Jane Fonda, an Academy Award-winning actor and longtime climate activist, launched a broadside from the stage against the political establishment over inaction on climate change.
“We’ve never gotten legislation commensurate with what science is saying we have to have, including that bill that Biden did,” she said, referring to the previous administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
“We can’t get the legislation because so many of the Democrats and Republicans take money from the fossil fuel industry, and so they don’t legislate for people,” Ms. Fonda said. “We’ve got a corporate government.”
She encouraged the audience to vote for figures who would not take money from the industry “and who understand that we’re facing two existential crises, climate and democracy, and they’re completely interconnected.”
Ms. Fonda has established a political action committee to support candidates who promise to address climate change. It had more than $4 million in cash on hand at the end of August. Ms. Fonda has been arrested while protesting climate inaction.
Ms. Fonda said the country was “dealing with an authoritarian regime” and “no longer considered a functioning democracy.”
Ms. Fonda, 88, also reflected on what activism had given to her. She said that she had a “meaningless” life before becoming an activist at age 34 in the movement against the Vietnam War. Watching protests on television, she said, she felt like she was being left behind because of her own inaction.
“We all want to be able to say, ‘I know why I’m here. I know what my purpose is,’” she said.
Becoming part of the movement and meeting “people who live for something beyond themselves,” was a game changer for her and “made me realize I’ve been missing out.”
“It was like looking at the future we’re fighting for through a keyhole,” she said. “This is the team I want to belong to.”
She was asked whether she had any regrets about her more recent climate activism, which included a 2020 book, “What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action.”
“I just wish I had done more, sooner,” Ms. Fonda said. “But you know, I’ve still got a few years left.”
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