What Can I Do ?: My Path from Despair to Climate Action

A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools 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.

In the fall of 2019, frustrated with the obvious inaction of politicians and inspired by Greta Thunberg, Naomi Klein, and student climate strikers, Jane Fonda moved to Washington, DC to lead weekly climate change demonstrations on Capitol Hill. On October 11, she launched Fire Drill Fridays (FDF), and has since led thousands of people in non-violent civil disobedience, risking arrest to protest for action. In her new book, Fonda weaves her deeply personal journey as an activist alongside interviews with leading climate scientists, and discussions of specific issues, such as water, migration, and human rights, to emphasize what is at stake. Most significantly, Fonda provides concrete solutions, and things the average person can do to combat the climate crisis in their community.

No stranger to protest, Fonda’s life has been famously shaped by activism. And now, on the eve of the next US presidential election, she is once again galvanizing the public to take to the streets. Many of us understand that our climate is in a crisis, and realize that a moral responsibility rests on our shoulders. 2019 saw atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases hit the highest level ever recorded in human history, and our window of opportunity to avoid disaster is quickly closing.

As Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace US and Fonda’s partner in developing FDF, has declared, “Change is inevitable; by design, or by disaster.” Together, we can commandeer change for the positive – but it will require collective actions taken by social movements on an unprecedented scale. The problems we face now require every one of us to join the fight. The fight for not only our immediate future, but for the future of generations to come.

Author Biography

Jane Fonda is an Emmy- and two time Oscar-winning actress and highly successful producer. She revolutionised the fitness industry with the Jane Fonda Workout in 1982 and has sold more than seventeen million copies of her fitness-focused books, videos, and recordings. She is involved with several causes and is the founder of both the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and the Jane Fonda Center at Emory University. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller My Life So Far, and she received a Tony nomination in 2009 for her role in 33 Variations. She lives in Los Angeles.