A Conversation on Climate Change and Activism with Jane Fonda and Dr. Naomi Oreskes

Join lifelong activist and two-time Academy Award® winner Jane Fonda for a conversation with world-renowned earth scientist at Harvard, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, about the impact of storytelling through film, climate change, the powerful forces working to undermine solutions, and how we can get to a just, sustainable, green economy.

This event is part of an ongoing collaboration by the Academy Museum & Berggruen Institute exploring the intersection of cinematic arts and technology, aimed to foster comprehensive discussions on technological, philosophical, social, and cultural transformations within filmmaking and beyond.

Speaker Bios

Jane Fonda is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor (Best Actress in 1971 for Klute and in 1978 for Coming Home), producer, author, activist, and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes over 50 films and crucial works for political causes such as women’s rights, Native Americans, and the environment. She is a seven-time Golden Globe® winner and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021. Fonda also recently accepted The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at this year’s 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.

2023 marked a triumphant return to the big screen with four films released, most recently lending her voice as ‘Grandmama’ in DreamWorks’s animated film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. Before that, Fonda reunited with Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen for Focus Features’s Book Club 2. She also starred in 80 For Brady opposite Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno, released by Paramount Pictures. Then there was Paul Weitz’s Moving On, in which Fonda played opposite longtime friend and colleague Lily Tomlin. Other notable credits include Grace & Frankie, which is Netflix’s longest-running original series. It is for her work on the series that she received an Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2017. She also released Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018), a documentary for HBO chronicling her life and activism. 

Fonda continues to lead the charge on the climate emergency via Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change, which she started in October 2019 in partnership with Greenpeace USA. In 2022, she launched the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. Her latest book What Can I Do? My Path From Climate Despair To Action, details her personal journey with the movement and provides solutions for communities to combat the climate crisis. Jane also notably celebrated her 85th birthday by raising $1 million for her nonprofit, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP).

Dr. Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. A world-renowned earth scientist, historian, and public intellectual, she is a leading voice on the role of science in society and the reality of anthropogenic climate change. She is the author or co-author of nine books, including the best-selling Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury, 2010), which inspired Robert Kenner’s documentary of the same name. Her new book, with Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, was released in 2023. As a 2023 Berggruen fellow, she expanded her work on the question of how we can re-embrace government to address the inter-connected crises of climate, inequality and (inadequately regulated) capitalism, which she continues to pursue.

Photo of Dr. Naomi Oreskes by: Kayana Szymczak