Governor Jerry Brown

2023

Memories of the 'Good 'ol Days' with 'the Guv'

Drafting a Campaign Platform-in-Progress

(Yes, the work continues on...)

Steve Schmidt w/ Governor Jerry Brown, 1992, @ Dem platform hearings

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2022

"I'm a planetary realist. We are linked in this community of people, 7.3, 7.4 billion people whether it's cyber, or the international monetary system, or weather, or disease, or climate change or habitat destruction, or if there's a nuclear war. For the first time in history we're all linked together. So there is a planetary quality to our politics, or there should be." -- Jerry Brown, as he leaves his fourth term as California's Governor

“We have to have enough bandwidth to look at the big issues, because if they get away from us we won’t have the little issues to worry about.” -- Jerry Brown, 2022, Interviewed by the Associated Press, on the dangers of 'existential issues', climate change and nuclear weapons

November 2022

Jerry Brown: The Disrupter

A new documentary, “Jerry Brown: The Disrupter”

• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22782658/

Celebrating decades of ideas, service and political vision, the film directed by Emmy Award–winning Marina Zenovich premiered Thursday, November 3, 2022, at the Doc Stories festival.

Marina Zenovich, film director: “Jerry Brown is a man of ideas, not somebody who wants to sit down and talk about himself...", so she went for the "emotional side" in her film about Jerry.

GreenPolicy360: Like him, love him, don't like him, hate him -- Jerry Brown is a man of his times. His story is a generational story. GreenPolicy360's siterunner is fortunate to have shared with the Governor, as I have written elsewhere, many adventures in politics from the 1970s on... And those Jesuits, as Jerry Brown was educated, they truly know how to debate... For those who know of our mutual work and a political platform launched in the 90s, a vision doc we called a "Platform in Progress", the ideas are still making waves #PlanetCitizens #PlanetCitizenAction

GreenPolicy360's siterunner at the Democratic Platform mtg during the 1992 presidential campaign

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Planet_Citizens | https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Planet_Citizen_Action

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From The Disrupter (documentary):

The son of Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who was California’s governor from 1959 to 1967, San Francisco–born Jerry Brown, aka Edmund G. Brown Jr., grew up surrounded by politics but didn’t initially want a political career. He studied at a Jesuit seminary and then changed paths, attending UC Berkeley and Yale Law School. He found the law books “tedious,” while political discourse stirred him.

Brown served as California’s secretary of state from 1971 to 1975 and, in 1974 at 36, an age that many, his father included, deemed too young, he ran successfully for governor of California.

Governor Brown went on to serve four terms. His service and politics, his ideas and travel among political eras and forces, are a story that, in many ways, defines a generation.

“He was dismissed” at the time for his views on issues now recognized as critical, the film's director says. “But he was spot-on... He was a different drummer.”

A born “disrupter,” Brown brought climate change into the spotlight, along with subjects like renewable energy, nuclear proliferation and the possibility of launching a California satellite to monitor the environment. When Mike Royko created the “Governor Moonbeam” moniker (Royko later took back those words), Brown thought it was a compliment for his unconventional thinking.

“Jerry Brown is a man ahead of his time,” notes a description of the film. “A natural disrupter, Jerry kickstarted the national debate about climate change and spiraling inequality back in the 1970s… For over five decades Brown has proven his willingness to sacrifice everything – even getting elected – for the causes to which he’s devoted. In this candid and emotionally compelling portrait, Brown opens up about his remarkable fifty-year political career, his singular private life and the lessons learned from a life in the public eye.”

In a director’s statement, Zenovich noted, “I’ve always wanted to make a film about Jerry Brown. I know him both as a political figure and as a layered, complex human. I want people to hear Jerry’s hard-won truths about politics and public life – and about where he thinks America is heading.”

Visit Deadline's review and exclusive video here:

• https://deadline.com/video/jerry-brown-the-disruptor-exclusive-clip-marina-zenovich-documentary-news/

October 2022

From the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

* https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/nowhere-to-hide-how-a-nuclear-war-would-kill-you-and-almost-everyone-else

With a nod from GreenPolicy360 and Strategic Demands to former Governor of California, Jerry Brown, our long-time political compadre who joined the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on leaving office and has continued to speak out strongly on the escalating dangers of nuclear weapons ...

• https://thebulletin.org/

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Nuclear_Weapons

• https://strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/

The Science and Security Board (SASB) is comprised of a select group of globally recognized leaders with a specific focus on nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. The SASB provides the Bulletin with objective external perspectives on trends and issues in these related fields and connects the organization to outside experts. The SASB’s responsibilities include: (1) setting the hands of the Doomsday Clock, (2) representing the Corporation at public events, especially to broadcast, print and other media in coordination with the President and CEO; (3) serving as the Editorial Advisory Board of the Bulletin;(4) providing editorial and program advice to the staff of the Bulletin; (5) tracking and advising the governing board and the President and CEO on risks relating to man-made existential threats, including nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies; and (6) identifying new experts as contributors to the Bulletin and for membership on the SASB. The SASB grew out of the original Board of Directors established in 1945. A vote in 2008 restructured the Board of Directors into the Science and Security Board (SASB) and the Governing Board (GB).

March 2022

The Long Game

Since leaving office in 2019, Brown, 83, has led the California-China Climate Institute, a Berkeley-affiliated think tank that this week made the case for the early retirement of about 1,000 coal-fired power plant units across China.

He also serves on the Boards of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Nuclear Threat Initiative

• https://www.nti.org/ -- https://www.nti.org/about/

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

• https://thebulletin.org/ -- https://thebulletin.org/about-us/science-and-security-board/

Politico interviewed Brown last week (March 2022) at his off-the-grid Northern California ranch about his work with China, his worries about Congress and the darkening outlook for global cooperation.

Read the Interview:

• https://www.politico.com/newsletters/the-long-game/2022/03/09/the-governor-engaging-with-china-on-climate-00015250

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Jerry Brown, the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

• https://thebulletin.org/about-us/science-and-security-board/

• https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/bulletin-statement-on-russians-invasion-of-ukraine/

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

March 2022 Update: 100 Seconds to Midnight

* https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/bulletin-science-and-security-board-condemns-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-doomsday-clock-stays-at-100-seconds-to-midnight/

2021

What Jerry Brown Could Teach Joe Biden

Via the NYT

The former California governor and Mr. Biden both inherited acute crises after taking over from celebrity politicians. One achieved a turnaround; the other is just getting started.

2020

Panic Time

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists may be the only outlet whose approach to climate change is explicitly existential

The Columbia Journalism Review interviews Jerry Brown

At eighty-one, Brown, the former governor of California, was retired, but not really, having committed himself to fending off environmental disaster. Recently, he had testified before a House subcommittee, calling an attack by President Trump on California’s auto emissions rules “just plain dumb, if not commercially suicidal.” A month before that, he’d announced the creation of the California-China Climate Institute, a bilateral research and training initiative “to spur further climate action.” And just before finishing his last term as governor, he’d signed on as the executive chair of the Bulletin, which was eager to stake out territory in the climate fight...

Why the Bulletin? (CJR) asked. (Jerry Brown) “Number one is, of course, the reduction of the nuclear threat, but climate is another huge threat to humanity,” he said. “And the Bulletin, by linking the two threats, can increase public awareness, get people thinking about the big threats that humanity faces.” Brown complained, in his jocular, pugnacious way, that the American news media’s “servitude to the concept of the news of the day” is partly to blame for public ignorance about climate change. He asked me repeatedly, “How can journalism cover something as diffuse and general and gradual as climate change?”

• https://www.cjr.org/special_report/panic_time.php

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Jerry Brown launching a California-China climate change institute at UC Berkeley

Former Governor Jerry Brown is teaming up with China to continue his climate crusade. Brown will chair the newly formed California-China Climate Institute, a trans-Pacific research initiative to develop and export policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions — and to serve as a counterweight to President Trump, whom Brown called “the head of a demolition derby to destroy decades of environmental law.”

“If it’s just California, that’s not as strong,” Brown said in an interview. “It’s not just California leading some resistance. It’s California as a part of a global movement to take climate change seriously in the face of Trump and his tweets that have gone over the edge.”

The institute was formally announced Monday in New York during an event with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate change official, for Climate Week NYC. It will be housed at UC Berkeley, where Brown was hired as a siting professor in July, and partner with Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Xie runs an institute for climate change and sustainable development research.

The idea for the project arose in 2017 after Trump announced the U.S. would pull out of the Paris climate change accord. Brown visited China twice on trade missions during his most recent governorship, from 2011 to 2019, promoting clean energy and green-technology businesses.

Brown said the new institute will create opportunities for California and Chinese scientists to collaborate on innovative solutions to climate change, such as improving storage for alternative energy sources. It will also bring together government and business officials to promote climate leadership at the regional and local level, as Brown previously did with his Under2 Coalition.

“The souring character of Chinese-American relations makes it all the more important that we maintain open channels of communication,” Brown said. “And all of this in the face of Trump’s denial and fierce attempts to destroy the framework of clean air laws and the protection of our environment.”

Brown, who signed an executive order in 2012 to get 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roads by 2025, said he particularly hoped that Chinese investment would bring down the cost of battery technology for electric and hydrogen-fuel-cell cars. Brown added that building relationships and promoting its climate agenda abroad would give California even more power to stand up to the federal government’s "insane headlong rush to gas-guzzling cars and coal-burning electricity.”

"It’s not just "us against Trump, but Trump against the world."

• https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article231494868.html

• https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Jerry-Brown-to-head-California-China-institute-to-14454114.php

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Via Governing / Man of Tomorrow

Finishing his fourth term as Governor, Jerry Brown is focusing relentlessly on the future

Most politicians are short-term thinkers... Jerry Brown, as he completes his final term running California is looking far into the future, governing in the belief that many of the state’s most important problems are ones that may not ripen for 20 or 30 years.

The centerpiece of the governor’s final term is his crusade against climate change -- perhaps the issue with the longest time horizon of all. Last year, he helped convince legislators to extend the state’s energy cap-and-trade program, designed to reduce fossil fuel consumption. At the start of this year, Brown signed an executive order calling for 5 million electric vehicles on California’s roads by 2030. As the legislative session ended in September, Brown signed a bill that reaches even farther into the future, calling for 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. “The standard statement about the politics of climate change is that the future doesn’t have a constituency, that it’s hard for politicians to make hard choices when those choices are going to have bad effects now and the benefits are in the future,” says Kathryn Olmsted, a historian at the University of California, Davis. “It’s unusual to have someone like Brown to think about the future.”

2019

In one of his first public appearances since leaving office, former California Gov. Jerry Brown spoke bluntly about the state of American politics and painted a gloomy picture of the threats posed by climate change and potential nuclear annihilation...

https://amp.desertsun.com/amp/2681244002

Governor Brown steps up to talk of nuclear weapons peril: Two Minutes to Midnight

Atomic scientists speak out on catastrophic risks and need to step away from the brink of disaster

Via LA Times / Jerry Brown's warning with the Atomic Scientists

Jerry Brown may be out of elected office, but he has no intention of exiting public life.

Today Jerry Brown launched the newest phase of his career in signature style – standing before a giant clock in Washington to warn that the world lies dangerously close to catastrophe.

The former California governor renewed his crusade for nuclear disarmament and climate action at an event hosted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which unveiled the latest setting of its iconic Doomsday Clock, the hands of which sit at two minutes to midnight, a warning that the world is as close to nuclear Armageddon and climate disaster as it has ever been.

It was also a springboard for Brown, now the executive chairman of the Bulletin, to jump into a new phase of advocacy, attacking the administration’s denial of climate change, which has helped keep emissions creeping upward, and its erratic policies toward nuclear arms – including disavowing the Iran nuclear deal – which have led to deep worries about proliferation.

“The blindness and stupidity of the politicians and their consultants is truly shocking in the face of nuclear catastrophe,” Brown said. “We know that thousands of these weapons on high alert could be launched by mistake…. We are almost like travelers on the Titanic, seeing the iceberg up ahead but enjoying the elegant dining and the music.”

“The danger and probability is mounting that there will be some kind of nuclear incident that will kill millions, if not initiating exchanges that will kill billions.”

Last year, the Bulletin set its 72-year-old clock at 11:58, and this year kept that gloomy judgment in place. The lack of movement was a warning from the scientists and policymakers on the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board that the outlook for human civilization remains precarious. The last time the clock was this close to doomsday was in 1953, when the United States and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear weapons.

Via Politico / 'How do you see the world in 2019?' 'Dangerous — and we're lucky to be alive'

"Humankind has created — certainly since the invention of the atomic bomb, but also biological breakthroughs, cyber capacities — humankind has the capacity of vast, vast destruction, even the elimination of human beings themselves, all over the planet. That could be in a matter of days, certainly with the nuclear."

• Via the LA Times / Goodbye, and thanks, to Jerry Brown

• Via the NY Times / ‘What Will I Not Miss?’ In California, a Long Farewell From Jerry Brown

• Via the NY Times / What Jerry Brown means to California

• http://legal-planet.org/2019/01/07/jerry-browns-top-climate-accomplishments

Via KQED / as Brown’s tenure ends, here are five of his biggest climate accomplishments

5. Putting California on Path to Be Carbon Neutral (the announcement was called “aspirational” and “stunning”)

4. Getting Rid of Gas-Guzzlers (with a goal to put 5 million plug-in and electric cars on the roads by 2030)

3. Extending California’s Flagship Climate Program: Cap and Trade (“I think Governor Brown has understood that, on the big issues, you need to have bipartisan support”)

2. Showdown with the Trump Administration (The battle came to a head when the Trump Administration sought to revoke California’s long-standing power to set its own clean air rules. It dates back to when the Clean Air Act was signed in 1970)

1. Leading an International Climate Movement (At the Vatican in 2017, Brown opened a climate change speech as only he could: “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” It was just one of many stops he made on a worldwide climate change tour. Brown created new partnerships. In 2015, he banded together with leaders from states, provinces and cities around the world to announce new commitments to cut carbon emissions. The partnership was called “Under 2 MOU,” with the goal to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Over 220 governments have signed on...

Brown traveled to China, to international climate negotiations in Paris. “Jerry Brown was received almost as a head of state. The reception everywhere he went was incredibly warm.” He organized a climate summit and invited international climate leaders to San Francisco... His movement became higher-profile after the Trump administration announced it would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate treaty. Brown told international leaders that California would fill the leadership void.)

 

December 2018

December 30

Meet the Press (Transcript): Gov. Jerry Brown, Michael Bloomberg and science experts confront challenges of climate disruption / global warming

SJS/GreenPolicy Siterunner: As our long-time friend Jerry Brown comes to the conclusion of his fourth term as Governor and prepares to move on to his next chapter as a vital force in political life, we are assured he will continue to fight the good fight. On two fronts he plans to devote special focus -- opposition to nuclear weapons proliferation (via NTI and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) and continuation of his work on international global climate action with citizen/community/national and international groups organizing to confront climate disruption.

Here is a quote from the final question Sunday, December 30th on Meet the Press:

... CHUCK TODD:

I want to get you to respond to something that was written in the LA Times earlier this month by Jacques Leslie. And it goes this way. "In recent years, the state has suffered an array of environmental woes, to varying degrees climate-related: the catastrophic fires, drought, heat waves, encroaching sea levels, dwindling fish stocks, toxic air quality, to name just a few. [Jerry] Brown’s climate efforts have been profoundly important; it’s a measure of the breadth of the environmental crisis that they haven’t been nearly enough." And it was very both complimentary, and at the same time, it wasn't enough. Is that how you feel, as you leave the governorship? You've done everything you can. And you feel like it still wasn't enough? Or is there more you could've done?

GOV. JERRY BROWN:

No, not enough, not even close, and not close in California, and we're doing more than anybody else, and not close in America or the rest of the world. Look, we've got to get those zero-emission cars on the road. We have to figure out new ways of making cement. We've got to clean up our ships, which are creating more pollution than California and Texas put together. The technology, the investment, the lifestyle changes, the land use changes, this is a revolutionary threat. And we've got to get off this idea, it's the economy, stupid. No, it's the environment. It's the ecology that we have to get on the side of. And we only do that with wisdom, with investment, and widespread collaboration and working together. So that's a good criticism. Some of his ideas, I thought, were, were not as important as the ones we're trying to push.

CHUCK TODD:

But I knew it was going to bring out that final answer. And I think you, it was about as good of a summary of what needs to be done as anybody could have put together. Governor Jerry Brown, as you pointed out, you've been coming on Meet the Press since 1975. I hope this is not your last appearance, sir. I look forward to it again.

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An 'Exit Interview' / NPR talks with Jerry Brown

November / October 2018

Global Climate Action Summit

https://globalclimateactionsummit.org

https://globalclimateactionsummit.org/program

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Global_Climate_Action_Summit

When US President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the international Paris climate agreement, California Governor Jerry Brown announced that he would host a "Global Climate Action Summit."

A coalition 'of the willing', of activists, leaders, organizers, cities, states and national representatives is convening in San Francisco, September 12-14, to confront critical environmental challenges and step up common ground efforts toward climate solutions with development of clean, renewable energy.

While Donald Trump goes backwards, California and visionary citizens of the US, partnering globally, move forward.

 

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California out in front in a Green future

California Sets Goal of 100% Clean Electricity: Governor Brown Signs Bill, Prepares for International Climate Action Summit To Be Hosted in San Francisco

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LA Times / July 1, 2018

The projected budget deficit Gov. Brown inherited in 2010 stood at $27 billion.

All of which seemed a distant memory Wednesday (June 27) as Brown signed a budget creating a $13.8-billion cash reserve, the largest in state history. “I think people in California can be proud that we’re making progress,” the 80-year old Democrat said standing beside legislative leaders — the oldest of whom was only 12 when Brown was first elected governor in 1974.

LA Times / April 17, 2018

Brown vows to fight Trump over mileage rules until 'long after we have a new president

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Via California Sunday / LA Times-San Francisco Chronicle

March 18, 2018

PHOTOS: Jerry Brown through the years

Jerry Brown, Last Days in a Long Run

After more than 40 years in public life, 15 as governor of California, he is as combative and contradictory as ever — and still trying to save the world from itself.

On the defining issue of our time, climate change, Brown has assumed the mantle of alt-president, traveling to Europe and Asia, insisting the United States will not abandon its commitments

BROWN is unusual among politicians; he’s a pessimist. He likes to quote physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer: “The world is moving in the direction of hell with a high velocity, and perhaps a positive acceleration and a positive rate of change of acceleration.” Or he’ll just come right out with it: “A lot of politicians like to say how good everything is. I like to say how bad everything is — in the spirit of making it better.”

He’s not a fatalist. Nowhere is this more evident than in Brown’s work on climate change. “This is an overarching, existential threat to everything we’re trying to do, to our entire way of life,” he told an audience last year. “Based on that, I believe we have to rise to the occasion.”

Of all the through lines in Brown’s career, the environment is the clearest one.

The start of his political career, in the late 1960s, coincided with the Santa Barbara oil spill, the first Earth Day, and the birth of the modern environmental movement.

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement

• California Out in Front

• http://www.planetcitizens.org

Not long before his last State of the State address, Brown retreated to a small office on the third floor of the governor’s mansion. It was January now, and the sun shone through a small window, brightening the room. Piles of speeches were stacked on his desk. He’d been reading some of his old State of the States, Reagan’s farewell address, and especially the words of his father.

He proudly points out a photo of Pat Brown and John F. Kennedy on a wall in his office. He keeps a framed poster from one of his father’s campaigns for San Francisco district attorney in the waiting room. Friends and family members say Brown has also come to a greater appreciation of the types of big projects his father undertook. “He sees how they’re a manifestation of one’s contribution,” Kathleen Brown says. “They last. Ideas can be more fleeting.”

As Brown sat down to write his State of the State, two such projects were at the front of his mind: the high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco and the water tunnels in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.

Brown says that he sees his pursuit of high-speed rail and the Delta tunnels as carrying on his father’s work — something he likely would not have acknowledged 40 years ago. He concedes, though, that it is far more challenging for the government to pull off such projects in the current political climate, even in liberal California, than it was in his father’s era. Still, he was determined to press his case for his two signature initiatives before he left office.

On the morning of January 25, sitting at his thick wooden conference table under the photo of Kennedy and his father, he gave his State of the State speech one last read. When it was time, he tucked the black binder under his arm and walked from his office to the Assembly chambers. Anne Gust Brown and his staff sat in the gallery. As Brown entered, the chamber erupted with applause and whistles. Democrats and Republicans rose to their feet, many pulling out their cellphones to record a small piece of history. Brown briskly made his way to the speaker’s rostrum, a slightly bemused look on his face as a chant of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” broke out.

“As my father used to say,” he began, “I accept the nomination!” He’d ad-libbed that line. The rest was vintage Brown: frank, challenging, a statement of faith in the purpose of government and the power of politics. He celebrated how far California had come since he’d returned as governor. He championed the Delta tunnels and high-speed rail. And he ended with the story of his great-grandfather, an immigrant who had sailed from Germany to America on a ship named Perseverance. “He persisted against all the odds and made it to Sacramento three years later,” Brown said. “And, yes, we too will persist against storms and turmoil, obstacles great and small.”

The lawmakers rose to applaud, the audience in the gallery cheering and shouting. Jerry Brown, the pessimist and the rationalist, sat back in his chair and gazed out, allowing himself a moment to take it all in.

(Read More)

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California's Governor Brown Delivers State of the State Speech

"California is setting the pace for America"

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November 2017

California Gov. Jerry Brown delivers a blunt climate change message

In the middle of a 10-day visit to four countries en route to a major United Nations conference on climate change in Bonn...

Brown has been hailed in German media as the “anti-Trump” for his efforts to keep the United States engaged in the 2015 Paris agreement’s commitments to cut greenhouse emissions...

“It’s hard to get your mind around something so extensive,” said Brown, who was appointed by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, the U.N. conference president, to serve as a special advisor for states and regions...

Everyone is creating the problem and unless everyone contributes to the solution, then the job won’t get done...

“Let’s lead the whole world to realize this is not your normal political challenge,” he added. “This is much bigger. This is life itself. It requires courage and imagination.”

California Goes Green

October 2017

Gov. Jerry Brown heads to Washington to talk about the threat of nuclear war

Via the LA Times / Sacramento Bee / News Services

Governor Brown speaks as a member of the Board of Directors of the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington DC

In private session, the Governor addresses the rising risk of nuclear confrontation in the Pacific region under the new Trump administration...

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Blissfully-Unaware.png

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Nuclear_Proliferation

• http://strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/

September 2017

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/climate/climate-change-unga-governors.html

UNITED NATIONS — Jerry Brown, the governor of California, huddled on Sunday night with European, Brazilian and small-island leaders — gathered here for the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, which formally begins on Tuesday — and pledged to work with them on climate change. On Monday he met with António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, to discuss the future of the Paris agreement.

In another era, meetings like these might have been the exclusive domain of the State Department. But with the Trump administration vowing to leave the Paris agreement on climate change — affirmed on Monday by Gary D. Cohn, the chief White House economic adviser, at a meeting with allied ministers — Democratic state governors are taking an increasingly conspicuous role on the international stage, forming something of an informal negotiating team.

It is the first time that governors have taken such a prominent role on climate change at the annual General Assembly...

The goal, the governors say, is to assure other countries that they, along with and hundreds of cities and businesses, remain committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and meeting the goals of the Paris accord.

August 2017

Washington Post: Jerry Brown says Trump is fueling California’s climate push

“If anything, the Trump imperative going in the opposite direction is a stimulus,” Brown said in a recent interview with The Washington Post’s David Bruns. “It’s a goad, it’s a pressure. … In a way, it’s a rising of or raising of awareness that’s actually making my agenda stronger and more resonant with the people of California.”

During Brown’s more recent two terms, California has been a powerhouse in promoting the spread of electric cars and renewable energy, and the state recently extended its ambitious cap-and-trade program.

“The fact that Trump is the null hypothesis, he’s saying there is no climate change, it’s a hoax,” said Brown. “So that sets up an antinomy, a contradiction. And because of that what California is doing is more salient. People are paying attention. People are more concerned because now they see, oh what Trump is saying – that’s not right.”

“There are scientists who predicted that humanity will have a very hard time being around after the 21st century because not just of climate change but nuclear and other kinds of technologies that could get out of hand,” he said. “If we lack the morality, the wisdom and the collective self-restraint to manage what is becoming the aggregation of the most unimaginable power that any species has ever possessed.”

He depicted the decarbonization of the world economy as one of the greatest economic and technological challenges of our time.

“We’re going to radically transform the very basis of who and what we are,” he said. “That’s big. That’s what you say we’re facing a wall of inertia and to overcome that step by step takes clarity takes science takes technology and takes enlightened leadership and the ability and willingness of people to follow and to do what they have to do.”

July / June 2017

The Governor's 'Last Stand'

Updated June 2017

Interview with Gov. Jerry Brown by Marc Cooper

"Prophetic" ... Hard realities, coming challenges and gathering crises for California, Nation, and World

Jerry Brown / https://twitter.com/JerryBrownGov

California out in front in a Green future

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California-China, Strategic Talks, Strategic Cooperation

June, Time for a China Trade Visit, Time to Focus on the Future

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-jerry-brown-california-climate.html

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-green-cities-20170604-story.html

As Trump Steps Back, Jerry Brown Talks Climate Change in China

By Javier Hernandez and Adam Nagourney / JUNE 6, 2017 / NY TIMES

Mr. Brown was in China on Tuesday, emerging as a de facto envoy from the United States on climate change at a time when President Trump has renounced efforts to battle global emissions. In a meeting packed with symbolism — and one that seemed at once to elevate the California governor and rebuke Mr. Trump — President Xi Jinping of China met with Mr. Brown, at the governor’s request, at the very moment China prepares to take a more commanding role in fighting climate change.

“California’s leading, China’s leading,” Mr. Brown said...

At such a volatile moment in Washington, the meeting allowed Mr. Xi to focus on the common ground China shares with some American politicians.

Gary Locke, a former American ambassador to China and governor of Washington, said Chinese leaders were “well aware” that Mr. Brown was considered a “strong leader” on climate change and a critic of Mr. Trump. Analysts said that Mr. Xi might have also wanted to show Mr. Trump that China was willing to work around him by strengthening ties with allies like Europe, India and California.

Mr. Brown... arrived just days before David H. Rank, the chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in Beijing, resigned in protest of the president’s decision on the Paris agreement. Rick Perry, the energy secretary, was here as well for the energy conference, though he apparently did not meet with Mr. Xi...

Mr. Brown and other Democratic leaders of California have made clear that they would push ahead on the state’s leading-edge efforts to reduce all emissions no matter what happens in Washington.

Mr. Brown... said the lesson California had learned as it imposed limits on emissions was that it did not interfere with economic growth or cause hardship.

“Sacrifice is not a term that is that popular these days,” he said. “I think happy-time news is what people like from their politicians, even if the news can be a little more dire than that.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have to put on a hair shirt and eat bean sprouts,” Mr. Brown said. “I think we can have quite a rich life, but we’re going to have to get going and make the transition.”

California looks forward to the future, investment, environmental security

California / China / Development of Trade / Green Technology / Renewable Energy

2017

Governor Brown meets with President Xi of the People's Republic of China, signs agreement with national government to boost green technology

• https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=19832

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-jerry-brown-california-climate.html

• http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/newsletter/newsletterArticle.php

• http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-china-trip-20170601-story.html

• http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-green-cities-20170604-story.html

• http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-06/08/c_136350324.htm

• http://mashable.com/2017/06/06/governor-brown-china-climate-change/#t5V1Mk6ljsqV

• http://planetsave.com/2017/06/08/california-signs-agreement-china-boost-green-technology-development/

• http://time.com/4931041/jerry-brown-the-philosopher-king/

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2017/06/14/china-california-climate-cooperation-a-new-model-for-states-and-nations-in-the-trump-era/

Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey: "The reference point for China is not Washington, its California. They would rather learn from California than any other jurisdiction."

Both governments see big economic and environmental upsides to increased cooperation. California views China as a rising dynamic force, a valuable export market, a source of new investment, and an innovation collaborator. While in China last week, Governor Brown said, “China is leading. California is leading... California-China cooperation has taken a real leap forward.” Likewise, China considers California a trailblazer for the sustainable development path it aspires to follow.

California offers lessons as China works to build a cleaner, more innovative economy. The air pollution Chinese citizens endure today from increased industrial activity and sprawling personal automobile use is reminiscent of mid-20th century smog in southern California, which spurred the creation of the California Air Resources Board and dozens of subsequent policy innovations.

2016

A Stark Nuclear Warning

By California Governor Jerry Brown

July 14, 2016 / New York Review of Books

Review of My Journey at the Nuclear Brink

by William J. Perry, with a foreword by George P. Shultz

Stanford Security Studies, 234 pp.

• http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/07/14/a-stark-nuclear-warning/

I know of no person who understands the science and politics of modern weaponry better than William J. Perry, the US Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. When a man of such unquestioned experience and intelligence issues the stark nuclear warning that is central to his recent memoir, we should take heed. Perry is forthright when he says: “Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.”1 He also tells us that the nuclear danger is “growing greater every year” and that even a single nuclear detonation “could destroy our way of life.”

In clear, detailed but powerful prose, Perry’s new book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, tells the story of his seventy-year experience of the nuclear age. Beginning with his firsthand encounter with survivors living amid “vast wastes of fused rubble” in the aftermath of World War II, his account takes us up to today when Perry is on an urgent mission to alert us to the dangerous nuclear road we are traveling.

Reflecting upon the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Perry says it was then that he first understood that the end of all of civilization was now possible, not merely the ruin of cities. He took to heart Einstein’s words that “the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking.” He asserts that it is only “old thinking” that persuades our leaders that nuclear weapons provide security, instead of understanding the hard truth that “they now endanger it.”

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Nuclear_Proliferation

• http://strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/

2015

• http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-01-06/california-governor-proposes-most-ambitious-renewable-energy-target-in-u-s/

• https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/16/governor-brown-takes-climate-message-to-world-stage/

2014

• http://cachinatrade.org/blog/2014/09/01/energy-commission-chair-robert-weisenmiller-joins-china-energy-efficiency-trade-mission/

2013

Governor Brown: "This year we will take another step to strengthen the ties between the world’s second and ninth largest economies."

• http://cachinatrade.org/

• http://documents.bayareacouncil.org/catradeoffice.pdf

• https://californianewswire.com/calif-governor-brown-meets-with-chinas-premier-li-keqiang/

• http://thenextgeneration.org/blog/post/in-china-with-gov.-brown-interview-with-mary-leslie-and-cathy-calfo

• http://advocacy.calchamber.com/international/trade-missions/2013-china-trade-mission/day-4/

• http://energyinnovation.org/2013/04/12/california-governor-visits-china-to-discuss-trade-and-climate-change/

• https://www.nrdc.org/experts/barbara-finamore/8-ways-california-and-china-can-work-together-reduce-pollution-and-protect

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/jerry-browns-energy-diplo_b_3381336.html

• http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/california-dreamin-about-china/

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March - LA Times / Gov. Jerry Brown calls Trump energy plan a 'colossal mistake' that will galvanize climate change activists

California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.

“It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States' leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump‘s mind, but nowhere else.”

“Yes, there is going to be a counter-movement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force..."

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NBC "Meet the Press" / Gov. Jerry Brown to Trump: ‘You Don’t Want to Mess with California’

(Video) http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/full-brown-interview-you-don-t-want-to-mess-with-california-905023555599

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State of the State Speech (transcript) -- January 24, 2017

Governor Brown: "California is Not Turning Back, Not Now, Not Ever"

• http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/jerry-brown-california-trump-alternative-facts-climate-immigration
• http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2017/01/jerry-brown-warring-with-donald-trump-back-on-national-stage-108988
• http://ktla.com/2017/01/24/gov-brown-delivers-state-of-the-state-address/
• http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article128432759.html

• http://time.com/4645830/california-jerry-brown-donald-trump-speech-transcript/

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Jerry Brown speaks of Earth Science and "truth telling" - Dec. 2016

The California Governor calls on scientists to accelerate their work

as a newly elected president prepares to take office

Watch the speech at YouTube:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MLHWFO6DwE (GreenPolicy)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXqZEdOBcE&t=45s (KQED)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSgncpqWtE&t=152s (AGU)

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• California Out in Front in a Green Future

• California Strikes a Bold Pose as Vanguard of the Resistance

California, at Forefront of Climate Fight, Won’t Back Down to Trump'

By Adam Nagourney LA Times/NY Times (who's been reporting on Jerry Brown for over two decades) and Henry Fountain (environmental writer/reporter at the NYT)

Jerry Brown: “California can make a significant contribution to advancing the cause of dealing with climate change, irrespective of what goes on in Washington,” Mr. Brown said in an interview. “I wouldn’t underestimate California’s resolve if everything moves in this extreme climate denial direction. Yes, we will take action.”

Democrats relish the prospect of challenging Mr. Trump on climate change, noting that other states have followed California in trying to curb emissions. And California has the weight to get into the ring: It is one of the 10 largest economies in the world, with a gross domestic product of approximately $2.5 trillion.

“California more than ever is strongly committed to moving forward on our climate leadership,” said Kevin de Leon, the leader of the State Senate. “We will not deviate from our leadership because of one election.”

Nagourney/Fountain:

Mr. Brown will be a critical player in this fight. He has presented himself as an environmental advocate since he first served as governor in the 1970s. As he enters what will probably be his last two years in public life, he has seized on the prospect of leading an anti-Trump environmental movement.

“We’ve got the lawyers and we’ve got the scientists and are ready to fight,” Mr. Brown declared in a speech in San Francisco earlier this month to the American Geophysical Union. “We’re ready to win.”

Mr. Brown, in our interview, called Mr. Trump’s election a setback for the climate movement, but predicted that it would be fleeting.

“In a paradoxical way, it could speed up the efforts of leaders in the world to take climate change seriously,” he said. “The shock of official congressional and presidential denial will reverberate through the world.”

Success of Jerry Brown, and California, Offers Lessons

Via the NY Times / By Adam Nagourney

(GreenPolicy Siterunner / SJS Note: In 1992, Adam Nagourney covered the Brown v Clinton presidential campaign. As an advisor to Brown, I had many opportunities to interact w/ Adam and react to his campaign news coverage for USA Today. Adam was an exceptional reporter in the early 90s, as he covered our "We the People" presidential campaign, and still is today in 2016 as he covers California politics as a NYT senior political reporter and Los Angeles Bureau Chief...)

SACRAMENTO — When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium here the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels.

Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language. “The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.”

As the Democratic presidential primary nears in California, it is easy to find in Mr. Sanders the kind of populist appeal that has long animated Mr. Brown, who ran for president in 1992 on a “We the People” pledge to accept no contribution over $100...

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Adam Nagourney's NY Times Magazine story on Jerry Brown (2011)

Jerry Brown's 'Last Stand'

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From the 1970s Onward, Taking on the Gravity of Challenge, Jerry Brown's Journey...

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS:

During the last week of 2014, GreenPolicy360 highlighted the work of Pope Francis.

This week, the first week of 2015, we have highlighted the work of Edmund G. 'Jerry' Brown.

'Perhaps it is fitting to move from a Jesuit pope on to a former Jesuit seminarian -- now 76 yrs old and Governor of California.

Gov. Jerry Brown, speaking at a conference hosted by Pope Francis, addresses global climate and green energy

Via Politico: Jerry Brown slams climate skeptics as 'troglodytes' at Vatican conference

Speakers at the event highlighted the role mayors can play fighting climate change, given that half the world’s population now lives in cities, which are in turn responsible for nearly three quarters of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Brown spoke of California's environmental accomplishments as a template for mayors around the world to follow.

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California Out in Front in a Green Future

• California signs world's toughest super pollutant law

• “We dare to do what others only dream of”

Newsweek: Brown has a Cassandric quality, a mixture of prescience and alarmism that was disconcerting when he was young but is soothing now that he is old and can say “I told you so” with an unthreatening demeanor. The best thing to say about Brown is also the worst thing to say about him, and it is the thing that has always been said about him: He is way ahead of his time.

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January 2016

Steve J. Schmidt / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / excerpts from two January 2016 social media posts:

Speaking to the challenges to be faced by the Sander's campaign when negotiating w the Clinton campaign re: the "First 100 Days" of the next administration...

The Jerry Brown presidential campaign of 1992 -- A Focus on Opposition to Undue Influence of Money-in-Politics

SJS: >We're witnessing a presidential campaign of Senator Sanders with many core themes of the 1992 Jerry Brown campaign for president. In '92, I can look back to being an adv to Jerry and a collaborator w him on our platform. We spoke of money in politics and its 'undue influence' over most every critical element of policy -- from war and peace to health care. I worked my first campaign with Jerry in 1976 and have pushed green issues now as Jerry has for over 40 yrs... Time flies as the saying goes and it feels appropriate that California is still out in front in green politics and policy -- no more 'moonbeam' rap for Jerry. Mike Royko, who coined that term, long ago apologized as Calif w Jerry's vision and leadership continue to very much stay out in front of the modern envir movement. Too bad Jerry's not younger. He'd be a great president.

>Not to sound maudlin but Bernie Sanders does sound like our campaign in 1992 and our message and challenge to the Clinton campaign... what Sanders is saying about quid pro quo, w add-ons about Citizens United and Super PACs, is old, old news to me -- and there's not going to be much substantive change in DC as long as the pay-to-play, campaign finance/lobbying system as it is remains in place -- re pushing back money in politics reform proposals in '92, the reps of the Ds national org and Clinton campaign told me, and told me to tell the Brown campaign, that they weren't going to "unilaterally disarm" and they were moving to out raise and out do the Rs in the money game, and in many ways they have... it's about money in politics.... that's where policy comes from.

GreenPolicy's Siterunner w/ Gov Brown, 1992, @ Dem platform hearings

SJS: >Our 'We the People' platform spoke of political reform across a breadth of issues.... many green ideas we brought forward carry on in the founding US Green Party Platform, which your GreenPolicy siterunner was the key drafter, and Jerry and his ideas and agenda carried on in California. To this day, Governor Brown continues out in front with model green and progressive initiatives for change.

>Decades now, day-to-day, Jerry has been hard at work to make a difference and create, with vision, a better world.

>Here's a nod of our green hat to Jerry Brown -- a principled visionary

"Platform in Progress"

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Jerry_Brown_92_Presidential_Platform_We_the_People.jpg

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The Brown Campaign Platform, a Foundation of Forward-Looking Ideas and Policies

At the 1992 Platform hearings of the Democratic party, a turning point for the Democratic Party

Arguing the Brown campaign platform v. the Clinton campaign platform

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-1.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-2.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-3.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-4.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_statement_to_PlatformMtg-1992-WethePeople-1.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_statement_to_PlatformMtg-1992-WethePeople-2.pdf

• Presidential campaign announcement speech, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1991

http://www.4president.org/speeches/jerrybrown1992announcement.htm

Campaigning on workers issues, NAFTA-GATT, trade and jobs, industrial policy and electoral reform

"California feeds on change and great undertakings, Jerry Brown said in Monday's (January 5, 2014) swearing-in speech, "but the path of wisdom counsels us to ground ourselves and nurture carefully all we have started..."

January 5, 2015 Inauguration Speech (video)

Today the press reports -- California leads the nation in environmental policy and Jerry Brown's point of view? “What happens here doesn’t stay here. It goes all around the country and all around the world.”

California continues as a world leader in Clean Air/Emissions Control and Policies Addressing Climate Change - Governor Brown Establishes Most Ambitious Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target in North America: New California Goal Aims to Reduce Emissions 40 Percent Below 1990 Levels by 2030

The 'greening' results are showing... Transportation High Speed" -- Energy -- Climate Change -- working with Arnold who added real environmental Muscle

Out in Front on Climate Change, California Out in Front with Eco-nomic Policy

Governor Brown signs aggressive climate change bill

LOS ANGELES (AP) / October 7, 2015 — Gov. Jerry Brown dramatically increased California's climate-change goals on Wednesday, committing the state to use renewable energy for half its electricity and make existing buildings twice as energy-efficient in just 15 years.

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California is about to do something no state has done / Sept 2015

In January 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) made a promise. His state, he said, would pursue a new package of climate goals that are the most ambitious in the nation (and among the most ambitious in the world). California was already a leader in efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy. Brown pledged to go further. By 2030, he declared, California would double the energy efficiency of state buildings; get half its electricity from renewables; and halve consumption of gasoline by cars and trucks.

At the time, all those nice-sounding goals were just words in a speech. But they could very soon become the law of the land. The state legislature is currently considering several bills (SB 350 is the most important) that would codify Brown's climate agenda. The legislation is widely expected to pass before the end of the legislative session next Friday, but not without a fight from the state's powerful oil lobby...

Today Los Angeles has ten times as many cars as it did in the 50s, and the air is 95 percent cleaner. That’s a pretty dramatic move, one that countries like China and India are taking notice of.

So we’ve had that history. As far as people’s attitudes I would say that there is a strong preference for favoring policies that nurture the environment as oppose to those that disrupt them.

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California, 'out in front' of environmental protection laws, highlighting 'clean air' regulations that led the nation and the world in addressing the health, safety and security threats of industrial emissions and unregulated growth.

Californians involvement in the first generation of environmental laws set an historic foundation in place...

From California to the World

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Green_Best_Practices

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Environmental_Laws

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: In the early years of the modern environmental movement, a conscious effort was made to construct a foundation of environmental laws and regulations on which a multi-year environmental protection framework could be built. Your GreenPolicy360 founder was one of those who believed in this constructive paradigm, using model legislation that could be locally developed, often in our state of California, then shared, 'exported' as we used to say, 'to the Feds' for adoption at the national level. The history here provides an ongoing modus operandi from the 60s and 70s until now as we deal with the pressing local, national, and international/global environmental threats and crises. We, at GreenPolicy360, call this "green best practices". Best practices is a model for sharing, networking, building on success and action. Templates and models, best practices made openly available, are our plans for having multiplier effects -- and it is our ongoing mission. A strong and resilient legal foundation and framework of environmental laws is an essential part of our overall work. We encourage you to join in as citizens of every nation, within your multiple and diverse legal systems and, we must add, as planet citizens.

Another 'green team' political player from California

Along with Jerry Brown is George Brown ...

Decades of Eco-Leadership

Representative George Brown was a key player in legislation founding the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the LA Times noted (without pomp or circumstance) in George's obituary in 1999: "He championed the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency". The creation of the EPA was in many ways Congressman George Brown's vision achieved..."

The founding of the EPA was based on new realizations of science and the environment. The vision of the "Whole Earth" that began with unprecedented Apollo photos on the cover of Life magazine in January 1969 led to a coming together of education, students 'teach-ins', scientific space missions studying earth systems for the first time, and popular demands for environmental protections.

George Brown, a California delegation leader and a senior member and a chairperson on the House science committee for over 30 years, George legislatively engineered an array of science, research, earth science and environmental legislation, initiatives and efforts, including one that greens look to as prescient -- climate science.

George was instrumental in proposing and establishing the Presidential Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1976. He was working alongside the National Academy of Sciences as they released a first-ever climate report in 1977. In 1977 he and the new Office of Science and Technology sent a first government warning of "climatic fluctuation" and "catastrophic" change to President Carter:

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: In the early years of the modern environmental movement, a conscious effort was made to construct a foundation of environmental laws and regulations on which a multi-year environmental protection framework could be built. Your GreenPolicy360 founder was one of those who believed in this constructive paradigm, using model legislation that could be locally developed, often in our state of California, then shared, 'exported' as we used to say, 'to the Feds' for adoption at the national level. The history here provides an ongoing modus operandi from the 60s and 70s until now as we deal with the pressing local, national, and international/global environmental threats and crises. We, at GreenPolicy360, call this "green best practices". Best practices is a model for sharing, networking, building on success and action. Templates and models, best practices made openly available, are our plans for having multiplier effects -- and it is our ongoing mission. A strong and resilient legal foundation and framework of environmental laws is an essential part of our overall work. We encourage you to join in as citizens of every nation, within your multiple and diverse legal systems and, we must add, as planet citizens.

Visit GreenPolicy360's page about George Brown, the East Los Angeles Congressman who, for over three decades, led eco-initiatives in the US House of Representatives...

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

GreenPolicy360 siterunner: George and I worked on environmental issues over many years. We both grew in our politics as together and separately we advocated for peace and environmental protection. The first Earth Day was an achievement. Big science was at the center of much of George's future-looking agenda. He believed in green politics and was a mentor to me and many.... He became a leader in Congress from California who helped shape the modern environmental movement.

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary

California out in front in a Green future

• Environmental Laws, Models Going Forward

• US National Environmental Policy Act, a "Magna Carta"

The first National Climate Act, as drafted by and with its political passage led by Rep. George Brown

At the Beginning of U.S. Science on Global Warming, Strategies & Planning

1978, the First Climate Actions

National Climate Program Act, Public Law 95-367

National Climate Program Act of September 1978

In 1979 came the first follow-on National Science Academy report. This study and report of national scientists was prescient and accurate in its global warming predictions.

Today many of the actions of George Brown continue as models for citizens, cities and nations of the world. California and a green political/environmental protection movement that George helped to begin continue to be out in front with ideas to improve quality of life.

In our GreenPolicy360 work, George's work continues. Even as political opposition to environmental work, anti-nuclear work, anti-war work is at risk, as we look out at a strategic horizon with pressing demands, the foundations put in place by an earlier generation remain strong.

Planet Citizens | Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists

• http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement

• George Brown on the Omnibus Environmental Bill, 1969

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Ethics_and_Climate_Change

• @GreenPolicy360, 'The beginning of the modern environmental era'

A tip of our GreenPolicy360 hat to California's environmental protection visionaries, students and activists, representatives, friends and associates, with special thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown and Rep. George Brown and to all who chose to step up and make a positive generational difference.

Generation Green

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SJS/GreenPolicySiterunner: One of the deep threads that connected Jerry Brown's politics was his formative education with Jesuits. I personally saw Jerry's values over the years being expressed in uncounted political initiatives. I came to begin to call my own initiatives a 'values-based politics', as with the drafting of the founding platform of the US Green Party that followed the Brown presidential campaign platform-in-progress of 1992.

Later, for the first time in history, a Jesuit was elected to be the Pope of the Catholic Church and soon the new Pontiff wrote an ecclesiastical letter, a first-ever Environmental 'Eco-Encyclical' that took the Church's billion+ followers, including Governor Brown, further into what can be called eco-ethics.

As we speak of the career of Jerry Brown, let's look closer at his values foundation...

Integral Ecology

SJS/GreenPolicy360:

The Governor goes on to speak of the secular and sacred, political and personal...

If you dig deeper into the use of things or creature comforts, I don’t think we’ve attained the level of enlightenment that Pope Francis is calling for.

Catholicism and Jerry Brown

Jerry Brown often refers to the eco-encyclical of Pope Francis -- Laudato Si | Pope Francis on the Environment

Even as the Catholic Church faces internal opposition to the progressive and environmental protection Laudato Si encyclical, the first dogmatic 'letter' of its type in the history of the Church, the Jesuit-educated Governor explains deep doctrinaire threads within Catholicism.

Brown speaks of the Pope's vision: "The notion of subsidiarity, that decisions are best made closest to the people, is Catholic. So too is his disregard for the omnipotence of government, and the belief that change must emanate from within..."

Subsidiarity

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

• https://uscatholic.org/articles/201809/what-is-subsidiarity/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism)

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Jerry Brown’s time with Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta

"At the Front Lines": An Interview with California Governor Jerry Brown on the eco-encyclical 'Laudato Si'

America (Jesuit) Magazine | July 2015

California Governor Jerry Brown has spent his entire life in public service. After college Brown spent a few years as a Jesuit seminarian. He has spent the 45 years since serving the state of California at every level, from Los Angeles community college district trustee to mayor of Oakland, state Attorney General, governor, candidate for Senate twice, and candidate for the presidency three times. In his 1992 run he carried six states, and came in second in voting at the Democratic convention to Bill Clinton...

I think it definitely advances the church’s position on the environment. The pope made a very clear articulation of the responsibility and the respect that human beings owe the rest of creation. And he’s taking on a real existential threat to the underlying conditions on which our civilization is dependent, the stability of the climate, which has been very favorable for the last 10 to 12 thousand years. So it’s important for reorienting Catholics to the rules and the laws of nature that can’t be ignored or abused in the name of individual freedom or desire or initiative. As people work out their various ways of living they have to take into account not just what they want to do, but what nature dictates and what science tells us about the way human beings are enmeshed in and dependent on a greater and complex web of life.

The pope is also raising the point, which gets serious opposition from many quarters, of how much material stuff is really appropriate, that there are certain limits and certain ways of living and industrializing and carrying on that are more compatible with a sustainable and healthy environment. The encyclical raises a real challenge to a modern world that is so dependent on the market for authority and for the allocation of life’s goods and services. The pope is raising the ante, saying No, you have to look at the impact. When you’re disturbing the environment you’re going to create negative feedbacks that are going to be felt disproportionately by poorer people, more vulnerable people who don’t have the assets and the capital to protect themselves against the extreme weather and the disruptions that follow in the wake of an impaired climate regime, which is where we’re going.

So all in all I’d say it’s a welcome voice, a clear voice that definitely lays out ideas consistent with the Catholic tradition but also very related to the times that we’re in...

Gov. Jerry Brown, at Vatican, tells mayors to 'light a fire' on climate change

Gov. Jerry Brown, speaking Tuesday at a conference hosted by Pope Francis, accused climate change skeptics of trying to “bamboozle” local leaders trying to cut emissions and said he had no faith that Congress would act on global warming.

“It’s up to you guys,” the governor told more than 60 mayors from around the world who were invited to the climate conference at the Vatican.

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Additional Touchpoints

Environmental protection

SJS: California has this eco-activism history that really derives from the experience of smog in the Los Angeles Basin, and a local/state/national and global environmental protection response to that over many administrations has led to where we are today. As a matter of fact the standards that were established under what is called the Pavley Law, the first legislation in the world to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in passenger vehicles, were ultimately adopted by the United States as the national standard. [1] [2]

2014-2016

Global Warming Solutions Act

One State Acts Again on Climate Change Policy - http://markets.cbsnews.com/California-lawmakers-advance-aggressive-climate-change-plans/4c1a1cdb43da904b/

Pacific Coast Regional Leadership

* http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Pacific_Coast_Climate_Action_Plan.pdf

Confronting Historic Drought-Climate Change

Brown orders California's first mandatory water restrictions: 'It's a different world'

Standing in a brown field that would normally be smothered in several feet of snow, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered cities and towns across California to cut water use by 25% as part of a sweeping set of mandatory drought restrictions, the first in state history.

• http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18910

PBS Interview - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/gov-jerry-brown-california-change-whats-comfortable-address-drought/

Who would want to be Governor of California? (CBS Video)

Challenge and Best Practice Solutions...

In his re-election victory speech Tuesday night, Brown mentioned Props 1 and 2 as being vital to his goals as governor.

"Save money, save water, those are two pillars," Brown said.

November 2014 - With the leadership of its green governor, Jerry Brown, passed a set of laws, with Proposition One at the center of a wide-ranging plan to encourage a range of water conservation usage and saving measures, California again out in front of national/global efforts to deal with climate change/drought.

Having led the effort to shape and urge passage of a top state priority in the 2014 election, the Governor succeeded as voters passed Proposition 1 – the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Act of 2014 – by a margin of 67%-33%.

Proposition 1 provides $7.5 billion in new and redirected bond funds for a wide range of water related projects that will:

• Protect rivers, lakes, streams, coastal waters and watersheds • Provide regional water security, climate and drought preparedness • Provide public benefits through a wide range of water storage options that demonstrate improvement to the state water system, cost-effectiveness and net improvement in ecosystem and water quality conditions • Promote water recycling • Improve drinking water quality • Provide increased flood protection

California Launches Program to Protect Farmland & Climate

The California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN)is a coalition that advances sustainable policies to support California agriculture in the face of climate change. http://calclimateag.org/about/

The goal is to "integrate funding for permanent agricultural easements with urban land use projects to maximize the gains in reducing greenhouse gases linked to vehicle miles traveled and urban development. This is the first program in the country that invests in farmland conservation for its climate benefits."

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