Jerry Brown's climate message: 'California's burning: What the hell are you going to do about it?'

[Newsjock]

Source: Sacramento Bee

Gov. Jerry Brown, appearing at the site of a wildfire that has charred nearly 70,000 acres in Lake, Yolo and Colusa counties since last week, said Thursday that the ferocity of fires raging across drought-stricken California should serve as a “wake-up call” to climate change skeptics.

“The climate is unstable,” the Democratic governor told reporters after meeting with fire officials and people affected by the fire. “You can imagine, if the drought continues for a year or several years, California could literally burn up.”

Brown, who called a state of emergency last week in response to the fires, has long emphasized ties between climate change and wildfires, with rising temperatures contributing to drier forests. He urged Republican presidential candidates in a letter Wednesday to address climate change in their first debate, on Thursday night, and he told reporters, “My message is real clear: California’s burning. What the hell are you going to do about it?”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article30323520.html

[AllFieldsRequired]

1. What they will do is double down on stupid.

I believe if a public official denies climate change, they are a criminal and should be treated accordingly.

[silverweb]

3. Agreed!

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

4. They're probably at least guilty

of accepting the bribes to take that stance.

[msongs]

2. fires = out with the old, in with the new. it's the california way nt

[PufPuf23]

5. Link to InciWeb for CA wildfires.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/5/

I am not an optimist either for fire season 2015 nor for the future.

[Gregorian]

6. Do? The solution is about not doing.

The fastest, simplest way to make a dent in our ever increasing resource consumption is to literally not do.

As long as he is addressing climate change, that's the perspective we need to take if we want immediate results. But this notion that personal behavior has anything to do with the situation that's starting to unfold has been met with resistance over and over. It's an inconvenient truth.

[Hydra]

10. Well said

And it's amazing how many people are resistant to the idea. The call is for more, more, different, better, larger...

Enjoy Easter Island folks...it used to be a paradise.

[daybranch]

14. yep, big business will save us

Non consumption of energy is the best and surest approach. When will we insulate our houses to very high levels? When will we turn away from air conditioning to ventilation and or fans to cool us except on the hottest days? When will be install cool roofs and better shading of windows? When will we keep putting in vast tracts of lawn avoiding grown covers so we can spew pollution with our overly large riding mowers?
Why do we think the highest tech solution is the best? Why do we put blinders on and refuse to see our best solutions lie in examining the situation, understanding it is our bodies we need to make comfortable rather than the air in our homes. There is so much we can do. Google builditsolar and get some ideas. Do not let salesmen be your source of information. We have a long way to go in this country before we find that photovoltaic solar is our most cost effective solution, despite Hillary's dream.

[Roy Rolling]

7. Disruption

What could have been a gradual process to adapt has been delayed by the fossil fuel industry and their allies to the point that upheaval is inevitable. Either, it will be a more drastic cut down of CO2 pollution, or it's too late already and the species is doomed.

Either way, not pretty because of the delay of a political party and people in the U.S. and across the globe who simply don't give a shit.

[chapdrum]

8. Well Governor, "what the hell are YOU doing about it"

Hasn't stopped allowing the oil industry to inject fracking wastewater into aquifers;

hasn't stopped the practice of fracking itself, which has been linked repeatedly to earthquakes in other states and countries
(the most recent, a 4.4 quake in Alberta) - never mind that California is known worldwide for its vast seismic faults;

in the worst drought in the state's history, continues to allow rogue corp's Nestle' and Walmart to bottle the state's water
(Nestle' also buys water from British Columbia, for which it pays the sum of $2.25 for each 264,172 gallons it removes, per the Council of Canadians.) It is thus likely that Nestle' is getting the same sweet deal from California. The permit that Nestle' is supposed to possess for this privilege expired 27 years ago, and neither the state nor the company has bothered to remedy that situation (as far as I know).

We all learned when we were very young, that it is not what you say, it is what you do.

[Sunlei]

12. It will take decades more to undo the damage from the reign of the terminator.

They could legalize the plant and become the #1 state in the USA again, within a year guaranteed.

[appalachiablue]

9. K & R. Good on Gov. Brown. Calif. is what, the 8th largest economy?

[Sunlei]

11. Ca. will have to plant trees to soak up the carbon. I'd like a tax break on every large tree.

real trees , not nursery grown palm trees or junk fire tinder cottonwood weed trees.

[tclambert]

13. Thousands died earlier this year in Pakistan and India due to record heatwaves.

California's drought is said to be the worst that state has had in a thousand years. Not "drought of the decade" or "drought of the century," but "drought of the millennium." A while back, it rained in Point Barrow, Alaska, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, in the month of December for the first time in recorded history, possibly for the first time in millions of years (historical records don't go back quite that far). A few years ago, Russia had a record heatwave that killed thousands. Before that, Europe had one that killed tens of thousands. All totalled, we're at something like 100,000 people have already died from global warming.

However, that one Senator made a snowball in Washington, D.C., so the whole thing must be a hoax. He read his Bible, see, and concluded that humans just don't have the power to change God's world. He comes from a state where they used to have two earthquakes a year, but now have two a day due to fracking. I guess he thinks that's just a divine mystery.

P.S. In the Republican debate, they never asked a single question about climate change. I guess to them it is not an important issue.

[reddread]

15. fight fracking and offshore fracking tooth and nail

this guy is nothing but bad trouble.