If a Republican had made such a remark, we’d not let it pass without objection. And California Gov. Jerry Brown’s shouldn’t be ignored.
Brown has a well-deserved reputation among eco-activists for strong stands on a range of environmental issues. Hard to argue with the view that he is the greenest governor the state has ever had. That doesn’t just apply to his second round as governor—his fourth term ends in January 2019—but from the moment he stepped into office in 1976 during his first two-term round as governor. Back then, when he became known as “Governor Moonbeam,” he pushed the enactment of the California Coastal Commission.
Most notably in this second round, Brown has proved himself strong on most climate issues, a good deal stronger in that regard than the state legislature, in fact. Even as packed with as many Democrats as it is, that body has been an obstacle to some changes Brown has sought, particularly in cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But he pushed and won in getting the legislature to mandate that California get 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, making it one of the nation’s strongest states in that regard.
But Brown has serious eco-critics, too.
Among those are the Sierra Club and other groups who object to the his administration’s support for hydraulic fracturing (known as “fracking”) in California’s ample oil and natural-gas fields. They would like to see the practice banned the way New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done. Critics also don’t like Brown’s view that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) should issue more exemptions for certain projects. And then there is his $20 billion-plus “delta fix,” a pair of giant tunnels that will supposedly provide more reliable water transfers from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to central and southern California while restoring environmental health to the delta’s battered ecosystem. Critics think the focus will be on the transfers and not the delta’s well-being.
In Bonn Saturday at the COP23 climate talks that started this week, Brown had barely begun a speech when some dozen protesters chanted “poisoned wastewater” and “keep it in the ground”—an attack on his support for fracking. Christopher Cadelago reports:
Brown, who was less than a minute into a speech that was to mark the historic collaboration of states, cities, business and philanthropic leaders in countering Trump’s planned Paris pullout, responded to the demonstrators in real time.
“I wish we could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles,” said Brown, who is on a two-week tour of Europe, preaching about the perils of climate change to largely receptive audiences.
“I agree with you, ‘in the ground,’” Brown shot back as the heckling dragged on. “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.”
This was an off the cuff remark, an understandable ju-jitsu-like attempt to flip the protesters’ chants against them. But while the intent was, I’m sure, not meant literally, it came out like a spew of eliminationist rhetoric we hear all too often from the ultra-right. And it has no legitimate place in progressive discussion—even our most heated discussions—whether the topic is climate change or education reform. Whatever one thinks of the protesters’ tactics or their cause, Brown should be more circumspect in addressing dissenters. We already have plenty of politicians talking this way without his adding to the problem.