Jane Fonda Leads Fire Drill Fridays

Jane Fonda's Fire Drill Fridays call for fast action on a Green New Deal & an end to all new fossil fuel exploration/extraction and taxpayer subsidies to oil companies.

Fonda is risking arrest for civil disobedience for the 6th successive Friday, but she’s not doing it alone. This week she will be joined by June Diane Raphael, Brooklyn Decker, Abigail Disney and Robert Kennedy, Jr. for this week’s Fire Drill Friday.

Fire Drill Fridays are weekly events led by the 81-year-old actress, demanding urgent action on a Green New Deal—clean, renewable energy, creating new good jobs and protecting communities—and an end to all new fossil fuel exploration and drilling. Participants commit civil disobedience at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Inspired by the growing movement of young climate strikers, Fonda decided to move to the nation’s capital for four months to take up their baton. The effort aims to spur action to avert what the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls ‘irreversible climate disaster’ if atmospheric CO2 warms the planet by another 1.5 to 2 degrees Centigrade in the next 11 years.

She will be joined at every Fire Drill Friday through at least mid-January by celebrities, scientists, economists and people from impacted communities who will speak, and some of whom will invite arrest. Previous participants include Sam Waterston, Ted Danson, Rosanna Arquette, Eve Ensler, and Catherine Keener.

“Change is coming by design or by disaster. A Green New Deal that transitions off fossil fuels provides the design. They say it’s not realistic, that it’s Socialism. That’s what they said about Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and we got Social Security and a middle class,” said Fonda.

Every Thursday night at 7pm ET, Jane will moderate a live-streamed teach-in. The teach-ins are held to prepare participants for the events, and feature interviews with experts who will discuss and answer questions about each different aspect of climate change that is the focus of the next day’s action.

Jane Fonda’s 4th Fire Drill Friday focused on the ways in which women carry the greatest burden imposed by climate change and how they will continue to play the leading role in the fight to win a Green New Deal, switch urgently to clean energy, and prevent new fossil fuel development.

“Efforts to turn back climate change can be exponentially enhanced if the needs and priorities of women were addressed. This is why the Green New Deal calls for inclusive representation of women in political and economic decision making around environmental and climate policies. Women bear the brunt, and women hold many of the solutions to the climate crisis,” said Fonda.

Jane Fonda’s third Fire Drill Friday focused on the ways in which our oceans are adversely affected by climate change. 60% of the oxygen we breathe comes because the oceans make it from sunlight.

“More than one billion people get their protein from the oceans, but fossil fuels are killing the oceans. This must stop,” said Fonda.

Jane’s second Fire Drill Friday focused on the urgent need to enact a Green New Deal—a national mobilization on the scale of FDR’s New Deal and mobilization for World War II—to address the climate crisis we now face. A Green New Deal would make the investments in communities, public infrastructure and private industry to provide clean energy and create millions of high-wage jobs while protecting the workers and communities affected by this economic transition.

“It is the pathway to transform our economy responsibly and inclusively from unsustainable fossil fuel dependence to clean, renewable resources.”

“The Green New Deal is bold, expansive and far-reaching because we have to not only end our dependence on fossil fuel but on the exploitative, extractive mindset that has brought us to this point of unsustainable inequality. It’s not just nature that’s being destroyed, it’s our Democracy and the two crises are interconnected. One will not be solved without the other,” said Fonda.

Fire Drill Fridays call on all Americans to vote, speak and act in support of the demands listed below and aligned with those of the youth-led climate strikers strikewithus.org.

VOTE for the climate in every election up and down the ballot. Vote for candidates who are in favor of a Green New Deal and a bold and responsible transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy.

SPEAK to candidates or elected officials. Tell them that climate can’t wait. Call them, sign petitions and go to their town halls. Write letters to the editor of your local paper. Put your money where your mouth is: divest from fossil fuel companies and invest in a sustainable future.

ACT: Join an organization working for real climate solutions. March, protest and recruit your friends to join. Listen and show up for communities most impacted by climate change and, if you can, put your body on the line.

DEMANDS

A Green New Deal
· Transform our economy to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 and phase out all fossil fuel extraction through a just and equitable transition, creating millions of good jobs
· A halt to all leasing and permitting for fossil fuel extraction, processing and infrastructure projects immediately in order to avoid a lock-in of increased emissions as we work together for a responsible transition to clean, renewable energy.
Respect of Indigenous Land and Sovereignty
· Honor the treaties protecting Indigenous lands, waters, and sovereignty by the immediate halt of all construction, leasing and permitting for resource extraction, processing and infrastructure projects affecting or on Indigenous lands
· Recognize the Rights of Nature into law to protect our sacred ecosystems and align human law with natural law to ban resource extraction in defense of our environment and people
Environmental Justice
· A transition that invests in prosperity for communities on the frontlines of poverty and pollution
· Welcoming those displaced by the cumulative effects of the climate crisis, economic inequality, violence, and lack of opportunity
Protection and Restoration of Biodiversity
· Protection and restoration of at least 30% of the world’s lands and oceans including a halt to all deforestation by 2030
Implementation of Sustainable Agriculture
· Investment in farmers and regenerative agriculture and an end to subsidies for industrial agriculture.

WHAT, WHEN & WHERE ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH:

11AM: Event will begin at the Southeast Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building where speakers will address climate justice—the ways in which climate change damages the most vulnerable communities, most often those of people of color.

The Southeast lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building is located across from the Library of Congress and near the intersection of First St & Independence Ave SE, Washington, DC

NOON: All will walk to the Russell U.S. Senate Office Building to commit civil disobedience.

For more information, visit FireDrillFridays.com