California Governor Jerry Brown told religious leaders gathered at the Vatican Saturday that the world needed a “total … brain washing” to convince leaders of the seriousness of the threat of climate change.
Brown, who burned tons of carbon in jetting to Vatican City as part of a 14-day visit to Europe, spoke to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Brown said that while President Donald Trump’s election was a problem for the cause of climate change, it was not the main challenge.
He called for “brain washing” among the world’s leaders:
“The problem … is us. It’s our whole way of life. It’s our comfort … It’s the greed. It’s the indulgence. It’s the pattern. And it’s the inertia.”
…
“At the highest circles, people still don’t get it,” he said. “It’s not just a light rinse” that’s required. “We need a total, I might say ‘brain washing.’
“We need to wash our brains out and see a very different kind of world.”
Brown also said that the power of religion needed to be harnessed to make what is ostensibly a scientific argument: “The power here is prophecy. The power here is faith, and that’s what this organization is supposed to be about. So, let’s be about it and combine with the technical and the scientific and the political.”
State Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) also traveled to the Vatican to address the conference. He is mounting a challenge to incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is up for re-election in 2018.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.