January, 27 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Travis Nichols, tnichols@greenpeace.org, Tessa Wick, wick@sunshinesachs.com
Jane Fonda & Greenpeace Bring Fire Drill Fridays to Los Angeles; Kicking Off First Rally at City Hall on February 7 at 11 AM
Channeling the energy of the past few months, the movement will launch its next phase across California; bringing together activists, actors, and environmentalists to demand leaders address the climate crisis.
Los Angeles, CA
After three months of iconic protests to demand leaders act to address the climate crisis in Washington D.C, Jane Fonda and Greenpeace USA are bringing Fire Drill Fridays to California. On Friday, February 7th at 11AM PST, Fonda and Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard will launch the next phase of Fire Drill Friday protest rallies at City Hall in downtown L.A. Once again, Fonda will be joined by friends, actors, activists, youth, Indigenous leaders, climate experts, and representatives from impacted and underrepresented communities.
"We are excited to build off of the extraordinary energy from our time in D.C. and bring our call for action to Los Angeles. During this key period where action is essential and inaction is criminal, we're going to massively scale up to take on the climate crisis," said Jane Fonda. "We know this is one of the last possible moments we have to change course and save lives and species on an unimaginable scale. The only thing that can stop the climate crisis is people organizing to demand change. So, on February 7th, we'll take to the streets of Los Angeles, and then we'll expand to cities across the country until this crisis ends. We don't have time to wait, so we hope you will join us on this next phase of Fire Drill Fridays."
In Washington D.C., Fire Drill Fridays reached millions of people through weekly rallies and marches through the capitol's streets, star-studded arrests at the Hart Senate Building, and live-streamed teach-ins from the Greenpeace USA headquarters.
While Fonda shoots the final season of Grace and Frankie over the next six months, Greenpeace will partner with Last Chance Alliance to lead Fire Drill Fridays around California, including different cities and at the sites of oil and gas operations. The state faces climate emergencies regularly and is well-primed to lead the country -- and the world -- in real climate solutions. In tandem with a nationwide series of events across different cities that will be rolled out in the coming months, California's Fire Drill Fridays will build off of the movement's momentum to call for a Green New Deal, an end to new fossil fuels, and a just transition to a renewable energy economy.
"The last few months have shown us that people around the world are ready for a reckoning with the fossil fuel industry, and we'll be in Los Angeles on Friday to keep the pressure on. The science is clear -- we need to stop burning fossil fuels and invest aggressively in a transition to clean, safe, renewable energy. California has often been the environmental pace-setter for the nation, leading the way for others to follow. It's now time for our leaders to show the way by passing a Green New Deal, halting new fossil fuel permitting, and beginning to transition off oil and gas, starting with those communities most burdened by fossil fuel operations," said Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard.
Fire Drill Fridays first launched in October. Photos of the D.C. protests can be found here: https://flickr.com/photos/greenpeaceusa09/albums/72157711294449342
To Apply for Media Credentials, please click here. Members of the public who are planning to attend can RSVP and find more information by clicking here.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that he is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 Americans and pardoning 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes, a move the White House described as "the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history."
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According to a White House fact sheet, those who received commutations "have been serving their sentences at home for at least one year under the Covid-era CARES Act," a law that extended the amount of time in which people could be placed in home confinement to reduce the spread of the virus in prisons.
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The Biden Justice Department paused federal executions in 2021, but President-elect Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail to expand the use of the death penalty and is expected to allow the executions of the 40 men on death row to take place if they're still there when he takes office next month.
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