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GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / Steven Schmidt: In the 1950s and 1960s, when your GreenPolicy editor was a young person growing up in Los Angeles, California, the people in L.A. breathed some of the dirtiest air in the world.
Los Angeles still has 'smog' now, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. How did the city get its act together?
It took decades. California was out in front in the U.S. and world in air quality regulations but it wasn’t until 1975 that the U.S. required new cars to have catalytic converters, “the key piece of technology that allowed everything to change,” according to Mary Nichols, chairman of California’s Air Resources Board. In between, there were frustrating years of scientific research, industry denial, politics, protest and an unwavering attachment to the automobile.
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August 2022
Out in Front: Go California Go
California Acts to Ban the Sale of New Gasoline Cars
The decision, to take effect by 2035, will very likely speed a wider transition to electric vehicles because many other states follow California’s standards
After the California Air Resources Board approved Thursday regulations that ban the sale of new gas-engine vehicles by 2035, requiring all new cars to run on electricity or hydrogen, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told ABC News he was confident that more states would do the same to help combat climate change.
BY THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD | AUG. 26, 2022
It’s hard to overstate the significance of California’s move this week to end the sale of new gas-powered cars.
The California Air Resources Board’s vote Thursday setting a firm 2035 deadline is huge and consequential for climate change, air quality and health. The nation’s most populated and worst-polluted state is the first to adopt rules that will finally stop adding gas-fueled passenger vehicles to its roads.
The end of the internal combustion engine era, and the toll on our lungs and our planet, is finally on the horizon.
This regulation will require automakers to sell increasing percentages of zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles starting with 35% of new car sales in 2026, reaching 68% in 2030 and 100% by 2035. Zero-emission vehicles account for 16.5% of California’s new sales today, a rate that leads the nation but lags behind Europe and China. So these rules help reestablish California’s climate leadership, putting it in step with other leading nations and making it one of the first — and the largest — vehicle markets in the world to require 100% of new sales be zero emissions.
It’s a pivotal moment for a state that has been shaped for decades, often negatively, by automobiles and the health-damaging pollution they generate.
More on California's decision to drive forward into a new world of transportation
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Memories by GreenPolicy360's founder of Rep. George E. Brown, a first mover in California then the US Congress for three decades and pushing environmental protection, health, and science forward -- the creation of the EPA, the Clean Air Act, the first generation and foundation of environmental laws as a vision of progress.
In his rumpled suits and quiet way George E. Brown moved to form coalitions few thought could be formed and garnered support for the first set of U.S. Congressional acts that served as foundation legislation for decades of green progress.
The First Earth Day: Personal Memories by Steven Schmidt of George's Role
Congressman Brown's work advanced environmental air quality and clean air legislation. He introduced the nation's first bill to ban lead in gasoline and was at the forefront of the Clean Air Act. He attacked Los Angeles smog, some of the worst air quality of any city in the world at the time and the air standards that came out of California became models worldwide. He succeeded in clean air and water efforts, though rarely given credit given his quiet approach to accomplishing big picture goals.
George 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..."
George worked tirelessly in Congress for change. With saving and protecting the environment in his sight, he moved conservative and liberal politicians in his direction. George saw connections that transcended states and nations. A key goal was setting up an EPA as an umbrella agency to coordinate environmental federal and federal-state efforts...
George was a "first-mover" as the term has come to be known. He had a big-picture plan and set out to accomplish it. He succeeded on multiple fronts, pushing forward the idea and the vision for 'omnibus' legislation. The Environmental Protection Agency was founded and historic initial green laws and regulations for environmental protection and security were passed.
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.
A leader and a chairperson on the House science committee for over 30 years, George legislatively engineered an array of science efforts, including one that greens look to as prescient -- climate science.
From California to the World
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.
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Reflecting on the Life of George E. Brown
SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner: George was the man who convinced me to look at politics as a serious calling. When I was a young teenager in East LA, looking out at a larger world in which I had yet to travel, and debating nuclear proliferation, the debate topic of the year as high schools were considering why sirens were on occasion loudly going off and forcing us to crawl under our desks, the man I got to know in Monterey Park was at the beginning of his career in politics and science.
For the next 35 years he was my mentor and an inspiration of what can be done to make a difference and create a better world. George was a visionary with tousled hair, a professorial look, a smelly pipe and a twinkle in his eye. He was always there for his constituents, like me, an East LA kid who grew up to be a friend and cohort as we did green work over the years.
George was a real presence in Congress, in science and environmental achievements, from the first Earth Day to the first federal program to study climate science, from the first earth science research from space to 'big science' projects that carry on to this day.
Back in the early days, we would speak of these political efforts, and especially the immediate reality of the 'smog' in LA, which might have been at that time the worst in the world, and how we needed to clean up the air. I spoke of my asthma with George and his engineering background provided his perspective with advantages over the run-of-the-mill politicians in DC in knowing how to best address the pollution from cars, the gas engines that were becoming ubiquitous in fast-growing suburban Southern California.
When your GreenPolicy360 siterunner was in college at USC in the late 1960s and becoming deeply involved in politics, George and I continued to speak of the children in Los Angeles and their lung problems and scientific and medical studies that were vividly (shockingly) demonstrating the consequences of growing up in the most polluted air in the country.
George helped my organizing work and I helped his especially in the "decade of the environment" following the first Earth Day in 1970 and the building of a foundation of environmental legislation.
As George became a leader in Congress and ran for U.S. Senate, opposing the Vietnam war and I helped organize in DC what became the largest anti-war group, the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, we spoke of war and peace and how to change the nation's war policies and role in the world. His efforts to change U.S. foreign policy led to the first Earth Day.
- George Brown and Steve Schmidt, 1969
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George was among the first voices to be raised warning about the environmental threat of climate disruption and, although few realize, he was at the forefront of the initial efforts to study the climate, pushing the development of initial atmospheric science programs and missions of NASA and public/private research. He combined his engineering skills with his legislative reach.
George E. Brown, in fact, drafted the "National Climate Program Act" of 1978.
1978 Climate Act PDF via GreenPolicy360
Rep. George Brown brought his extensive work with U.S. top scientists, featured in the work of 1977's Energy and Climate Report of the National Academy of Sciences and follow on 1979 Academy Climate Science report that was presciently accurate in its predictions.
The Congressman-Engineer emphasized, constantly to me and in his work, the essential important of having accurate data in order to make the best possible engineering decisions. He imprinted, if I could use this word to its fullest meaning, the vital nature of gathering information with studies over time to monitor changes. He was in a position, one of the most powerful positions in government, to shape the policies of science -- atmospheric science, earth science, big science.
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Here's to George Brown and the many visionaries, thinkers and doers who have carried on preserving and protecting our home planet.
As George and I worked over many years we both grew in our politics as together and separately we advocated for peace and environmental protection. 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.
California out in front in a Green future
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
George Brown's work remains with us in his legacy of accomplishment. I miss him often but know he is still around. I feel him when I write of green ideas and look to our kids and education and our shared future...
Let's look at some of what George accomplished before his untimely passing in 1999:
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:
Congressman Brown Out in Front of Climate Action
At the Beginning of U.S. Science on Global Warming, Strategies & Planning
1978, the First Climate Actions
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.
First National Climate Act, Historic Work, 1978
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS: The beginnings of modern environmental and climate science can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences played a key role in laying a foundation of scientific reports and data.
Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF via GreenPolicy360
Rep. George Brown took the findings of the 1977 Energy and Climate Report from the Academy of Sciences and made the science actionable. In a historic moment, he proposed and drafted the legislation of the first U.S. National Climate Program and shepherded its passage in 1978.
This first federal program established to study and assess scientifically the issues and risks of human-caused climate change became a foundation for comprehensive initiatives, with an array of new Earth Science missions led by NASA and NOAA, the EPA and USGS.
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