Actress Jane Fonda joined with Climate Defiance environmental activists protest of President Biden’s high-dollar donor dinner in the city.
“You all are being very brave, and we need to follow your example,” she told the group ahead of the march.
“These fossil fuels have got to go!” they changed together before Fonda reminded them: “Climate activists helped elect Biden! We have to tell him that he’s got to earn our vote!”
Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger spoke out at the rally, describing his lengthy battle with Chevron to protect the Amazon.
“The more effective the movement becomes, the more vicious they become” he says of entities that threaten the climate, drawing in the Cop City conflict in Atlanta.
“The president is over there taking corporate money!” he said to boos, “He claims to be the climate president yet he’s taking corporate money from entities that are destroying the planet.”
With dozens of NYPD trailing them the entire way and more in front of them as they arrived in front of Biden’s high-dollar fundraiser, the activists marched and chanted “These fossil fuels have got to go!”
“We need clean air! Not another billionaire!” they chanted.
Food & Water Watch organizer Eric Weltman told News2Share that “We’re here to send a message to President Biden who’s here at a fundraiser with billionaire fat cats that we need Biden to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and move the nation off fossil fuels!”
“We are in a climate crisis and we need Biden to have courage to stop fossil fuels, to stop fossil fuel infrastructure, to stop fracking around with our future, and really take the climate crisis seriously because our future is on the line.”
Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD, a psychologist and the author of “Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth” said she’s become a climate activist because society is in a “public state of delusion” and activists are “waking us up.”
“We cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot continue expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. That’s suicidal!”
Former NY Assemblymember and Former Congressional Candidate Yuh-Line Niou described that tribal members most affected by Willow Project (a new Alaskan oil drilling approved by Biden) are not being listened to. “Their sustainable food sources are going to be impacted.”
She encouraged the community on the street to network and form connections for future demonstrations.
Michael Greenberg of Climate Defiance called out Biden for his fundraiser costing $25,000 per donor and being hosted by a billionaire.
He notes that Biden hasn’t responded to the 3 million people who petitioned to cancel the Willow Project.
“Climate voters elected Joe Biden and we cannot and will not be ignored.”
“Biden! Stop fossil fuels!” chanted a final speaker in chants before condemning Biden again for the Willow Project and “he’s about to approve a bunch more fossil fuel projects.”
“As he runs for president, we are here to send a message to Joseph Biden that he is not going to get re-elected with all of the people that supported him when he said that he would shut down fossil due projects across this country.”
“Joe Biden needs to do what he promised he was going to do,” a participant told News2Share following the march. “He said he was going to be a union president, and then he turned his back on the railroad workers.”
“He said he was going to stop drilling on public lands. He approved one of the largest oil drilling projects in my lifetime,” the participant said. “I think a president who wants to run for re-election with all the support that he had before, the coalition that he built, he needs to keep the promises to the people that he wants to support him again.”
Laura with the Sunrise Movement told News2Share that Biden needs to “honor that promise” he made of “no new drilling. Period. Period. Period.”
“We can’t tell people to vote for him in the next election if he is not going to protect our planet, protect our future, and phase down fossil fuels.”
