If americans realized the level of consensus among scientists, they would want to do something to prevent the worst from happening. And also heres another thing, while its important to write about the tragic impacts of Climate Crisis, its also important to give people a hopeful vision of what can be, by reporting on what cities like seattle or oakland, los angeles and boulder, states like new york and maine are already doing to transition from fossil fuels to sustainable clean energy. Write about the young climate strikers globally who are drawing attention to the Climate Crisis and asking us older folks to take action on behalf of their future. This is it, folks. This is the time. Thank you. Ive been talking at so many rallies ive been losing my voice. Thank you very much. We have approximately 6,000 questions here so i dont think were going to be able to get through all of them but well do our best. Let me just take a moment to mildly defend the news industry too, because if you know about the global young climate strikers, chances are you heard it in the media, but we can always improve. I wonder about you are pointing very specifically to exxon and the fossil fuel industry. Do you think theres more blame to go around or youre pointing very specifically but do you think thats productive to point at one specific i think its absolutely essential. For too long, even the Environmental Movement talks about Sustainable Energy and windmills and southeasterly panels and dont point their finger at the culprit. Even the most famous environmental organizations, because its scary. Weve got to acknowledge what is happening, because no matter what we do, we can pour billions of dollars into building out windmills and alternative energy, but if they keep building and fracking and exporting, its not going to make a difference. So we have to start calling out the people who are responsible. And it is not our fault. Okay . It will be our fault now that we know and we dont do every single thing we possibly can, but whats brought us to this is not our fault. Its the fossil fuel industry. You mentioned several times in your speech the next administration. What will it mean for climate if President Trump is reelected. Well, one of the reasons that i have moved to d. C. For four months to engage in these onceaweek teachins on thursday night and onceaweek actions that include civil disobedience every friday is because it was the best way that i could think of, of using myself, my body, my platform, grace and frankies, that makes me kind of popular, wasnt always that way, to raise the sense of urgency to get the word out wider than it had been. Unfortunately, there is a cult of celebrity so i get covered when jerome foster, whos every friday in front of the white house and the other young people that protest every friday dont get covered. So im trying to use my celebrity. And the reason is, to answer your question, because im well aware the person elected next november, whether its the republican or even certain of the Democratic Candidates might not be brave enough to step up to the plate and do the kinds of things that roosevelt did in the 1930s. And the only thing that can make the difference under that scenario is exactly what the scientists are saying. Massive numbers of americans in the streets mobilized and organized and demanding, demanding. And even if the best person with the climate plan gets elected, we still have to be in the streets holding their feet to the fire. You know, we dont when we elect someone that we feel is a good person, oh, good, now i can learn how to garden or learn a new language and thats all fine. But ive seen it. Theres a big advantage of being old because you can look back and you can see precedents. Ive seen precedents and one we dont do, we dont force the people in office to do what they need to do so terrible things happen. So no matter who gets elected, including if its that guy, we have to organize and be in the streets and demand. I was asked to speak to the senate task force on Climate Change. I asked them, you know, am i doing the right thing . Can you give me some advice about Something Else i should be doing . Senator ed markey said to me youre building an army, make it big. We need they need the pressure from the outside to force them to do whats right. So come on, folks. Do it. Weve got to organize. You know, maybe some of you heard of anthony lezerwitz, the scientist at yale, hes quite well known. He told me that 43 million americans would do something about Climate Change, but nobody asked them. So we have to talk about it. Even even with uncle bob at christmas dinner, because maybe he voted for trump but he probably has grandkids. Find a way in to peoples hearts so that they will feel that they have a responsibility to do something. We have to talk about it. But we dont seem to have in our culture, like there might have been a few decades ago, the culture of marching in the streets. What do you think has changed . Where were you the day after trumps inauguration . I was at work. You were at work with your head in the sand . Didnt you watch tv . There were over a million women in the streets. California, 750,000 men and women and children in the streets. It was the largest mass demonstration in the history of los angeles. People are out, theyre just not big enough numbers. One of the things that ive learned with fire drill fridays that i didnt know. You know, you dont know, you give a party and nobody comes. I didnt know what was going to happen. But i realized after about five fridays its got traction. People are coming from all over the country to do something they have never done before, engage in civil disobedience and get arrested. And theyre transformed. Its so hard in this day and age to align our bodies with our deepest values and become integrated as people, and thats what these kind of actions do. And im realizing that we tapped in without really being sure that we were going to, tapped into a deep need and a whole lot of people in this country to take the next step. Thats where were at, take the next step. We have very little time. How long do you plan to continue your fire drill fridays . Well, i tried to get a year but the head of netflix couldnt arrange it to give us a hiatus from grace and frankie. Hes a good guy but he already signed a lot of contracts. So i had four months. The last one is january 10th. I go back, i do the last season of grace and frankie and then i start it in july. Were going to take it and build the army. Im going to devote two years of my life to build an army. Is somebody here ready to take up the slack after you are gone . I dont know, well see. But see, see, they have been here all along. They have been here for a year. The young people have been doing this every single friday. They are the ones that inspired me, and theyre going to stay behind when i go. But theyre here. So what do you say to people who say that what youre doing is a publicity stunt . I say okay. I mean it doesnt matter. You think i like doing this . I have a 4monthold grandson. I feel like hes going to be in college by the time i get back. I have a dog thats my soulmate that i wanted to bring but she had a seizure on the way to the airport. I miss her, dont i, debbie . I miss her every moment. Its hard being here living in a hotel room. Publicity stunt. But i have gotten a lot of publicity because im a celebrity, you know, and so thats why im doing it. If youre a celebrity, its your responsibility to use that celebrity, especially when the future of mankind is at stake. So this questioner says i have two treehugging fearless daughters, 17 and 12. Theyre excited about fighting for the environment. How do i keep them encouraged after President Trump intimidated Greta Thunberg . Ah, yeah. Well, help them feel sorry for him. Help them understand that a man who could do that to a girl like greta is so empty, so lacking in empathy and compassion that we need to be compassionate. We may hate the behavior, but we have to understand that the behavior is the language of the traumatized so we dont hate the traumatized. And then encourage them to see whats happening with the students all over the world. Tell them they can join a movement. Say heres the thing that ive discovered, and it wasnt just with the fire drill fridays, i learned it a long time ago. Activism is the antidote to despair. Better than prozac, better than all the other things. It lifts you out of despair when you align yourself with your deepest values and start doing something more than you did before. When trump was elected, i like many of you, i felt like a truck had hit me, i was so desperate. Then i went to standing rock. And the depression lifted. I was very depressed before i moved to d. C. , because i knew i wasnt doing enough. And i came here and i started these actions, and the depression lifted. Its very interesting, and i encourage you to try it. Well, if you are feeling empathy and you had five minutes with President Trump, what would you say to him . I do have empathy, but im afraid that he theres no changing him. Ill tell you the day after the election, Gloria Steinham and i had to go to atlanta to speak to 1,600 women at the atlanta womens foundation. I hatched a plan on the way because i kind of know men like trump, only not as bad. I sort of know those inclinations, and i thought ill going to get three or four of the most beautiful, voluptuous, brilliant, climate activists, Pamela Anderson is one of them, and a few scientists, and im going to make an appointment and were all going to see trump and were going to get on our knees no, no. And were going to say to him President Trump, you can be the hero of the entire world. You can be the most important human being ever to be born, the most better, perfect, wonderful, big, huge, wonderful, if you protect the planet. So i called jared kushner. And i told him my plan. And he said, well, ivanka is the environmentalist in the family so ill have her call you, and she did. So i told her my plan. And she laughed and said ill get back to you. She never did. Pamela anderson was ready and a few others, but it just didnt happen. But that was the only way that i could think of getting him to do it, if he felt that and he would have been actually. He would have been a hero for forever. Who were the others . This questioner says women appear to have taken the lead in the climate movement. Why do you think women are so prominent and what do you see as the role of women specifically . Its interesting that, you know, weve gone from ten people being arrested to 53 people being arrested, next friday it will be more than a hundred. Invariably threequarters of them are women. As Gloria Steinham says, its not that women are better than men, we just dont have our masculinity to prove. Gloria, what would we do without her . Think about it. Starting at the end of the 70s, beginning of 80s with reaganism here and thatcherism over there, the notion of the commons, the public sphere, civil society, began to be eroded. It was very deliberate. Margaret thatcher has been quoted as saying there is no such thing as society. Its obvious why these kinds of people dont want us to think about the collective good, about the commons, about our interdependence, because thats when we know that in our hearts, thats when we start to organize. Women for evolutionary reasons, biological reasons, very profound reasons are less vulnerable to the disease of individualism. We just are. Way back, hunter gathering time, the men would go out as individuals with their spears to get the tigers. It was always iffy if they were ever going to bring any meat back. It was hard, and it was an individual task of great courage. But the women stayed back and they helped each other. They helped raise each others children, they helped deliver each others children. Human babies are the hardest of all to deliver and raise because our heads are so big, you know. E. O. Wilson once said that he thought maybe god granted the gift of intelligence to the wrong species. He should have given it to species that dont eat meat and have no thumbs like quails and dolphins and porpoises. But anyway, so women were there around the campfire helping each other. The grandmas were really important because they would stay back with the little babies but they knew where the tiger was and they knew where the good water was and they knew where the best routes were, so the women depended on each other. This is in our dna very deep, us women. The sense of interdependence. And i think that thats why in this moment of grave collective crisis that requires a collective solution that women would be in the lead. And it moves me very much. And most of the women that are coming to get arrested with me are older. Not as old as me, but theyre old. We were talking about how much we liked getting older. Yeah, its really cool. If youre healthy, if youre healthy. And we both have issues, but they dont define us, right . Yeah. What was i going to say . Oh, yeah. Right. See, when you get older, what have you got to lose, right . Im not in the market for some guy thats scared of older women scared of strong women. Ive been married three times to one of those. I dont need that anymore. Im on my own, man. Ive got time and ive got courage, and thats why older women are stepping up. Grandmas unite, right . So you in 2005 helped found the Womens Media Center with Gloria Steinham and Robert Morgan to ensure women are powerly and visibly represented in the media. What do you think the status is and the biggest achievement of the Womens Media Center . The status of women in media or the Womens Media Center . The Womens Media Center is just fine. Women in the media. We train women. We let news organizations of all kinds know we have the shesource. Too often a network or a magazine, we couldnt get a woman because theres no woman thats an expert in this, that or the other. No, we now have lists. We have lists of all the women that are experts in all kinds of things. So were doing good, but theres a lot of work to do. Yeah. You were once married to ted turner. I think most people know that. He created cnn. What do you think when you watch the network now . Be nice. Oh, i will always be nice to ted. I was sitting like right there when he gave his last speech in this very room. That was when jerry levine was taking over teds what ted built. And ted, he said, i feel like a woman whos had genital mutilation. He called it clitorectimized. I see a very wideeyed man out there. How many of you ever knew ted . Im sorry there are not more. It was a treat to know ted. I miss ted and i think cnn misses ted. Cnn is good. Anything thats not fox news is good. I mean cnn tells the news, as do a lot of other networks. They just need to talk more about climate. Okay. This is another nonclimate question. Whats your view of the portrayal of a female reporter sleeping with a source to get the story in the movie richard jewell. Its based on a person thats now deceased. I havent seen it. I have to see the movie before i can comment on it. We have a question from somebody from germany who points this out in the question. Just like Greta Thunberg is for younger generations, you seem to be a symbolic figure for the older generation. Are you protesting because you feel the need to make up for what your generation has done to the environment . Hey, wait a minute, now. My generation didnt do anything to the environment. It was the fossil fuel industry knowingly harmed the environment, not my generation. We didnt know or we werent paying close enough attention maybe. But basically the information was kept from us. So dont feel guilty. Guilty is a terrible unless you deserve to feel guilty. We dont feel deserve to feel guilty for whats happened to the environment. So i dont agree with that. What is that oh boomer thing . Whatever it is, its wrong. Its probably started by the fossil fuel industry. Heres somebody whos looking for some concrete information. Possibly they want to join you. Where do i meet you on fridays to get arrested . Well, were right there behind the capitol. Whats it called . Southeast lawn. It starts at 11 00. You know whos going to be there . Gloria steinham, dolores, martin sheen, reverend william barber, thats just to mention a few. Its going to be something. Its going to be my 82nd birthday and were focusing on health and climate, which is a very important issue. It starts at 11 00. What kind of actions can state governments do to transform to 100 clean Energy Without the federal governments support . Its not easy without the federal governments support, but some of the cities that i mentioned like seattle and oakland and then a state like maine, the key thing weve discovered is for all the stakeholders to be at the table. If labor isnt at the table, it doesnt work. Labor has to be there. Front line communities, people of color, the communities that have been the most impacted, indigenous communities where those are, and state legislators. And a lot of lawyers. One thing that becomes clear when you look at whats happening in all these cities is that there isnt a cookie cutter. Thats why it has to be decentralized. Every city has different challenges and different opportunities, depending on topography, depending on their proximity to water, depending on a lot of things. Depending on already existing public transit, for example. So they all are doing it a little differently. But in all the cases, labor has signed on. And that is a critical i mean when you think about the 1930s, without labor being there, it wouldnt have happened. So thats what they do. Its different everywhere. What do you think is the biggest misconception about you, and what would you like people to know that might change that misconception . I dont care. Next. All right, next. This is sort of in the same vein. The Washington Post reviewed your book and talked about how complex your causes and convictions have been calling them a, quote, beautiful bundle of contradictions. What do you think of that description, is it accurate . Beautiful bundle of cont contradictions. Maybe its my fault because theyre all interconnected. Women, climate, justice, racism, theyre all connected. Thats one reason why i insisted when i came here and we started fire drill