Gov. Jerry Brown, stoking climate change hysteria while speaking at a summit of mayors at the Vatican on Tuesday, pontificated that the world may have “gone over the edge” on global warming, adding that the threat of extinction faces the globe.
Brown intoned, “We don’t even know how far we’ve gone, or if we’ve gone over the edge. There are tipping points, feedback loops. This is not some linear set of problems that we can predict. We have to take measures against an uncertain future which may well be something no one ever wants. We are talking about extinction. We are talking about climate regimes that have not been seen for tens of millions of years. We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.” His apocalyptic harangue unfinished, he added, “We have to respond, and if we don’t the world will suffer, we will all suffer. In fact, many people, millions are suffering already.”
Calling upon his Jesuit background, Brown added a quote from St. Paul’s message to the Galatians, warning, “God is not mocked, or whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
But Brown ignored his Catholic humility when he managed to call Republican opponents of his climate change agenda “troglodytes,” eliciting applause from his audience.
Brown was lauded by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called Brown “the leading voice in our nation” on the issue of global warming. Brown coyly addressed a prospective 2016 run for the presidency, telling The Sacramento Bee, “Were I president, I probably would think about nuclear bombs, and I would be very concerned about what Mr. Putin is thinking, and what the Indians and the Pakistanis are doing with their nuclear bombs, and I’d want to make sure that we try to slow this all down. When you’re governor, you don’t have to talk about this international stuff. But climate change, because it is both local and global, it is a big existential threat that I can deal with as a governor.”
Brown has urged other state governments to sign a non-binding pact limiting the increase in global temperature to below two degrees Celsius.
Brown will speak again on Wednesday.