In the year since 16-year-old Greta Thunberg started striking to demand action on climate change, the movement has grown fast. Young people all over the world have started walking out of school once a week to call on the grownups to do something in an action called #FridaysForFuture. And when activists talk, Jane Fonda listens.
Fonda has been an outspoken advocate for most of her life, protesting war, violence, discrimination, and now our collective inaction when it comes to saving the planet. And last month Fonda launched her Fire Drill Fridays campaign, promising to protest in Thunberg’s spirit each Friday through the end of 2019. (It’s led to her getting arrested at the U.S. Capitol on a regular basis.)
At Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards on November 11, Fonda continued to honor Thunberg’s example. She accepted Thunberg’s Woman of the Year award on the teen’s behalf as Thunberg continues to travel the United States to draw attention to the issue of climate change. With Fonda at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the occasion were activists Xiye Bastida, 17, Alexandria Villaseñor, 14, and Jade Lozada, 17. “When I saw Greta Thunberg strike for climate, I knew I had to mobilize my school and our city. Greta’s views match my own, that you take care of the earth, and the earth takes care of you,” Bastida said ahead of Fonda's remarks.
Fonda delivered a passionate speech, reminding the audience of the power of activism. “I have not met Greta Thunberg, but Greta Thunberg changed my life,” Fonda said.
Fonda asked the crowd to become “warriors for the climate” on Thunberg’s behalf and take greater, bolder risks to save our planet. Read Fonda’s entire call to action on behalf of Greta Thunberg, below.
“I have not met Greta Thunberg, but Greta Thunberg has changed my life. I’d been feeling anxious and depressed, because I knew I wasn’t doing enough in the face of the catastrophe that is looming.
“I drive an electric car. I’m stopping the use of single-use plastic in my home. I eat a lot less meat or fish. Yes, and fish, because fish stocks are plummeting because the ocean is becoming acidified and the climate is warming. These things are wonderful, they’re all very important, and we should all do them. But it’s a good place to start—it’s not a good place to stop. Because individual life choices like these can’t be scaled up in time to get us where we need to be.
“But what do I do? I thought, I wondered, I asked myself in the comfort of my Beverly Hills home. And then I read about Greta.
“I read that she’s on the spectrum. She has Asperger syndrome, and that means that unlike the rest of us, you see, people with Asperger see and learn things that are not clouded by the rationalizations and obfuscations of the rest of us. They don’t worry about being popular or fitting in. What they see, they see, pure and direct. And I knew that what Greta had seen was the truth.
“When she realized what was happening and looked around and saw that no one was behaving like it was a crisis, it so traumatized her that she stopped speaking. When I read this, I decided that I needed to do something more than what I’d been doing.
“Greta said, today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep the oil in the ground. And so we can’t save the world by playing by the rules, right? Right? Right? Greta knows that.
“The rules have to be changed. Everything, everything needs to change and it has to start today.
“So everyone out there, this is Greta speaking. It is now time for civil disobedience. It’s time to rebel. She urged us to get out of our comfort zone and stop behaving like business as usual, and that’s what inspired me to move to D.C. and join with students. And I thank you so much for the courage of what you are doing. We can’t leave it to young people. It wasn’t their fault. We have to stand alongside them.
“And Greta said, ‘It’s okay if you refuse to listen to me. I am, after all, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Sweden. But you cannot ignore the scientists or the science.’ Well, last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientists, published its report, which stated in no uncertain terms that given the worsening disasters we’re already seeing, and the additional warming that’s already baked in because we didn’t act 30 years ago, we do not stand a chance of changing course in time without profound systemic, economic, and social change.
“And they say we have at best 11 years to do it before the tipping point is reached, setting off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control. There’s no historical precedent for the scale of what we have to do. So let’s reward Greta beyond this wonderful award that she is receiving tonight, by all of us committing to get out of our comfort zone, stop business as usual, and become warriors for the climate.
“And here’s what Greta said. These are her words of thanks. ‘Unfortunately, I cannot be with you tonight. I’m incredibly honored to have received this award. And I’m very happy that it’s been given to a climate activist—that would probably not have happened two years ago. Something has happened. If a Swedish teenage science nerd who has shot star, refuses to fly, and who has never worn makeup or been to a hairdresser can be chosen a Woman of the Year by one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world, then I think almost nothing is impossible.
“‘That is hopeful because that is what we need right now to prevent a climate catastrophe. We must do the impossible. Thank you.’”
Find out more about Glamour’s 2019 Women of the Year here.
