What Can I Do?
Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring campaigners of our day, issues a call to action, pushing us to recognize the coming calamity of climate change and arming us with the skills we need to join her in protest.
"This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale. It's too late for moderation."
Jane Fonda went to Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2019 to organize weekly climate change rallies on Capitol Hill, inspired by Greta Thunberg, Naomi Klein, and student climate strikers, and irritated by politicians' seeming inactivity. She started Fire Drill Fridays on October 11 and has since led hundreds of people in peaceful civil disobedience, risking jail in the process. Fonda mixes her profoundly personal story as an activist with discussions with and speeches from top climate scientists and outstanding community organizers in What Can I Do?, and delves deep into themes like water, migration, and human rights to underline what is at stake. Most importantly, Fonda provides us with the tools we need to join her in protest, so that we may all fight together to address the climate problem.
Fonda's life has been notably impacted by activism, and she is no stranger to it. And now she's energizing the people to go to the streets once more. Many people are already aware of the impending calamity of climate change and recognize that we bear a moral obligation. In 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached their greatest point in human history, and our window of chance to act is rapidly closing. We are in the midst of a climate crisis, but we are also in the midst of an empathy and inequality crisis; the recent uptick in protests against police violence against black Americans has once again emphasized the country's ties between racism and environmental degradation. The earth's life-support systems aren't the only ones that are failing. Our social fabric is also fraying. This will necessitate a full-scale battle against drilling, fracking, deregulation, racism, sexism, colonialism, and hopelessness at the same time.
"Change is inevitable; by design or by calamity," says Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA and Fonda's collaborator in establishing Fire Drill Fridays. We can seize change for the better if we work together, but it will take extraordinary collective activities by social movements. The difficulties we are currently confronted with necessitate that each of us join the struggle. The battle is not just for our immediate future, but also for the destiny of future generations.
The author receives 100% of the net earnings from What Can I Do? will be donated to Greenpeace
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