She may be an actor on screen, but she’s an activist at heart. Between calling for an end to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, rallying with the women’s movement, and fighting for Indigenous rights, Jane Fonda has marched and protested nearly her entire life.
But five years ago, as she walked under a hazy orange sky filled with wildfire smoke, she felt like she still hadn’t done enough. This was not the bucolic and smog-free California she experienced growing up at the end of a dirt road in the Santa Monica Mountains.
“This is way beyond what I thought it was,” she reflected. “This isn’t just about the environment. This is about the whole planet.”
A switch went off — what Fonda describes as a “lightning bolt right into my solar plexus.” She’d always had a fondness for nature, but had never been vocal about protecting it. She realized in that moment that she needed to use her platform to draw attention to the climate crisis.
The now 86-year-old Hollywood star traded her “Grace and Frankie” script for “On Fire,” by Naomi Klein, and picked up the phone to call the then-head of Greenpeace, Annie Leonard, to tell her she was moving to D.C. “I’m gonna raise a ruckus. Can you help?” she said.
This is just one of many moments Fonda shared about her climate activism journey in an interview. In the candid conversation, Fonda details why she joined the fight to save our planet and why she’s urging others to join the cause, especially with the 2024 presidential election less than two months away. “We can’t lose another four years,” she said.
On why 2024 is so pivotal
The stakes of this election are so high in Fonda’s mind that she told her agent that she couldn’t take on any acting work this year. “When the election is happening that’s going to determine the future, I couldn’t do it,” she said.
Fonda is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, believing the Harris-Walz ticket would fight for climate solutions and make progress on ambitious targets like cutting fossil fuel emissions in half by the end of the decade. “I am really involved this time because of the climate emergency,” Fonda said.
A Trump-Vance win, she believes, would send the country in the wrong direction by increasing our reliance on fossil fuels. “We can’t allow this to happen in the United States,” Fonda said, “not when the future of the planet is at stake.”
On the role of celebrity endorsements
Fonda isn’t the only celebrity using her voice to rally political support. After the presidential debate on Sept. 10, Taylor Swift announced her endorsement of Harris on Instagram, signing the post “Childless Cat Lady,” a jab at Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance.
“I thought it was really smart of her to choose to do it after the debate,” said Fonda. “I think it’s going to have a big impact.”
On empowering climate candidates across the country
Outside of the presidential race, Fonda is also focusing on mayoral, city council, and state races. Getting climate champions elected to those offices is the main mission of Jane Fonda Climate PAC. Founded in 2022, the group’s informal motto, promulgated by Fonda, is: “If we can’t change the minds of the people in power, we need to change the people in power.”
“There’s this disconnect between what science is saying and what elected officials will allow to become policy,” she told her interviewers. “That has to change.”
Down-ballot candidates may seem like a drop in the bucket in the larger battle to combat climate change, but Fonda says the goal is to develop leaders who can rise up into larger positions. They also have the power to challenge projects in their own backyards, like Line 5, a pipeline that runs through Michigan and Wisconsin, backed by a Canadian oil company.
“We need local people there that will stop it,” she emphasized.
On how a climate crisis calls for collective solutions
Fonda is a firm believer that the power not only rests inside the halls of government but also outside in the streets. It’s a sort of symbiotic relationship, in her eyes: get people elected to government and then make them take action.
“Nonviolent civil disobedience and protests historically have changed history,” she said. “But you need people in the halls of power with ears and a heart to hear the protests, to hear the demands.”
Fonda is no stranger to civil disobedience. In 2019, she was arrested five times during Fire Drill Fridays, a protest series she started in Washington, D.C. that was designed to draw attention to global warming. Fonda even spent the night of her 82nd birthday behind bars. “I knew that would have an impact,” she said.
Fonda says she started Fire Drill Fridays because she realized you can get a lot more done when you join forces with other people fighting for the same cause. A collective crisis demands a collective solution, she says. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
After nearly 60 years of acting, dozens of movies, three marriages, and six arrests, Fonda feels like she’s right where she belongs. “I think a lot about being on my deathbed, and I know that when you’re on your deathbed you want to feel that it’s been worthwhile,” she reflected. “For the first time I felt my life has value.”
She may be in her final act, but she has no intention of slowing down. She’s currently traveling nationwide to visit down-ballot candidates endorsed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and support the Harris-Walz ticket. Just last week, she was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knocking on doors for the campaign.
“If celebrity is a currency, which it seems to be, why are you spending it this way?” one interviewer asked Fonda during the conversation.
After a brief pause, Fonda responded, “What other way would there be to spend it?”