Fire Drill Fridays—the climate action protest launched three years ago by actor and activist Jane Fonda—returned Friday morning to Washington, D.C., where participants rallied and marched against U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s “dirty deal” while demanding President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency.
“What we do or fail to do in the next eight to 10 years to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half will determine how much of a livable future we will have.”
“Organizing does not stop after an election, does it? We must hold the folks we got into office accountable to us, not to oil companies, because the fossil fuel industry does not stop, so we can never stop,” Fonda told demonstrators gathered in Freedom Plaza near the White House.
“Time is running out. Scientists are telling us we are in our last decade of action,” she added. “What we do or fail to do in the next eight to 10 years to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half will determine how much of a livable future we will have. So this is the time. This is the time for bold action before it’s too late. And that’s exactly why we are here right now.”
Inspired by activists including Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg, Moral Mondays co-founder Bishop William J. Barber II, and author Naomi Klein, Fonda started Fire Drill Fridays in 2019 in collaboration with Greenpeace USA. Fonda and other activists were arrested for civil disobedience during the protests, which continued until the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic the following year, when the demonstrations went online.
The activists took aim at Manchin’s so-called dirty deal, proposed permitting modifications favorable to the fossil fuel industry that, while left out of a stopgap funding bill in September, could be revived if the West Virginia Democrat successfully includes it in the next National Defense Authorization Act—which lawmakers are working to pass by the end of the year.
Jerome Foster II—a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and, at 20, the youngest-ever presidential adviser—told demonstrators that by being there, they were showing that “the time is now to vote out the politicians like Joe Manchin that are having the dirty deal perpetuated and who think that their pollution and their profits are more important than our lives.”
“They chose pollution of their children. They chose profits over our future. And we are tired of having to come here and demand the bare minimum,” Foster added.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) spoke at the demonstration, declaring, “We cannot develop any more fossil fuel infrastructure.”
“You know what’s in that dirty deal? The Mountain Valley Pipeline for fossil gas,” he continued. “And it would mow down every single environmental law in the process… We’ve got to keep it out of the National Defense Authorization Act… And no dirty deal in any continuing resolution or any other budget bill.”
Merkley added that “we need President Biden to declare a climate emergency” and “use all the powers of the federal government to respond to this biggest test of humanity.”
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told the protesters that “this Manchin dirty deal unfortunately is not unique. There are other dirty deals that threaten the health of people for profit margins.”
“We cannot address climate change,” he added, “if the balance of power is such that oil and gas interests control the agenda.”
