you
Speaker 2: can have a siblings born almost at the same you know,
Speaker 2: in the same year or two of same parents, and
Speaker 2: one will be resilient and the other won't. It's mysterious.
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not sure that resilience is something you
Speaker 2: can learn or teach yourself. I think you're kind of
Speaker 2: born with it. And when I thought back on it,
Speaker 2: what I when I realized I was resilient is my
Speaker 2: childhood was very privileged in terms of having all the
Speaker 2: material things that I wanted and everything, but my mother
Speaker 2: suffered from mental illness and my father was away a lot.
Speaker 2: And like all resilient children, I was able to, like
Speaker 2: a radar, scan the horizon for any sign of a
Speaker 2: living being that could love me or teach me something,
Speaker 2: and I would lom onto them and they would and
Speaker 2: yet love. A non resilient child could be surrounded by
Speaker 2: love and not able to metabolize it, not realize that
Speaker 2: they can take it in and you know, and take
Speaker 2: it into their body. And so I was always resilient
Speaker 2: and brave.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to hear you talk about your acts in
Speaker 1: the way that you frame them, and this idea of resilience.
Speaker 1: I love that you can see it into your childhood.
Speaker 1: And I think what's been really interesting for me is
Speaker 1: the shift into forty has been It has been a
Speaker 1: shift into resiliency, I think because I really am finally
Speaker 1: starting to learn what I want and what I deserve.
Speaker 1: And that feels like a big, a big shift. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but I love hearing that fifty is so fabulous. I
Speaker 1: can't wait.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I wrote a book called Primetime about aging,
Speaker 2: because you know, anything that frightens me, I try to
Speaker 2: make my best friend. I try to know as much
Speaker 2: as I can about it and put my and strangled
Speaker 2: it to death with love. What scares me and aging
Speaker 2: scares me. And when I was in my forties, I
Speaker 2: wrote a book called Women Coming of Age. I hadn't
Speaker 2: even entered menopause yet, but I wanted to understand as
Speaker 2: much as I could before and then so my seventies
Speaker 2: I wrote a book called Primetime, which is really good.
Speaker 2: And writing that book, I did some research and I
Speaker 2: found out because I thought, you know, our historic view
Speaker 2: of aging, as you're born, you peak at midlife and
Speaker 2: then you decline into decrepitude, right, And my experience wasn't
Speaker 2: like that at all. It was like my earlier life
Speaker 2: was not so good. And I feel like I've been
Speaker 2: on an upward projectory. It's more like a staircase rather
Speaker 2: than an arch. Then my research showed me that there's
Speaker 2: been a really important longitudinal study of hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of people, all races, men, women, divorce, married that showed
Speaker 2: that over fifty in general, people tend to feel a
Speaker 2: sense of wellbeing more, They are more able to view
Speaker 2: things from another person's point of view. They don't make
Speaker 2: mountains out of molehills. I mean that is also assuming
Speaker 2: relative good health, yes, which not everybody can assume. But
Speaker 2: it made me realize, oh, it's not just me aging.
Speaker 2: You know, life gets strangely easier assuming health.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I love that, And what an amazing perspective
Speaker 1: I think, to be able to really look at not
Speaker 1: only your own life and your resiliency, but to your point,
Speaker 1: to understand where your privilege is, to understand, you know,
Speaker 1: how to help spend it for others. You mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you were young, things were complex. You
Speaker 1: had a mother who struggled with mental illness. Your father was,
Speaker 1: you know, a wonderful actor. You grew up around the business.
Speaker 1: But as we know, being an actor means you have
Speaker 1: to leave your life and your family all the time.
Speaker 3: Was was it natural for you to pursue a career
Speaker 3: as a performer or did you have hesitations about it
Speaker 3: because you knew the inside of how hard it could be.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't want to be an actor because my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, when he'd come home from work, he never
Speaker 2: brought joy. There was always a it was always a problem,
Speaker 2: always trouble at work. I mean, so I never got
Speaker 2: the sense that this is a profession that could bring
Speaker 2: you joy. And plus I didn't have confidence, and my
Speaker 2: dad thought I was fat, So I thought I was
Speaker 2: fat and all those things which put a big distance
Speaker 2: between me and the profession of acting. But then in
Speaker 2: my in my late teens and early twenties, well, I
Speaker 2: had to get a job because my stepmother didn't want
Speaker 2: me living at home, and I became a secretary. I
Speaker 2: got fired. I mean, I didn't know. I just didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do. And then I met
Speaker 2: Lee Strasburg's daughter, Susan Strasburg, and she said, well, why
Speaker 2: don't you talk to my dad about being in his classes?
Speaker 2: And he viewed me and he took me into his classes,
Speaker 2: and wow, and he said that I was talented, and
Speaker 2: so that's what kind of got me interested in acting.
Speaker 2: But it was just because I didn't know what else
Speaker 2: to do. Frankly, I'm not one of those people who
Speaker 2: you know, dressed up and put on performances for her
Speaker 2: family and all that kind of thing. I never dreamed.
Speaker 2: I never assumed. Everything that's happened in my life is
Speaker 2: beyond my wildest assumption when I was little. If you
Speaker 2: had told me that at my age now i'd still be,
Speaker 2: you know, working and everything like I am today, I
Speaker 2: would have said you were crazy. And so this is
Speaker 2: just all a big surprise and a cherry on the cake.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I'm proud about my life
Speaker 2: is that I very intentionally tried to grow. I didn't
Speaker 2: like myself. I wanted to change, and so I went
Speaker 2: about doing it. When I want to do something, I
Speaker 2: just go about it are percent. And that's allowed me to,
Speaker 2: you know, to develop what wasn't naturally mine. And I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of that.
Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors, the proof is in the putting,
Speaker 1: as they say, I mean, you've got oscars on the shelf,
Speaker 1: you've got social movements, you've helped to lead. You have
Speaker 1: this beautiful, accomplished career, and to your point, you're still working.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just watched this interview that you
Speaker 1: and Lily Tomlin did together. You're just razzing each other,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're the humor and the way that
Speaker 1: you two play as these friends who you know, play
Speaker 1: best friends on TV. I'm obsessed with you both and
Speaker 1: I and I love hearing you frame it that way
Speaker 1: that you're going to go for it one hundred percent
Speaker 1: and make it yours because my brain is going, well,
Speaker 1: of course, everything I've ever seen you do, you've done
Speaker 1: incredibly and I think it's why so many of us
Speaker 1: look up to you in the way we do and
Speaker 1: are so enamored with you. And you know, I pinch myself,
Speaker 1: like we meet up to talk about how we're going
Speaker 1: to fix something or work on something, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, what again.
Speaker 1: The kid in me who went to theater school and
Speaker 1: studied journalism is like, yeah, I'm just here spending my
Speaker 1: day with Jane Fonda.
Speaker 2: What Like? This is wild?
Speaker 1: It really is wild. And I have to just say
Speaker 1: thank you for the way that you've welcomed so many
Speaker 1: of us in and said, hey, we're in this together.
Speaker 1: How did you begin? Because people ask me sometimes they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you're an actor, but you're so political, and why do
Speaker 1: you feel motivated that way? And are you ever scared
Speaker 1: it's going to ding your career? And I'm always like,
Speaker 1: look at Jane Fonda. How do you feel like you
Speaker 1: had the courage as a young woman succeeding in our industry,
Speaker 1: you know, which does often tell you to stay quiet
Speaker 1: and you know, be mysterious so you can be taken
Speaker 1: as a character. How did you have the confidence to
Speaker 1: step out and say I want to defend the world.
Speaker 1: I don't just want to tell stories about it. I
Speaker 1: really want to stand up for it. When was that
Speaker 1: shift for you?
Speaker 2: Well, it was not early in my life. It was
Speaker 2: in my thirties. I was pregnant and do you have
Speaker 2: have you had children?
Speaker 1: No, not yet.
Speaker 2: When a woman is pregnant, she's like a sponge. Just
Speaker 2: it's a great learning opportunity and a teaching opportunity. She
Speaker 2: just everything affects her, everything incoming. Well, I was pregnant
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight. Everything happened in nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: all over the world, and I lived in France and
Speaker 2: I was pregnant when the tet offense have happened, and
Speaker 2: I saw that on French television, which showed more than
Speaker 2: American television did. I met some soldiers who had deserted
Speaker 2: from Vietnam. They were war resistors and they were in
Speaker 2: Paris looking for compatriots to help them find doctors, dentists, clothing,
Speaker 2: you know. They were American working class guys who needed support,
Speaker 2: and they contacted me. They somebody gave them my number
Speaker 2: and I met with them and I asked them about
Speaker 2: the war, which at that point I had done. I
Speaker 2: didn't really understand it, and I assumed that if we
Speaker 2: were fighting there that it was okay. I was naiven, uninvolved,
Speaker 2: and I was thirty, and they talked about the war
Speaker 2: and what was going on, and they told me about
Speaker 2: the things that they had witnessed which were horrifying, and
Speaker 2: I didn't believe it. And they gave me a book
Speaker 2: by Jonathan Shell called The Village of Benzok, and it's
Speaker 2: a small book, and when I finished it, that was
Speaker 2: it my life. I realized that I had totally not
Speaker 2: understood what was happening. I totally wanted to join the
Speaker 2: anti war movement. That I had been watching on television
Speaker 2: and I did, and that was that you know, you know,
Speaker 2: you owe. Once I understood, then I felt that I
Speaker 2: had to do something about it. So, because it was
Speaker 2: socials that turned me on to what was happening, when
Speaker 2: I returned to the United States, I became involved in
Speaker 2: the GI movement. It was active duty servicemen who were
Speaker 2: opposed to the war, and they had civilian supporters. But
Speaker 2: what really affected me, Sophia, was the women that I met,
Speaker 2: the activists, the seasoned activists that I met who were
Speaker 2: supporting the GI movement. I remember one outside of Fort
Speaker 2: Hood in Colleen, Texas. She really saw me, she really
Speaker 2: heard was She asked me how I felt about like,
Speaker 2: you know, they would send me onto the base with
Speaker 2: leaflets announcing a rally we were going to have. I
Speaker 2: would lead the rally, things like are you comfortable? She
Speaker 2: she didn't. I never felt used. She wasn't opportunistic. I
Speaker 2: mean it was weird in those days because Barbarella had
Speaker 2: just come out and I would go I would be
Speaker 2: invited to speak at a theater and the headline would
Speaker 2: be here Barbarella speak. But the women were totally they
Speaker 2: weren't competitive, They didn't treat me like a celebrity. Being
Speaker 2: with these women was like looking through a keyhole at
Speaker 2: the future that we were fighting for. And it was
Speaker 2: like a whole new world opened up to me of
Speaker 2: people with totally different values. I mean, my dad had
Speaker 2: great values and shows in many of his movies, but
Speaker 2: he was older, and you know he was he could
Speaker 2: not have been an activist. It wasn't in his da.
Speaker 2: But these people really changed me. These women specifically change
Speaker 2: It changed me a lot and sent me on a
Speaker 2: path to try to become a different kind of person.
Speaker 2: And then when the controversy started hitting, part of it,
Speaker 2: Sophia was I was viewed as, which is true, a
Speaker 2: privileged white, you know, celebrity daughter of all that stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, she'll she'll be a puss, Push her a
Speaker 2: little criticized, give her some shit and she'll collapse. And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, just try me, try me.
Speaker 2: Yeah you think I'm an easy push Okay, I'll show you.
Speaker 2: And I just it was two things that kept me
Speaker 2: going despite the incredible controversy, which really was very intense
Speaker 2: and very hateful and not totally undeserved. I I was
Speaker 2: determined to show them that I wasn't some privileged softy
Speaker 2: number two. I was part of a movement. I was
Speaker 2: not alone, and that's what really matters. And it's what's
Speaker 2: beautiful about being an activist is you come into community
Speaker 2: with people who share your values. Yes, And you know,
Speaker 2: I'd spent so much of my life having to, you know,
Speaker 2: being with people who I had to look perfect always.
Speaker 2: I had to be very thin, to be very blonde,
Speaker 2: I had to be very sexy. I had to do
Speaker 2: all and so it's like all of what was interesting
Speaker 2: about me moved out and lived alongside in a shadow
Speaker 2: world that was the more interesting stuff was over there.
Speaker 2: And I was, you know, a fairly boring, conventional, pretty
Speaker 2: girl that would do whatever the guy wanted. And leaving
Speaker 2: that behind was a joy. Being activists became a joy.
Speaker 1: Yes, because you don't have to you perform for the
Speaker 1: approval of others. You can actually use your passion to
Speaker 1: stand alongside other people changes it just it does really
Speaker 1: change your life. I'm curious because you know, it was
Speaker 1: the anti war movement that brought you into these circles
Speaker 1: that illuminated so much for you, And what brought me
Speaker 1: into activist circles was actually climate change and pulling on
Speaker 1: that thread when you start to realize everything is connected.
Speaker 1: And for me as a young woman, it was climate
Speaker 1: change led me to the issues of women and girls
Speaker 1: around the world, and education and you know, disparities that
Speaker 1: happen with the isms, whether it be you know, racism
Speaker 1: or homophobia or sexism. And you, as you said, once
Speaker 1: you know, you owe. When you see how connected all
Speaker 1: these issues are, you can never unsee. How did the
Speaker 1: anti war space bring you into climate defense and environmentalism.
Speaker 2: I spent my child, my first decade in the ocean,
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean. I've always loved the ocean, and I
Speaker 2: grew up in the hills above Brentwood, the Santa Monica Mountains,
Speaker 2: looking out over the ocean and seeing Catalina. There was
Speaker 2: no smog, there were no ways anyway, long story short,
Speaker 2: I've always cared about nature. I've always felt most comfortable
Speaker 2: in nature. I've always saw nature whenever I needed answers.
Speaker 2: I like being fourteen thousand feet up, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: the anti war movement brought me to my second husband,
Speaker 2: Tom Hayden, who wrote the Portieron Statement and founded SDS.
Speaker 2: Not the violent SDS, but he was a movement heavy
Speaker 2: as they say, he was brilliant, he was charismatic, he'd
Speaker 2: written many books. I fell madly for him, and we
Speaker 2: were true comrades during the anti war movement, and we
Speaker 2: did a lot of really good stuff together and then
Speaker 2: and I learned so much from him, And when the
Speaker 2: war ended, we switched our focus to economic democracy, the
Speaker 2: fact that corporations were really running the government. In the
Speaker 2: process of shifting our focus and me trying to wrap
Speaker 2: my mind around to economics, which is not my strong suit,
Speaker 2: I began to realize how chauvinistic the movement was, and
Speaker 2: I began to focus more on women's issues. And I
Speaker 2: became friends with Lauria and with eventslur and you know,
Speaker 2: women who made me become an embodied feminist. And for
Speaker 2: a long time that's what I focus on all the time,
Speaker 2: being an environmentalist, but I didn't devote my life to that.
Speaker 2: It was more about women's empowerment and equality, and I've
Speaker 2: traveled the world on behalf of that struggle. And then
Speaker 2: I realized that the climate crisis was happening now, This
Speaker 2: wasn't a future thing, and that very specific things had
Speaker 2: to happen fast to cut our emissions in half, and
Speaker 2: we had to stop all new fossil fuel projects, you know, infrastructure,
Speaker 2: no newer fracking or mining, and that we had to
Speaker 2: keep the warming at a certain level or we were
Speaker 2: going to it was going to get out of control,
Speaker 2: beyond what human beings could do. Tipping points were going
Speaker 2: to happen. And when it was about five years ago
Speaker 2: that I decided, this is the existential, you know, meaning
Speaker 2: this is what is going to determine our existence or not.
Speaker 2: And women bear the brunt of it. And so to
Speaker 2: confront this is also working together with women, and women
Speaker 2: are the main forces in the solutions to the climate
Speaker 2: crisis for reasons that we could spend an hour talking
Speaker 2: just about that. When it hit me and it you know,
Speaker 2: books are always my epiphany, you know. It was the
Speaker 2: book about Vietnam. It was Naomi Klein's book called on Fire.
Speaker 2: Then literally I read it, I put it down, I
Speaker 2: got on the phone. I call Annie Leonard, who is
Speaker 2: my mentor and who was at that time running Green Peace,
Speaker 2: and I said, I'm gonna I want to move to
Speaker 2: DC and raise hell about this. I want to do
Speaker 2: something that's going to really matter. And together with Bill
Speaker 2: mckibbon and Naomi Kleine. We figured out what became fire
Speaker 2: Drove Fridays. Yes, And I had been before then. I'd
Speaker 2: been so depressed because I knew that I wasn't really
Speaker 2: that was it was the summer that the sky was
Speaker 2: brown orange in California. Yes, we're falling dad out of
Speaker 2: the sky and it was like armageddon. And you know,
Speaker 2: that was when I realized, this is what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do for the rest of my life. Like this year,
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine working as an actor. This is
Speaker 2: the most important election that we've ever had because it's
Speaker 2: going to determine the future. And so this is, you know,
Speaker 2: this is full time for me. And I'm surrounded by
Speaker 2: brilliant people. You know, I have a small team of
Speaker 2: about six people on my Jane Fonda Climate back and
Speaker 2: and so I feel I'm working in community with people
Speaker 2: teach me every day and I'm exactly where I where
Speaker 2: I need and want to be. It's great, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: So how can you tell for our friends listening at
Speaker 1: home who might not know about fire Drill Fridays what
Speaker 1: it is and how long you ran it and what
Speaker 1: you all were doing because my goodness, did I ever
Speaker 1: love watching you? That's like the greatest part about us
Speaker 1: being in this internet age is just being able to
Speaker 1: see what everybody's doing. And the number of times I
Speaker 1: watched you getting escorted off Capitol Hill and handcuffs, I
Speaker 1: was like, Jane's the coolest person I know. So will
Speaker 1: you tell the listeners about fire drill Fridays.
Speaker 2: Well, in the eighties, there was a movement against apartheid
Speaker 2: in South Africa. It wasn't just every week, I think
Speaker 2: it was every day they would engage in civil disobedience
Speaker 2: outside in DC, outside the South African Embassy, and it
Speaker 2: grew huge. It got really big, and it worked. And
Speaker 2: so Bill mckibbon, the founder of three fifty dot org
Speaker 2: and brilliant writer and activists, he suggested that we copy that.
Speaker 2: I'll only do it every Friday if the young activists
Speaker 2: who were already including Greta Tunberg, would welcome me into
Speaker 2: activism on Fridays. And our goal was not so much
Speaker 2: to influence the government, but we knew that about seventy
Speaker 2: percent of Americans are concerned about the climate, but they've
Speaker 2: never become active. They've never joined a rally or a protest,
Speaker 2: they said, because nobody asked them, so the great unasked.
Speaker 2: Our goal with fire Real Friday was to inspire and
Speaker 2: mobilize the unasked to become active, and they came from
Speaker 2: all over the country, people who had never been part
Speaker 2: of a rally before. That was the one thing that
Speaker 2: I just loved about what we did. And we were
Speaker 2: in DC for about five months, and I also loved
Speaker 2: the fact that I would bring celebrities there who sometimes
Speaker 2: they spoke, but most of the time they were just
Speaker 2: there to interview frontline voices, indigenous people, people you know,
Speaker 2: who were the most hardest hit by the climate crisis,
Speaker 2: people whose voices aren't heard, and that I was so
Speaker 2: proud of that. And then COVID hit, so I had
Speaker 2: to come home and we started doing fire Real Fridays
Speaker 2: online for two years during the COVID pandemic, and you know,
Speaker 2: we had nine million people in twenty twenty, ten million
Speaker 2: people in twenty twenty one. It was pretty great, and
Speaker 2: a lot of them were turned into activists. And we
Speaker 2: did our last virtual fire Drill Friday inary this month January.
Speaker 2: I was with Naomi Klein. She was there at the
Speaker 2: beginning and was a nice full circle. And then as
Speaker 2: part of in a way fire drill Fridays, I've been
Speaker 2: working with Greenpeace on a documentary about what oil and
Speaker 2: LNG fracked gas is doing in Texas and Louisiana people
Speaker 2: to the climate, to the environment, and so we're working
Speaker 2: on that and we're not doing any more virtual fire
Speaker 2: real Fridays because we're we're we're still calling on the
Speaker 2: people that became activists, but we're focusing so much on
Speaker 2: the electoral Yes, at the end of the five years,
Speaker 2: Annie Leonard and my team looked at each other and said,
Speaker 2: you know, the problem is this is great, and we
Speaker 2: need more and more people to become active, but there
Speaker 2: are too many people in elected office, both in Washington
Speaker 2: and in states up in well states who block good
Speaker 2: legislation because they take money from the fossil fuel industry. Yes,
Speaker 2: so we have to get rid of them. So we
Speaker 2: started the Jane Fond of Climate pac to elect climate
Speaker 2: champions and try to get rid of the oily Democrats
Speaker 2: who the moderate Democrats who take fossil fuel money and
Speaker 2: won't vote for good legislation. And this here we're focusing
Speaker 2: on California because we have really we have ten wonderful
Speaker 2: candidates here that we get into office. Yeah, it's taken
Speaker 2: too long to make stuff happen here.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute after a few
Speaker 1: words from our favorite sponsors. I think that's a really
Speaker 1: important thing to point out for the folks listening. We
Speaker 1: see so much debate and infighting in our political system,
Speaker 1: and we do know that so many members perarticularly of
Speaker 1: the right, you know, the GOP or bought and paid
Speaker 1: for by big oil and fossil fuel industries. I think
Speaker 1: it's incredibly important for people to know what you just
Speaker 1: brought up, that there are also folks on the Democratic
Speaker 1: side who because our political system is so broken, because
Speaker 1: we did not defeat Citizens United, because these people have
Speaker 1: to raise it's something crazy. It's like, you know, forty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a week or something just to stay in office.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's wild how broken the system is.
Speaker 1: And the broken system sort of you know, it's like
Speaker 1: it ripples out into everything in our society. We see
Speaker 1: the effects of who's making the decisions, who's paying for legislation,
Speaker 1: and the climate is not something we have time to
Speaker 1: debate about left versus right. Republican versus Democrat. We've got
Speaker 1: to unite on this. There's no planet being, there's no
Speaker 1: second option. If we warm past a point, everything changes.
Speaker 1: Crops are devastated, food supply collapses, clean water is over.
Speaker 1: And this will affect every single person, no matter what
Speaker 1: you look like, how you vote, where you live. But
Speaker 1: it will always affect communities of color, at risk communities
Speaker 1: and women first and worst. And I think for us
Speaker 1: to just agree that these facts are facts and that
Speaker 1: we've got to do something about them is one of
Speaker 1: the most pressing issues of our time. So for our
Speaker 1: friends at home, you know, Jane and I agree, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're all nodding your heads while you're listening
Speaker 1: to us that we are not exaggerating when we say
Speaker 1: this really is the most important election of our time.
Speaker 1: The elections have gotten more and more fraud and more
Speaker 1: and more dangerous, and we are on this razor's edge
Speaker 1: now of making sure women get to maintain their rights
Speaker 1: to bodily autonomy and that all all of us get
Speaker 1: to live on a planet that's actually inhabitable. So when
Speaker 1: we talk about twenty twenty four and the incredible work
Speaker 1: that you're doing, Jane, with the Jane Fond of Climate Pack.
Speaker 1: I really hope everyone listening signs up to come with us.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of work ahead, and it is
Speaker 1: a national issue and a global issue certainly, But for
Speaker 1: our friends in California, Jane, I would love for you
Speaker 1: to talk about what's happening with Senate Bill eleven thirty seven,
Speaker 1: because what happens in California will set the tone for
Speaker 1: what happens in the rest of the country in terms
Speaker 1: of how we stand up against these big oil polluters.
Speaker 1: And so if you live here, we need your voice
Speaker 1: on this. And if you don't live here, we need
Speaker 1: you to pay attention to this race because what happens
Speaker 1: here will definitely come for you next. So that I
Speaker 1: really want to dig into with you, because you hosted
Speaker 1: an event recently and educated so many of us in
Speaker 1: LA about this, and I just want everybody to know
Speaker 1: what you're teaching us about.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sophia. There are two point seven million Californians
Speaker 2: live next to an oil well. They suffer because of it,
Speaker 2: their health, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, asthma, kids miss
Speaker 2: months of school, and they've been fighting and many of
Speaker 2: us with them to create setbacks, which means a law
Speaker 2: that says no oil wells or fracking pits can come
Speaker 2: within X distance from communities because right now they wake
Speaker 2: up and look out the window and there's an oil
Speaker 2: well right outside their bedroom or all around their playing
Speaker 2: fields and so forth. And finally, Gavin Newsom two years
Speaker 2: ago passed a bill, signed it, sent it Bill eleven
Speaker 2: thirty seven that said they created a thirty two hundred
Speaker 2: foot setback within which no oil wells could go, and
Speaker 2: historic and a lot of celebrating, And the next week
Speaker 2: the oil companies began to gather signatures to get a
Speaker 2: ballot measure on this year that would overturn it or
Speaker 2: prevent it from going into effect. And they spent forty
Speaker 2: three million dollars gathering signatures for this. We're told we're
Speaker 2: going to spend two hundred million dollars to win. We
Speaker 2: don't know why exactly. I mean, can there be that
Speaker 2: much oil still left in these communities? But maybe it's
Speaker 2: just don't tell me what to do kind of a thing.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, they're really fighting it. Maybe because
Speaker 2: when we win, we have to win. It's going to
Speaker 2: set a precedent that they don't like and so we
Speaker 2: are working like hell, organizing the state in California, raising
Speaker 2: money to defeat the oil companies who are lying to people.
Speaker 2: They have wonderful slick ads saying that if if Senate
Speaker 2: Bill eleven thirty seven passes, their gases are going to
Speaker 2: go up, et cetera. It's not true. Oh that's not
Speaker 2: how it works. So but we have to. We have
Speaker 2: a person named Chris Layman who's running our campaign, who's
Speaker 2: done twenty two referendum battles and won them all, so
Speaker 2: you know we have that. And the campaign is going
Speaker 2: to be announced in March with together Gavin Newsom and ARNL. Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 2: which is really great.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I'm doing an art auction in April right after
Speaker 2: they announced the campaign to raise a lot of money.
Speaker 2: It's on April ninth. But just be sure you all
Speaker 2: who are watching to vote for maintaining or creating the
Speaker 2: setback the thirty two hundred feet don't see the lies
Speaker 2: that the oil companies are going to put out about
Speaker 2: why that's a bad idea, because we can't keep doing
Speaker 2: this to people. The bill not only prevents new oil
Speaker 2: wells from coming close to communities, but it demands that
Speaker 2: the oil companies clean up the wells that are already there,
Speaker 2: make them less you know, leaking, more safe in terms
Speaker 2: of the air and everything else. It's a big success.
Speaker 2: I want to say something about you talked about the
Speaker 2: political situation being broken. I've been very critical of Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: and I've been very angry with him. But what I've
Speaker 2: been finding out recently is that there is so much
Speaker 2: being done that's fabulous and very important that it's not sexy,
Speaker 2: it's not front page news. It's little things that have
Speaker 2: to happen in order for the transition to renewables to
Speaker 2: go forward. Yes, and nobody knows about it, and it
Speaker 2: just shows how critical it is that we reelect Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean example, I just spent three weeks
Speaker 2: down in Texas and Xiana working on this documentary and
Speaker 2: it's just it's like being in the belly of the beast.
Speaker 2: It's worse than I can't even describe what it's doing
Speaker 2: to the people and the environment there. And we were
Speaker 2: going to have a big protest in DC in a
Speaker 2: week and Friday. This last Friday, Joe Biden's administration announced
Speaker 2: they were putting a pause on LNG exports. This is huge, huge,
Speaker 2: it's huge. It throws into question the exporting of LNG,
Speaker 2: which you know, which we never used to export this stuff.
Speaker 2: It all happened started and when Obama lifted the export
Speaker 2: ban in twenty fifteen, and it's it's just what it
Speaker 2: shows is that Joe Biden can be pressured. You know,
Speaker 2: he creates a context where you can pressure. Fascism offers
Speaker 2: no context like that. There's no terrain in fascism where
Speaker 2: you can be a righteous activist and do the right
Speaker 2: thing and have an official agree with you. Finally, you know,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work that way. So voting for him
Speaker 2: is not marrying him. A pragmatic decision, that's it, so
Speaker 2: that you aren't dealing with fascism. And there's no protest
Speaker 2: vote this year. We have no room for what happened
Speaker 2: in two thousand, which now we have to hold our
Speaker 2: nose and vote Democrat and all the way down the ballot.
Speaker 1: And I think what's incredibly important to remind people of
Speaker 1: is that because people will say, well, but I don't
Speaker 1: agree on this issue or that issue. Everybody has a
Speaker 1: fill in the blank where they say, this is not
Speaker 1: the candidate of my dreams, and I get that, but
Speaker 1: you don't get to root for a team that isn't
Speaker 1: playing in the super Bowl to win the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Pragmatism is required for progress. And to your point, we
Speaker 1: have a candidate who is a fascist, who wants to
Speaker 1: roll back rights for everyone but rich white men and
Speaker 1: literally sell off the country for parts and become a
Speaker 1: dictator and has said all of this out loud. This
Speaker 1: is not exaggeration. He's said, if I win, I'm never leaving,
Speaker 1: so okay, dictatorship. Or you have somebody who is willing
Speaker 1: to compromise sometimes with people we don't like, which upsets us.
Speaker 1: But he's trying to get things done. He's made incredible
Speaker 1: progress despite plenty of things we disagree with him on,
Speaker 1: you know, including the Willow Project for US climate activists.
Speaker 1: He's passed more legislation that is more comprehensive for more
Speaker 1: people in America than any president in sixty years. The
Speaker 1: Infrastructure Act has been one of the greatest revitalization projects
Speaker 1: for the nation in history. And yeah, there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff we could all complain about. But to your point,
Speaker 1: when we make noise and we tell this administration what
Speaker 1: is important to us, they go and legislate on it.
Speaker 1: They go and they listen to us, and they go
Speaker 1: and do the work. And that to me is the difference.
Speaker 1: You have to elect someone who is going to work
Speaker 1: on your behalf, not harm for their own gain, and
Speaker 1: then who will admit, when perhaps they haven't made something
Speaker 1: a top five priority, that they realize their constituency wants
Speaker 1: them to, and they go do it. That's the whole
Speaker 1: point of having elected officials and representation in the first place.
Speaker 1: So I think it's incredibly important, as you said, to
Speaker 1: be pragmatic. And if we want to build this utopia
Speaker 1: we believe is possible, we have to make the pragmatic
Speaker 1: steps to get there. And if we want to have
Speaker 1: an option where we can vote for a third party candidate,
Speaker 1: well then we should make one of our causes passing
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting nationally. But we can't pretend we have
Speaker 1: these possible outcomes that don't exist unless we do the
Speaker 1: work to create them. It's our job as voters to
Speaker 1: go out and pressure and create progress. And so I
Speaker 1: say we go do it, and I say we do
Speaker 1: it this year on climate and on our rights as
Speaker 1: women first and foremost, I love you, I love you, Jane.
Speaker 2: Were your parents' activists.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting. My parents, when I first
Speaker 1: started really putting my neck out there, you know, publicly
Speaker 1: for political projects, were so nervous. But then I started
Speaker 1: to really think about, you know, where they come from.
Speaker 1: And my dad moved here in the seventies from Canada
Speaker 1: to go to art school, was very you know, anti war.
Speaker 1: It took him until I was thirteen years old to
Speaker 1: become an American citizen. So when people say like, oh,
Speaker 1: do it the right way, I'm like, do you even
Speaker 1: know what that means? Like I had to help my
Speaker 1: dad study for his citizenship test when it was finally time.
Speaker 1: My mom's family immigrated through Ellis Island from Italy. You know,
Speaker 1: they had their own American dream story. My grandfather was
Speaker 1: a navy man.
Speaker 2: A lot of a lot of beauty.
Speaker 1: Around the idea of what a country could be for people,
Speaker 1: you know, when we strive to be a more perfect union,
Speaker 1: which I think is what us activists are working towards
Speaker 1: always And they will say no, they weren't, but they
Speaker 1: totally were. My mom was you know, incredibly independent and progressive,
Speaker 1: and you know, my Dad's this artist, immigrant, like interesting
Speaker 1: man who has always sort of seen through some of
Speaker 1: the you know, insanity, particularly in our healthcare system. Because
Speaker 1: Canada has great, you know, universal health care. We spend
Speaker 1: the most on sickness of any nation in the world,
Speaker 1: and we have the worst health outcome. So if we
Speaker 1: had a better healthcare system, that would be great for
Speaker 1: everyone and cheaper for the government. But I think now
Speaker 1: in our sort of adult friendship that we have with
Speaker 1: each other, they're in their seventies and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: now in my early forties, they sort of see where
Speaker 1: I get it, and they think I'm an anomaly. It's
Speaker 1: a little it's a little both.
Speaker 2: And oh but they support you. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think they used to be scared, you know, to
Speaker 1: your point, the pushback is scary for parents and for parents,
Speaker 1: you know, to read with the internet, you know, the
Speaker 1: way the trolls are and the bots are, people are disgusting.
Speaker 1: And I think they were nervous. But much like you,
Speaker 1: the harder people push at me and tell me to
Speaker 1: be quiet, the more I'm like, oh, watch this, and
Speaker 1: I think eventually they just meant that's our kid, Like
Speaker 1: that's who she's going to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad was nervous too, probably like your parents.
Speaker 2: He remembered the fifties and the witch hunts, yes, wealthy days,
Speaker 2: and he was worried that that was going to destroy
Speaker 2: my career. But you know, I whenever I would learn
Speaker 2: something about Vietnam, like I had a young soldier. I
Speaker 2: was at a military base in northern California and this
Speaker 2: very young guy, he could almost not talk above a
Speaker 2: whisper for trying to tell me that he had killed
Speaker 2: a child, and you know, the stuff that I'd heard,
Speaker 2: and I so I would go home and tell my dad.
Speaker 2: I had no money, so I lived with my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, after I left France, and I told him
Speaker 2: about this, and he said to me, if you can
Speaker 2: prove that that's that this is true? He didn't believe it.
Speaker 2: He said they they wouldn't tell you if that was true.
Speaker 2: And I said, if you can. He said, if you
Speaker 2: can prove it, I will lead a march on Washington.
Speaker 2: And so I brought some green berets to talk to
Speaker 2: him and ours. But you know, my dad, it was
Speaker 2: a generation. They it wasn't in my dad's genes to
Speaker 2: lead marches or anything like that. But he he worried. However,
Speaker 2: I was friends anyway. That's never mind too much, I
Speaker 2: talked too much. No, I love it.
Speaker 1: It's it's also I think it's really powerful too to
Speaker 1: hear stories that, especially from someone like you. You know, you,
Speaker 1: you are this woman in our world, Jane. You've inspired
Speaker 1: so many of us. You're larger than life, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, I find it really touching an eye opening
Speaker 1: to hear about, you know, your dad just being worried
Speaker 1: about his daughter. I think sometimes when you reach these
Speaker 1: upper echelons of you know, industries, When when you are
Speaker 1: an Academy award winner, when you are a you know,
Speaker 1: a lifelong famous person who can call a president who
Speaker 1: you know, leads these marches and does these things, people
Speaker 1: forget that you're also one human woman who has persevered
Speaker 1: through fear to stand up for other people, who has
Speaker 1: been willing to risk her privilege in order to weaponize
Speaker 1: that privilege on the behalf of others. That's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Privilege doesn't like to be given up. And I think
Speaker 1: when you are willing to say, well, if I lose
Speaker 1: it all, it was worth it for this, that that
Speaker 1: kind of calling, much like resilience, what you were saying earlier.
Speaker 1: Can't be taught. It comes from inside of you. It's
Speaker 1: a fire that you know, maybe you know the source of,
Speaker 1: and maybe you've just learned to let fuel yourself, but
Speaker 1: it is, it is something that really knocks us over
Speaker 1: when we look at it. And I don't know, I
Speaker 1: find it. I find it so humanizing to be reminded
Speaker 1: that your dad was like, kid, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Be careful, and you said, I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I was friends with Angela Davis, and when she was
Speaker 2: put in prison here in California, I visited her. And
Speaker 2: when I came back from that visit, my dad called
Speaker 2: me into his office and he said to me, if
Speaker 2: I find out that you are a communist, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be the first person to turn you in. And
Speaker 2: I just I remember running to my bedroom and pulling
Speaker 2: the sheets over my head and crying and crying and crying.
Speaker 2: You know, later I could look back and understand he
Speaker 2: was worried he'd experience the Macarthy era when people were destroyed.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, and people who are dangerous to power are
Speaker 1: often persecuted. I mean, when you think back to Salem,
Speaker 1: women who had these whisper networks, who you know, new medicine,
Speaker 1: were persecuted for it. And when you think about that
Speaker 1: terrible stain on American history, what McCarthyism did to so
Speaker 1: many people, what it accused people of simply people who
Speaker 1: were progressive, who were not enemies to the government, but
Speaker 1: who wanted to see change. You know, it's not dissimilar
Speaker 1: to what we see the former president of the United
Speaker 1: States doing now, calling to jail and execute his detractors.
Speaker 1: You know, this is very scary stuff, and when you
Speaker 1: look at these cycles of history, it's terrifying to be
Speaker 1: in the midst of it. And I imagine your dad
Speaker 1: was very afraid. But I don't know what a cool
Speaker 1: thing from this moment to be able to look back
Speaker 1: at your legacy. You've been able to prove exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of progressive that you are, exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: American that you are. You're pushing us toward that more
Speaker 1: perfect union where everyone is safe and everyone is represented.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Think the way you've been able to teach people that
Speaker 1: that comes down to rights and equity, and the way
Speaker 1: you've centered climate on that and really reminded us that
Speaker 1: that is the ground zero for our existence. It's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1: I'd get such a kick out of it if your
Speaker 1: dad could see you now, you know, yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know what makes me sad, maybe above all else, is
Speaker 2: how human beings have become so alienated from nature. We
Speaker 2: just we don't understand that we depend on nature for
Speaker 2: our survival and how healing nature can be for us.
Speaker 2: You know, if that weren't the case, there would be
Speaker 2: no climate crisis, just like if there was no racism
Speaker 2: or patriarchy, there'd be no climate crisis. It's part of
Speaker 2: a mindset. It's like nesting dolls with the climates to
Speaker 2: keep discovering all the other parts to it. Yes, it
Speaker 2: happens when people, men in particular, have a hierarchical view
Speaker 2: of everything. You know, certain things matter more than other things.
Speaker 2: Nature is way down here, along with wool and dogs,
Speaker 2: but you know, white men are up here. It's these
Speaker 2: are the people who are This is the mindset that
Speaker 2: looks at a beautiful forest thinks flooring.
Speaker 1: Mmm mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Everything is for something else that will make money transactional. Yes,
Speaker 2: how we have to work hard to get back to
Speaker 2: to renewing our relationship with nature. That's why listening to
Speaker 2: indigenous peoples are so important.
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll be back in just a minute, but here's
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. How have you learned from
Speaker 1: indigenous communities? How did you begin to make inroads as
Speaker 1: a as a witness in those spaces and to uplift
Speaker 1: those voices and what have those relationships taught you?
Speaker 2: Well, it taught me early on that you're showing up
Speaker 2: is important, showing up respectfully. The very first thing I
Speaker 2: did I leaving my family in France, and I had
Speaker 2: made a trip to India because that's where people were going,
Speaker 2: like the Beatles and mia Faro, to find truth. And
Speaker 2: what I found was, I don't want to join a
Speaker 2: nash Ram or smoke pot here. I want to join
Speaker 2: the Peace Corps. I just I'm an activist. I came
Speaker 2: home and there was a magazine called Ramparts, which was
Speaker 2: a left wing, wonderful magazine doesn't exist anymore, with a
Speaker 2: Native woman on the cover, her fist in the air
Speaker 2: against a white wall that said better red than dead,
Speaker 2: and the article was about why Indians had occupied Alcatraz.
Speaker 2: They wanted to seize Alcatraz and turn it into a
Speaker 2: cultural center, and it talked about the history of white
Speaker 2: settlers trying to destroy a Native people. I really wasn't aware,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to say. I was already thirty one years old.
Speaker 2: My father had been in all these westerns, but I
Speaker 2: didn't really know the history. And I read it. It
Speaker 2: was an article written because of the seizure of Alcatraz,
Speaker 2: that was, but it gave the whole history. So I said,
Speaker 2: what was I doing in India? I didn't, you know,
Speaker 2: there's issues right here I have to deal with. And
Speaker 2: so I went to Alcatraz during the occupation and I
Speaker 2: met a lot of Native American people there. Then they
Speaker 2: referred me to a fight that was going on in
Speaker 2: Seattle for fishing rights, for the sale Shkutine the tribes
Speaker 2: up there. That was the time I ever got arrested,
Speaker 2: was seizing a fort there that they wanted to turn
Speaker 2: into a cultural center and succeeded. But I just I
Speaker 2: went from tribe to tribe to tribe to reservation reservent,
Speaker 2: and I just met a lot of Native people and
Speaker 2: talked to a lot of Native people. And at that time,
Speaker 2: the American Indian movement was prominent, and they were not
Speaker 2: they were not believers in holding on to the war
Speaker 2: dances and the ceremonies and the dances and the prayers
Speaker 2: so much, and there was a big split, do we
Speaker 2: try to assimilate within the Indian movement or do we
Speaker 2: maintain our culture and our past. And then years later,
Speaker 2: being at Standing Rock and seeing how the ceremonies and
Speaker 2: the sun dances and the prayers had helped so many
Speaker 2: young people with addiction and alcoholism and so forth, that
Speaker 2: they came all the way back to wanting to embrace
Speaker 2: their traditions. And I just thought that that was very
Speaker 2: important and very beautiful, because I've been part of that
Speaker 2: whole transition and arguments so that I know enough Native
Speaker 2: American people to know that there's a unique sense of
Speaker 2: humor that I love. And it's just absolutely moving to
Speaker 2: me how they've endured an attempted genocide on behalf of
Speaker 2: the white, you know, being moved from land to land,
Speaker 2: having their children kidnapped, put into Catholic schools, and so forth.
Speaker 2: If I feel like if I was an Indigenous person here,
Speaker 2: I'd want to have a machine gun, and instead, as
Speaker 2: a people, they tend to want They're still trying to
Speaker 2: teach us, still willing to step up and try to
Speaker 2: teach us that there's another way of relating to nature
Speaker 2: and another way of viewing things if we're open to listening.
Speaker 2: And it's why, you know, with Firedroal Friday, there were
Speaker 2: so many Indigenous voices, especially young Indigenous voices that I
Speaker 2: had on and it was it was really beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the sometimes when I'm trying to learn, you know,
Speaker 1: as you speak about you show up in community. When
Speaker 1: people ask me, you know, how do you start, I say,
Speaker 1: find the helpers, go to the people you want to
Speaker 1: learn from, show up and shut up and learn from
Speaker 1: them until you know enough to be able to speak up.
Speaker 2: And one of the.
Speaker 1: Things that really hap helps me when I'm trying to
Speaker 1: learn about a populace or a community or a particular issue,
Speaker 1: is I try to make sense of what affects me
Speaker 1: so emotionally through statistics or math, because math I find
Speaker 1: to be the only non emotional thing. And that stat
Speaker 1: that indigenous peoples currently make up five percent of the
Speaker 1: world's population but are responsible for the stewardship of eighty
Speaker 1: five percent of the planet's biodiversity. The fact that any
Speaker 1: of us are going, well, let's see what they know.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, they know everything. And to your point,
Speaker 1: we must learn how to relate better to the planet
Speaker 1: that we live on if we would like to remain
Speaker 1: guests here because we are you know, the world. If
Speaker 1: we break it and humans can't live here anymore, the
Speaker 1: planet will recover.
Speaker 2: We just won't.
Speaker 1: And I hope that eventually we pay attention in the
Speaker 1: way that you know you have been teaching us to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the wisdom in these communities for so long,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I love that you say you say to people, go
Speaker 2: to the people who you want to learn from. Yes.
Speaker 2: I like that you call for community because you want
Speaker 2: to go fast, go alone, but you want to go far,
Speaker 2: go together. And I love courage that.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think the most powerful thing I've learned
Speaker 1: in the last you know, twenty years of being in
Speaker 1: spaces like this is slow is fast because when you
Speaker 1: move quickly, when you go alone, you make mistakes and
Speaker 1: then you have to backtrack and start over and rebuild
Speaker 1: and take that down because you did it wrong and
Speaker 1: learn a new way to do it. And if you
Speaker 1: move a little more slowly, and you move in community,
Speaker 1: and you really assess and build correctly, you'll get there.
Speaker 1: Faster in the end, and you'll get there with everyone
Speaker 1: by your side. And that you know that that I
Speaker 1: think changes a life. So Jane, what do you what
Speaker 1: do you want us to do our our listeners, our groups.
Speaker 1: As we get into twenty twenty four, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are nervous, a lot of people feel overwhelmed. That's
Speaker 1: you know, by design, that's what fascism does. It makes
Speaker 1: you tired. What what do you want listeners to know?
Speaker 1: What's the one you know site you want people to
Speaker 1: visit or the one thing you want people to sign
Speaker 1: up for to prep in community for this big fight
Speaker 1: we have ahead together this year.
Speaker 2: One thing that you can do is join me on
Speaker 2: my climate pack and you do that by texting Jane
Speaker 2: to four oh five oh six.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to do it right now.
Speaker 2: What people need to do is join an organization that
Speaker 2: has a track record, preferably that has diversity in it.
Speaker 2: You don't want to join an organization that's all white men.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but yeah, they haven't. They haven't proven a
Speaker 2: great track record, have they. My favorite ex husband, Ed Turner,
Speaker 2: always says, we've had our fants and we've set it up.
Speaker 1: Now turn it over to women exactly. Will Ferrell just
Speaker 1: said that recently too. I'm like, see, look they're waking up,
Speaker 1: these these men. Leave it to us. We'll do it anyway.
Speaker 2: Join an organization and take action to stop fossil fuels
Speaker 2: and to push us in a direction toward alternative energy,
Speaker 2: sustainable energy meaning wind and sun. And because this climate
Speaker 2: crisis is real and we have to act fast and
Speaker 2: we can make a big difference.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and for our friends listening at home, we're going
Speaker 1: to make sure to share some links and resources with
Speaker 1: you in the show notes and also on our Instagram
Speaker 1: stories this week, so we'll make everything easily shareable and
Speaker 1: easy to follow. I really want to be respectful of
Speaker 1: your time, Jane, even though what I really want to
Speaker 1: do is just drive over to your house and sit
Speaker 1: on your couch and talk to you for the rest
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 2: I would love nothing more.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, I'm going to come over soon, but I
Speaker 1: have for this interview.
Speaker 2: I have one.
Speaker 1: Final question for you. It's my favorite thing to ask
Speaker 1: everyone who graces me with their time. I'm curious, in
Speaker 1: this moment in your life, what feels like your work
Speaker 1: in progress?
Speaker 2: Oh, my relationship with my children. HM, that's I'm sure
Speaker 2: sounds strange. But one of the things that I've learned
Speaker 2: is that it never ends as a parent. It's never
Speaker 2: too late. I was not such a good parent when
Speaker 2: my children were younger. They are now very much adults.
Speaker 2: They both have children, And you know, when you're my age,
Speaker 2: you spend a lot of time thinking, when I'm on
Speaker 2: my deathbed, what am I going to regret? And then
Speaker 2: try to focus on that. And my main thing on
Speaker 2: my deathbed is going to be do they know I
Speaker 2: love them? And do they love me? And are they okay?
Speaker 2: And so that's my thing besides the crisis, is trying
Speaker 2: to be okay with my kids and my grandkids.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Do you ever feel like because your life
Speaker 1: has had such big callings and you show up for
Speaker 1: community and in such a big global way, it maybe
Speaker 1: takes a little longer to get into the one on
Speaker 1: one and the personal and when you're always getting called
Speaker 1: and pulled in so many directions, you don't get to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time at home, much like you
Speaker 1: talked about with your dad.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Think it's actually I'm processing what you're saying in real time,
Speaker 1: So forgive that my question is becoming more of an observation.
Speaker 1: But how beautiful that you also are in a state
Speaker 1: where you get to come back inward more.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, it's not even so much having the time,
Speaker 2: it's when you do have the time, really being present,
Speaker 2: you know, as opposed to I got to write that
Speaker 2: letter to someone, or I got to go to that meeting,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And when you're when you're
Speaker 2: my you know, my daughter was a tiny little baby
Speaker 2: when I became an activist, and so you know, it's
Speaker 2: not right to feel justified to not be showing up
Speaker 2: because what you're doing is good. Bullshit. You've got to
Speaker 2: find a way to do both. The chances are if
Speaker 2: you do both, things will turn out better, the activism
Speaker 2: and the child.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Yeah, there's always the opportunity to recalibrate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the wisdom I loved you, Please bring it.
Speaker 2: I love talking to you. Jane, Thank yourself, Thank you,