Jerry Brown Made Climate Change His Issue. Now, He’s Not Sure How Much Politicians Can Do.

Clearly we need to make changes individually and en masse. As North and South Carolina's massive floods putting waste into waterways proves (from pigs, chickens, coal, etc.)--we can't consume, pollute, and trash with abandonment; as if there's no impact. All of us need to be active co-owners of the solutions needed to change the suicide course we're on. Let's hope the companies pushing consumer goods as well as government can turn out better answers that can enroll and empower all of us.

It is monstrously hard to make change, but it a relatively easy to stop harm. Fracking is bad. CAFOs are bad. Protecting the environment is good. These things we know without question.

Sorry for my english in first. I belong to an association of defense of the environment (http://infoenergiesrenouvelables.fr) and which tends to promote the photovoltaic solar energy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Our association is encouraged by this kind of courageous political decision. Mr Jerry Brown , in France, we hope you will be the next president

It's laughable to the point of tears from pollution that a country who would elect the likes of Donald J. Trump to its highest office enjoys breathing methane and favors long-term suicide from ignorance and greed.

10 years younger and he could run for President. Too bad. We are doomed as a Country and as a populated Planet.

Thank you Gov Brown. You have always been a visionary that I have admired. Your effort on climate change is right on target and I share your fears that enough will not be done soon enough.

Governor Brown is correct fighting climate change has to come on a personal level and as many commenters notes: economic change. Individuals can stop taking plastic bags shopping or politicians can (should) tax plastic bags, bottles etc. Individuals can reduce their meat consumption to reduce monoculture footprint (80% of corn grown isn’t meant for human food) or politicians could change wasteful agricultural crop insurance programs for climate impact (won’t happen). We can lobby companies for sustainable packaging. Make policies that keep girls in school (#1 impact worldwide affecting climate change - really)! Feed ruminant animals seaweed to greatly reduce methane! True. There are hundreds of ways to affect change immediately even if there isn’t political momentum. We can do this! Thanks for all of your great contributions Gov Brown, you have done so much.

Thank you Governor Brown. I first voted for you in 1972 I am proud of all my votes for you because you were and still are a true visionary. The greatest Governor in my lifetime.

We need more people like Jerry Brown in leadership, yet I share his pessimism on climate change.

I got involved in the fight for medical and recreational marijuana over the hemp issue, because I do work on environmental causes. This was in 1991 when I also campaigned for Jerry Brown for President. But if I'd know he was going to continually insult marijuana smokers, I would have just been the lazy person he thinks I am.

Brown, in my opinion is a hypocrite. He alone made sure that natural gas fracking was allowed in California. He could have stopped it, but as is typical with most people, the $$$ signs were waved before him. Money matter more than the environment. "This is the best we can do", as George Carlin said. We have ourselves to blame. Politicians like Brown, Trump, MConnell, Cuomo don't just appear out of thin air. We elect them.

With the dishonest eternal climate change denial from the carbon interests - - - Drexel U confirms/exposes carbon industry placing BOGUS anti-climate change arguments http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2013/December/Climate-... - - - yodeled along - "Climate Change is a Hoax" - by the carbon troll Trump, earth's downhill spiral into the abyss of no return has steepened to a point that top IPCC scientists express doubts about being able to reverse the mess that (as many, including Pope Francis, see it) plain greed has triggered. A big "Thumbs Up" to Governor Jerry Brown for his efforts to do something to reverse this dire state. I accuse – Ich beschuldige – j’accuse - Yo acuso - the Fossil Fuel Interests for, strictly greed based, triggering the CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL, and the People-, and Nature- poisoning VooDoo of GEOENGINEERING/SRM. http://www.NewsReleaseWire.com/162058

Brown is right to doubt that politicians can have a meaningful effect on climarte change, at least until a much higher percentage of the population takes up the cause, with greater fervor than the general populations has shown so far. What will it take for this to happen. Natural disasters, plenty of them, each causing property damge, injuries and death, so many that the truth can no longer be denied. In other words, fear. Then it will be a case of politicians not being able to do enough.

To: dolbash Central MA2h ago, who wrote: @Woof Taxing gasoline at those levels IS a quasi-religious conversion. .. I I know it really will take a tremendous cultural shift. Let me just quote NPR, the public broadcast station, 5 days ago "Gov. Brown's Biggest Climate Foe Isn't Trump. It's Car-Loving Californians" "But if California is going to reach its ambitious climate change targets, the state will have to tackle its toughest challenge yet: cars. Transportation is the state's top source of carbon emissions and those emissions are on the rise." " It will take a complete transformation. To produce enough emissions cuts, every new vehicle sold in California will have to be plug-in by 2040.” That transformation is NOT going to happen, unless the US taxes gasoline at European levels. Ross Perrot was the only one who called for an increase in the gas tax. From the Orlando Sentinel , 1992 Ross Perot's Plan To Tax Gasoline Primes The Pump October 14, 1992|By Mike Royko, Tribune Media Services "Try to imagine Bill Clinton or George Bush saying: ''And if I'm elected, you'll pay 10 cents more for a gallon of gas. That's an extra $2 for a fill-up. And I'll add 10 cents every year for the next four years.'' Clinton and Bush are history, but the Presidents that followed were equal cowards when it came to doing the most effective single step on climate change.

For the life of me I cannot understand the deniers who are unwilling to replace an incandescent light bulb with a LED bulb simply because of cussedness. The same is true of buying a gas guzzler instead of a high mileage auto.

I grew up in Los Angeles breathing smog. Eventually I moved away and found when I returned I could see clouds and blue sky. That was after Jerry Brown's first administration. Smog checks were a bother and controversial but they ultimately worked, less emissions, beautiful skies. Yet somehow environmental success became equated with economic fears - regulations cost jobs when the opposite is true. Jerry Brown has championed the environment since his first day in office, over 40 years ago. Much has improved, many are on board, but too many still fight against, usually for profit not the greater good. What about our children and grandchildren? Don't they deserve a better legacy?

I lived in California during Brown's first term as governor. He's a great American, a visionary. He would have been a great president. We owe Jerry Brown an enormous debt of gratitude.

Ideals, politics and facts on the ground: they are never one and the same thing. For societies and governments to function, they need infrastructure, they needs ways to curb noxious paths that worked in the past, and work now, they need cooperation on all sides. That includes all readers. Everyday we burn 1000 barrels of oil more than the day before. Consumption of air travel, clothes, cars, plane rides, meat, houses, luxuries above subsistence, all these categories are culpable. We all shop for the lowest price. That lowest price must include CO2 emissions, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, plastic. The lowest price must include the future.

California had a viable plan in the 1970's for a 100% clean electric grid. Guess who shutdown that plan in favor of continued fossil fuel usage--that's right Jerry Brown. Brown has shutdown or canceled more clean energy projects than any other American politician. He even proposed the construction of coal plants over cleaner alternatives. From the Washington Post "In rejecting the nuclear plant over the opposition of business and labor organizations, the Brown administration and the legislature committed themselves to alternatives which include construction of a coal-fired plant and the repowering of an existing plant." If Jerry Brown cared about climate change and air pollution he would support nuclear energy. He led the opposition to nuclear energy in the 1970's partially because of his families fossil fuel interests. His family has ties to the fossil fuel industry that go back to his father's administration.

Why is the US in denial about climate change? There has been a concerted effort to ridicule climate scientists who say the earth is warming due to human impact and those who agree with them. We have an opportunity here to finally put down oil once and for all and use renewable energies like solar and wind. But the extremely powerful oil, coal, and gas companies are using every tactic in the book to silence their critics. Hurricane Florence just ravaged North Carolina. This was a category 1 hurricane yet it did devastating damage. Of course climate change is partly to blame but some people genuinely don’t believe that. What more has to happen? Hurricane Sandy, Katrina, Irma, etc. have all done serious damage. Yet our government treats the situation as normal. It’s not normal. We have already done irreversible global damage and for what? It’s all about the money. There are literally a handful of people in this world who are benefiting from the status quo at the expense of billions of other people. They are willing to literally ruin our planet all for the sake of making more money. And they have no problem with that. But we certainly should have a problem with that.

I believe if this reporter checks her facts, she will find that California did not rise by extracting coal. It was gold that created the state’s first boom. California has never been a coal state.

Jerry Brown is a very rare leader: Intelligent AND courageous. Sadly, there are almost NO younger than 75 years leaders with either quality. E.g., neither Donald Trump nor Hillary has either quality.

Kathleen Brown’s House is almost on par with Al Gore’s estate.

Doing "the right thing" is often very difficult. It has been said in the judiciary that a decision that makes everyone happy is a bad one. Man-made climate change is real. We make it worse every day we burn petroleum fuels (coal, oil, gas), dam our declining waterways, build intrusive border walls, dump toxins and garbage in the oceans and streams, kill our coral colonies, gut green forests to raise beef for hamburgers, and on and on. Someone beside Al Gore has to take the lead in preserving what is left of our planet for our children. Some sacrifice is necessary but achievable. California has always been the exemplar for this and I applaud Jerry Brown for doing what is right in spite of a litany of criticism. Fighting the Trump administration's draconian destruction is not easy, but he will be gone soon - our children, we hope, will not.

Climate change for the US does not require a quasi-religious conversion. And politicians can do it. North America just needs to move to European standards. Taxing gasoline at European levels would be a good start. List of CO2 emissions, tons per capita US 16. 22 Canada 15.61 France 8.28 UK 6.31 Germany 2.07 Denmark 0.06 Germany, per capita, is a more industrialized country than the US. But I would be happy if the US would just move to the UK level in the next 10 years Meanwhile the Germans put first hydrogen powered train into commercial service. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/17/germany-launches-wor...

Waste cost money, if we were to pay for it every time we buy something, this issue would be resolved the capitalist way, pretty fast. The issue is that we don't have a capitalist society, we have a society were there is a distribution of negative wealth. I call this capimunism. In a capitalist society one would pay for this negative wealth at the source. For instance extraction/mining economy has an impact on the environment, what is the cost of bringing that back its original state and pollution, what is the cost of cleaning up, the cost of people sick and work hours lost, if that were to be taken into consideration in the initial price then other technologies or other economies will follow suit, within a capitalist framework and with little government intervention.

I was wondering if there are opportunities to support/invest in commuter or high speed rail projects. I understand that the state of California issued bonds to support its high speed rail project, but the issue opened and closed without my knowledge.

Gov. Brown owns a huge, beautiful "Green Energy" retirement ranch for himself and family in northern California. Then asks/demands, "Why can't the rest of the country live like me?" First of all - We don't have your wealth! Second of all- You say you'll leave CA with a $3 billion in, "rainy day funds- However you'll leave off with CA bankrupted- with $260 billion dollars in city and state pension liabilities. Nobody to blame but YOU -- You gave it a good run JB - But good riddance.. +40 years in office and nothing to show for it other than your own wealth, family, friends and cronies.

Maybe we will all be vacuumed up to heaven in a rapture and we won't have to deal with the spoiled earth. Or maybe Amazon will make a Wall-E style spaceship to keep the human race in orbit while the earth is cleaned up. But more likely, we'll continue to have wildfires, weather patterns that decrease farm productivity, hurricanes and floods, droughts, refugees from lands where food is no longer possible to produce, and all the costs that come with these. How long will we keep our heads in the sand while we continue to pollute? Mark my words, this will even end up bad for the 1%. So 1% wake up and stop pooping where you eat!

I voted for Governor Moonbeam every time he ran for president. He would have been an amazing head of state. Now at 80, this warrior deserves his time alone on his ranch. Hope he will be with us many more years as an elder statesman.

I doubt that stopping oil drilling in the state will make even the smallest dent in climate change or influence others to action. What motivates most people is money. A carbon tax would make it more costly for those that pollute our atmosphere and for us that buy their products. No pain no gain. We still give tax breaks to oil companies, given their high levels of profitability why is that. Where politicians can make a huge difference is governmental funding of clean and renewable energy research. We at one time made a huge government commitment to the building of a national railway system and interstate highways. Our power grid id dated and failing. We are long overdue to pursue high speed clean mass transit like Japan and much of the EU. We should be pursuing technological advancements in solar power like the Germans and the Chinese. South Africa is setting an example for the future model of local economies centered around microgrids powered by solar energy. There are no long stretches of power lines needed. The systems serve and are managed within the local community saving millions in nation wide power grids.

Politicians can’t stop global warming, that’s for sure. We are creatures of comfort, we will never give them up. People died running generators indoors during Florence, nough said.

Brown is your average Democrat. He acknowledges man made climate change. He enacted some laudable policies and programs. But he refuses to challenge the corporate interests that MUST be challenged in order to make a difference. Until the Democrats summon the nerve to make substantive demands of the energy sector, we will be heading toward climate Armageddon. According to the article, Brown seems to understand this but is somehow paralyzed. Unfortunately, the liberal media continue to give the impression that the Democratic party's half measures are sufficient and that leaders like Obama and Brown have a "climate legacy" that adequately addresses the problem.

The problem people like Gore and Brown have is that they keep framing this as an environmental issue first. The fundamental issue is economic: when you do not pay for what you get, someone else is paying for you. That's called stealing. Burning fossil fuels creates waste. No moral person thinks they should be allowed to dump their waste for free on their neighbor's property or into the street. And no rational person thinks that getting something for nothing works in a market economy. A carbon tax simply provides a means for moral rational people to pay for what they get. Start low and slowly increase the price until the cost to use the fuel equals the cost to clean up the mess created by using the fuel. The market will create alternative means to run transport in very very short order. You could even refund the money collected with the tax as an income-tax rebate every year. Pay for what you get. Carbon tax.