Jane Fonda: Young People Worried About Climate Change are Suffering from ‘Extinction Illness’

Appearing Monday evening on CBS’ Late Show with Stephen Colbert, actress and left-wing activist Jane Fonda claimed young people worried about climate change are suffering from “extinction illness.”

A partial transcript is as follows:

STEPHEN COLBERT: I want to talk to you about a subject near and dear to your heart, and it should be near and dear to all of our hearts, you started these “Firedrill Fridays” about climate change. Tell me about what your objective is here.

JANE FONDA: Well, humankind is facing the greatest crisis that we’ve ever faced. And there were all of these young students who were sacrificing a lot and working so hard…  And I’ve spent a lot of time, now, with these young students, and they’re scared, and a lot of young people are even suffering from — they’re calling it extinction illness — and I just felt it wasn’t doing enough. The scientists are saying we have ten years before it’s going to so far over the cliff that there’s no turning back. We’ll just, the environment and climate will unravel and there’s nothing we can do. So, I said I’m famous, I have a platform, I’m going to move to D.C., I’m going to put my body on the line and I’m going to do these things in the process, I’m going to learn a lot, too, and the young people have been with me all the way, and it’s incredible what’s happened. It’s amazing what happened. Every Friday, more and more people have come from all over and most of them have never engaged in civil disobedience before and risked getting arrested.