File:Climate activist - Steven Schmidt - 1978 on.png

"We have to identify the problem, then act in many ways to solve the problem. Global warming is the threat of our times."

-- Jerry Brown, California Governor

"We’re going to need to use every tool in the toolbox if we’re going to solve this problem."

-- Michael E. Mann

"My friend George"

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS: I met George Brown in the mid-1960s. He changed the direction of my life and was integral to my becoming an environmental activist.

George was looking forward to the 21st century and especially to the challenges of environmental earth science programs he led in Congress for decades. He thought that, as the Cold War was ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall and soon thereafter the collapse of the Soviet Union, that pushing for nuclear non-proliferation, his concern for decades, was possible. Nuclear weapons control was doable. George was a visionary, an engineer, a vet who opposed disastrous Vietnam war when we first began our years of work and cooperation. He believed in green politics and was a mentor. He was a leader in Congress from California who helped to shape the modern environmental movement.

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 with the National Academy of Sciences as they released a first-ever climate report.

In 1977 he and the new office sent a first government warning of "climatic fluctuation" and "catastrophic" change to President Carter:

Congressman Brown Out in Front of Climate Action

Climate Change - Global Warming Keyword-Terms

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: 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.

George Brown proposed and drafted the legislation of the first U.S. National Climate Program and shepherded its passage in 1978.

The National Climate Program Act, Public Law 95-367

National Climate Program Act, 1978 / PDF

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.

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

Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF via GreenPolicy360

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.

○

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

🌎