Student Number: 17338193 Name: Nicole Dawson
Introduction:
This news story sheds light on one of the biggest issues that our societies, population and entire planet has ever endured, climate change. This news story is a footnote for the bigger picture and is only one of many demonstrations that have been organised in order to grasp the attention of our governments and world leaders in an attempt to make them act on this crisis and make drastic changes to their policies. The severity of the situation we are in is something that needs to be taken seriously, and although each person can do their part, it is the people in charge that need to make the major moves. At the beginning of October, Ms. Jane Fonda, who is a legendary actress, model, philanthropist and activist has quite literally up ended her life and moved to Washington for four months, vowing to take to the streets of Washington every Friday, tactically in front of the capitol building, in protest for the fight against climate change. She has set up what is known as ‘Fire Drill Fridays’ , https://firedrillfridays.com/take-action, where she has created an online public presence and has invited anyone and everyone to join her in her fight. They have stated demands related to our oceans, respect for or indigenous lands, environmental justice, and so on, that are all essential to this fight. They’re taking it upon themselves to make noise in order for the them to be heard. The naming of their call to action came from inspiration from the youth climate change activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who said that “We must act as if our house is on fire… because it is.”
Report:
On October, the 25th Jane Fonda was arrested, again, alongside fellow A-list celebrities and long-time friends, who were supporting her in her protest, Ted Danson and Sam Waterson. They were 3 of 16 people who were taken into police custody that day. This created a huge amount of noise across the board, on the news, on all social media platforms etc. and sparked the idea for me to write this report on, what I believe to be, the most relevant current affairs in our world right now, our fight against climate change, in order to save our planet.
The idea came to Fonda, as she says on ‘janefonda.com’, over labour day weekend when she was in Big Sur. She was with friends and she started to read, highly acclaimed author and social activist, Naomi Klein’s new book “On Fire: The {Burning} Case for a Green New Deal. She said that this book really “brought home the urgency of our situation” and from there it was a whirl wind of organisation and action.
The official launch of ‘Fire Drill Fridays’ took place on Friday the 11th of October. Jane Fonda was present and led the launch, accompanied by a large number of people including young student activist, 17-year-old Jerome Foster, Naomi Klein, Annie Leonard, the head of Greenpeace USA, along with scientists, movement leaders and supporters of all ages. Passionate speakers took to the microphone, including Jane herself to preach about their mission and express their views on the topic. As simply stated also on ‘janefonda.com’, “It was a great launch. the weather was perfect. All the speakers were wonderful, the press coverage was awesome.” Although Jane, her granddaughter and around 14 other people got arrested that day, it was fair to say from the get go that she had started something significant for this fight and they would not be going down without a fight. Seeing live footage of 81-year-old Jane Fonda getting put in plastic handcuffs and taken into a police car seemed pretty badass to me… I asked myself what was I doing to show my dedication to the cause? https://twitter.com/FireDrillFriday?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1187767484310573058&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2019%2Fbiz%2Fnews%2Fjane-fonda-ted-danson-arrested-climate-change-protest-1203383657%2F
Immediately after paying the required 50$ (Fire Drill Fridays provided the money for those who didn’t have the 50$) and being released from their cells, they all walked to a local coffee shop and debriefed. Regardless of getting arrested, the protesters were determined to carry on their fight and Fire Drill Fridays became one of all of their main priorities.
As well as forming their own website stating what they are, the mission statement, the demands they want to see met, their overall goals and what we all, as citizens and people can do to aid the process of this mission, they have also established a social media presence on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. However, it is the website that is equipped with the entire low down on their demands and even a timeline and calendar with dates and times of protests and the subject of those exact events.
As a way to share and express their demands and goals of their action, everyone is invited and encouraged to follow Fire Drill Fridays Facebook page and each Thursday, at 7pm EST there will be, what they are calling, ‘Thursday teach-ins’. These are live-streamed videos where celebrities, scientists and “folks most impacted by climate change who live in frontline communities” will discuss the issues addressed each Friday in more depth. This is an attempt to educate people and give them the knowledge they need prior to Friday protests. Hopefully, through these teach-ins, on-lookers can become more informed about the main reasons behind the protests and encourage them to see the severity of our planets situation. https://www.facebook.com/firedrillfriday/
This one fight for action by these protesters is a calling for the US government officials to begin acknowledging the fact that drastic change needs to happen now or else the world as we know it may suffer from irreversible damages in the coming years, even months. The publicness of these marches and speeches are also in order to echo the message not just to the politicians who purposely close their ears to the noise but also the 16% of US adults that said, “Global warming is not happening” when asked about it, according to ‘Statista’ as of April 2019. 16% of adults in one of the largest and most powerful countries in the entire world don’t even believe we have a crisis on our hands. I found this hard to believe at first and then when I saw that that number had actually increased from it being 13% in October 2017, I was shocked, as the activism to raise awareness towards climate change and global warming has been at an all-time high the past year and a half. https://www.statista.com/statistics/663247/belief-of-global-warming-according-to-us-adults/
No matter how passionate and informed a single individual is, and despite the common saying ‘quality over quantity’, this issue is one that affects every single person on the planet whether they like it (even know it) or not. Many civil rights and activism topics including feminism, racism, are topics that involve a huge amount of discussion and change among ignorant and uneducated individuals. The difference with this issue is it is not a matter of segregation, as it is the world around us that we are failing to keep clean and healthy, and soon it won’t be able to protect itself any longer. Jane Fonda is a remarkable 81-year-old woman who is doing what she does best to make a difference in this world, spread the word and go straight to the source. An 81-year-old woman who has vowed to get arrested every single Friday for four months if it means change will come about. An 81-year-old woman who cares about our planet, the people in it and wants to take advantage of the power of politics. She, along with every man, woman and child marching with her in Washington each week should be saluted. The least we can do is get behind their noble actions, literally, figuratively, or any way we can, and fight this fight together.
nicoledawson17338193 