- Hi, I'm Jane Fonda, founder of Fire Drill Fridays.
And this is, "Action Planet."
- I'm not a scientist,
but my lay understanding of the science
is that the situation is growing more and more urgent.
- When you take action, your life gets meaning.
When you get a meaning in life, you become happy.
- When people connect, they care.
- When you're feeling well and doing well,
you have no choice but to be well to the planet.
- We are up to the task of managing this crisis.
- And it's a mountain we can climb
if we climb it together.
- If we don't do what science demands,
we pass a tipping point
and it's out of our control.
(upbeat music)
I was very depressed in 2019
because I knew I wasn't doing enough.
I'd done all the visual things that a person can do
to minimize our carbon footprint.
And together with Greenpeace, we started to develop
what's come to be called the Fire Drill Fridays,
and we did them every week for four months.
Then it became quite a big thing.
And now it's gone national
and I've continued it virtually.
(upbeat music)
The Fire Drill Friday that sticks out the most to me,
my favorite in a way, was December 21st.
That Friday we focused on health and the climate crisis.
I was going to turn 82 the next day.
And a lot of friends of mine came from all over the country
and we were all arrested together,
and I didn't end up turning 82 in jail.
For some reason they decided not to.
I think they felt that it would have
attracted too much attention.
It was the best birthday party I ever had.
(upbeat music)
I went to Minnesota to try to bring national attention
to the Enbridge Line three pipeline
which is bringing the worst, most poisonous tar sands oil
from Canada through Minnesota under 200 bodies of water,
including the headwaters of the Mississippi,
where it will eventually end up in the Gulf of Mexico.
And much of it will be exported.
This is breaking treaty rights
with the Anishinaabi-Ojibwe people there.
It is endangering very precious waterways.
People have heard of the Standing Rock Dakota pipeline.
They've heard of the Keystone XL.
Line three is every bit as dangerous
and we want to raise awareness and stop it.
(dramatic music)
The pipelines are important
because we're facing an existential climate crisis.
The major cause of the climate crisis are fossil fuels.
Coal, oil, gas.
Science has been very clear.
We have to keep the warming at, not above,
1.5 degrees Celsius.
We have to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half in 10 years
and then begin a gradual phase out.
So we have to stop all of these new pipelines.
We have to stop all the drilling
and the fracking and the coal mining.
And we have to do it fast.
If we don't do what science demands,
we pass a tipping point and it's out of our control.
Not enough of us understand
that we are able to live because of healthy ecosystems.
We get our oxygen from oceans and forests.
It's a little like Goldilocks.
It's not too hot.
It's not too cold.
It's just right.
This little blue planet of ours
just happens to be just right for human life.
And if that just right goes away, so do we.
(bright music)
Too many people still think
that we are dependent on fossil fuel
and that a managed transition off of fossil fuel
is not possible because the alternatives are not ready.
The fact is that a green renewable energy sector
is expanding by the day, all over the world.
Wind turbines, solar panels,
photovoltaic cells that turn sunlight into energy.
And what's important is the price has plummeted
much faster than anyone expected.
So they've become much less expensive
and certainly not damaging like fossil fuels.
The Biden administration understands.
We just have to make sure that they are pressured
to do it and do it immediately.
(upbeat music)
Generally speaking, water protectors
are indigenous men and women, tend to be more women.
Women are in the lead of the climate movement, no question.
And they are the people that are standing up
against the pipelines, against the fossil fuel industries,
trying to protect their water.
The fact that these pipelines put this water in danger,
we can't live without water.
It's a sin.
So the women that are standing up to protect the water
are the water protectors.
(bright music)
People can do a lot of things from home during the pandemic.
I've discovered this.
I've continued the Fire Drill Fridays virtually
since the beginning of the pandemic until now.
- Don't trust our party.
- We have on average, 80, 90, 100,000 every Friday.
And like before the election,
they volunteered to call voters
who had sat out the last election.
They're texting, they're writing, they're calling.
And most of them, and this is what I love,
have never done it before.
We're bringing in new people to the climate movement
who have never been activists before.
And across the boards they love it.
They're making new friends, they're joining a new community,
they're overcoming their depression.
It's very beautiful.
(soft music)
There's not very many climate deniers left.
Even the fossil fuel industry,
they don't say there's no climate crisis.
They say, we are going to change our ways
and we are going to become major players
in the green revolution.
It's poppycock.
Don't believe that these fossil fuel companies
are gonna do it, or carbon capture and storage.
We don't have that kind of technology.
We don't have time to make mistakes
because they lied to us for so long.
They denied what they knew.
And as a result, we have a very small window of opportunity
and a very small carbon budget
if we want to keep the warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We have to follow the science.
That's what they're telling us. It's gonna be very hard.
It's gonna take all of us,
and we have to be prepared to take action.
Go into the streets, engage in civil disobedience,
and put our bodies on the line, as soon as it's safe.
(upbeat music)
Right now I would say my favorite R is reduce.
We have to reduce consumption.
When I started Fire Drill Fridays in 2019,
I realized how bad our overconsumption is for the planet
and I vowed I would never buy another piece of new clothing.
And I never have.
I bought a red coat on sale.
That's the last article of clothing I will ever buy.
I stopped drinking a juice that I loved
because it came in plastic bottles.
We have to cut back.
We have to cut way, way back.
We cannot find happiness or identity through shopping.
(upbeat music)
I'm hopeful for the planet because of young people.
I think that what is happening
with the young climate activists is absolutely critical.
In 2019, when between the Sunrise Movement,
Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future
with Greta Thunberg's organization,
there were uprisings of millions and millions and millions
of young people all over the world.
That was a major wake up call.
That really alerted people to the fact that,
oh, we've got to do something about this.
It was huge.
And they continue to be a huge influence
on the successes of the climate movement.
I'm also hopeful for the planet
because apparently according to research
there are 25 million Americans
that know there's a climate crisis
and are worried about it.
They haven't done anything because nobody asks them,
but that's why we're doing this.
That's why I started Fire Drill Friday.
I wanna ask them, come on, join me.
I'm an old lady.
If I can do it, you can do it (chuckles).
And women are pretty much always in the lead.
(ominous music)