Jane Fonda says the "climate crisis" is "hanging over every single aspect" of people’s lives.
The 82-year-old actress has become an activist for climate change and has been campaigning for people to do more to reduce their carbon footprint with the hopes of saving the planet, and has said the global crisis is bigger than people realise, as it "impacts everything".
Speaking about her activism, she said: "I think it’s important to understand that the climate crisis isn’t like, well that’s one issue you could work on. You could work on women’s empowerment. That’s another issue. You could work on anti war stuff. Hanging over every single aspect of our lives is this umbrella, which is the climate crisis. It’s going to impact everything and it impacts the question of war. It impacts the question of women’s empowerment. It impacts everything."
The ‘Grace and Frankie’ star is "curious" about the world, and says she finds joy in learning new things about her surroundings.
In an interview for Refinery29’s ‘UnStyled’ podcast, she explained: "Well, the trick is you have to stay curious. One of my mantras is it’s more important to be interested than to be interesting. Stop worrying about being interesting. Stay curious. People say, I’m young for my age. It’s because I’m curious. I learn things all the time and that, and that informs my life."
Meanwhile, Jane recently took part in weeks of climate change protests in front of the US Capitol in Washington D.C., where she succeeded in her goal of getting arrested for protesting.
Jane was inspired by teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who was "so traumatised" by the threat of climate change that she "stopped eating and speaking for almost a year".
When asked what moved her to protest, Jane said: "I read Naomi Klein’s new book. It’s called ‘On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal’. [One of the things about the book that really changed my life] was the way she wrote about Greta. I mean, I knew about Greta, I didn’t know she was on the spectrum. And I didn’t really understand what Asperger’s meant.
"When Naomi described it, I realised that here is this young person who … she’s not influenced by what other people think. … On the spectrum, if they are interested in something, they have a laser focus on that and whatever the denials and rationalisations the rest of us indulge in, that doesn’t come into play with her.
"And she read the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report and she realised that the crisis was barreling straight at us, like a train, and looked around and people weren’t behaving appropriately. It so traumatised her that she stopped eating. I hadn’t realised that she stopped eating and speaking for almost a year. And that really hit me."
Jane Fonda: The climate crisis is impacting everything
