Jerry Brown had fighting words for President-elect Donald Trump during a speech to the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The four-term governor of California threatened that the Golden State would “launch its own damn satellite” for “battle” and had ample scientists and lawyers to take on the Trump Administration.
Brown lit into potential energy policy changes under the Trump Administration with fearful warnings as he sought to rally the scientists to “fight back” over climate change.
“The time has never been more urgent or your work never more important. The climate is changing, temperatures are rising, oceans are becoming more acidified, habitats are under stress – the world is facing tremendous danger,” Brown warned the group.
“Some people say that they’re gonna turn off the satellites that are monitoring the uh climate, low earth uh phenomena, the landsat and all the various measuring satellites that we have,” claimed Brown in a video of the event posted to the Sacramento Bee. He recalled recommending a landsat for California in 1978. “They called me governor moonbeam because of that.”
“And if Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” charged Brown. “We’re gonna collect that data.” He remarked that private companies in California have launched satellites.
Brown added a warning if “they start messin’ with Lawrence Berkeley Lab or Berkeley Livermore, I’m the president of the Board of Regents, I’m gonna say keep your hands off! That laboratory is going to pursue good science.”
“As long as the University of California manages those labs, we’re not gonna have political interference,” claimed Brown. “We’re gonna have honest, independent science. You can count on that.”
Brown also had contentious words for the state of Texas in his speech, given the same day that Trump announced the appointment of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the position of Secretary of Energy. During a prior presidential run, Perry listed the Department of Energy as one of three departments he would eliminate if he were to win that election.
“Rick, I got some news for you,” Brown said according to the Bee. “California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. And we’ve got more sun than you have oil.”
At the same event Brown took aim at Breitbart News and “other clowns” for reporting on a bill he had signed into law.
In September California launched a new round of greenhouse gas emissions, the most ambitious in the nation according to the governor’s office.
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