From anti-war Hanoi Jane to the Jane of the fitness tape, from feminism to human rights to environmental activism – not to mention her film career – Jane Fonda, strong and healthy as ever at 84, has always been, not only hyperactive but an indefatigable activist. She is still sounding the call to action, still trying to inspire young people – indeed, people in general – to open their eyes to the social injustices and the perils of climate change. “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,” she writes in her recent book, What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action, in which she recounts stories from her time on the frontlines of civil disobedience in Washington DC in 2019 advocating for climate solutions. The book is presented as a guide for those who are concerned about the issue but unsure of how to help, offering both the science behind climate change and suggestions of ways to take action.

“The climate crisis affects so many parts of our lives: our health, our jobs, the economy, national security,” she told Time magazine at the time of the launch of the book. “A lot of people haven’t really thought about the crisis in those terms. There’s a lot in the book that the majority of people don’t know – and should know.”

In the fall of 2019, frustrated with the obvious inaction of politicians and inspired by young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, Jane Fonda moved to Washington, DC, to lead weekly climate crisis 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 – and on several occasions actually getting arrested – to protest for action. These events provided the base for her book: Fonda intersperses her deeply personal journey as an activist with interviews with leading climate scientists, and discussions on issues such as clean water for all, migration and human rights. Most significantly, Fonda tries to suggest concrete solutions to the problems.

“In 2019 I was arrested four times,” recalls Fonda, seven times Golden Globe winner and 16 times nominee, and recipient of the 2021 Cecil B. deMille Award for Lifetime Achievement (she has also won two Oscars for Leading Actress for Klute, 1971, and Coming Home, 1978). “I had been inspired by the global rising, the Sunrise Movement and Greta Thunberg. Young people like Greta were calling on older generations to step up, and, well, I’m definitely older. It made sense to me: why should the burden of fixing this problem be on those who didn’t create it?”

With the help of Greenpeace, Fonda launched Fire Drill Fridays. “For four months we held weekly rallies in Washington DC followed by acts of civil disobedience, including standing on the Capitol steps with banners, chanting, and blocking roads,” she told The Guardian. “We are facing a climate crisis, but we’re also facing an empathy crisis, an inequality crisis. It isn’t only earth’s life-support systems that are unraveling. So too is our social fabric. My motto is: the cure for despair is action. And we have to end fossil fuels now to end injustices and war.”

She now also reminds us of the lessons learned – or otherwise – from the COVID pandemic. “This global health crisis showed us a number of things,” she told the HFPA a few months ago, speaking by Zoom from her Los Angeles home. “It showed the critical importance of a strong and competent government, or the lack of it, a government able to work for its people, not for the corporate elites and big companies.”

The COVID crisis has forced the ever-combative pasionaria to stay home more than she cared for over the last couple of years, “We have to believe in science, listen to the experts and the scientists, the real and legitimate ones,” she said. “The science that will help us fight pandemics with anti-viral and vaccines, the science that is telling us that global warming and climate change are serious, existential threats and is pointing the way we must take to save not only our planet but all of us humans.”

She’s not afraid of aging: on the contrary, feels that age has given her strength and resolve. “First and foremost, older women generally tend to get braver, less afraid of being upfront in expressing their anger,” she told Time. “And studies show that women care more about the climate crisis. They’re more willing to do something about it.” Fonda, the opposite of the classic “salon liberal,” certainly will.