This isn’t about some cockamamie legacy. This isn’t for me, I’m going to be dead. It’s for you & it’s damn real #ExtendItNow #CapandTrade 🌍 pic.twitter.com/dAs5GD40Sz — Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) July 13, 2017

Sometimes there’s very good reason to freak out. With climate change advancing terrifyingly, and lawmakers unwilling to pull their heads from their asses, now might be one of those times.


Gov. Jerry Brown apparently feels it is. Which is probably why the dude just basically told California state senators that if they failed to pass his climate legislation they were jeopardizing the future of humanity.

During a hearing last Thursday with the lawmakers, Brown broke the fourth wall when he turned to the audience and let them know a few things. Should Sacramento lawmakers screw this one up, then humankind would face dire straits indeed.

To wit:

“Maybe not in my life, I’ll be dead…Most of you people, when I look out here, a lot of you people are going to be alive. And you’re going to be alive in a horrible situation. You’re going to see mass migrations, vector diseases, forest fires, Southern California burning up. That’s real guys. That’s what the scientists of the world are saying.”

Media reports have suggested that climate action would be Brown’s legacy, hence his zeal in pushing the legislation forward. In typically blunt Brown fashion, the 79-year-old responded to this assertion in his tirade, saying:


“I’m not here for some cockamamie legacy that people talk about. This isn’t for me. I’m going to be dead. It’s for you. It’s for you and it’s damn real.”

Brown was speaking in the first hearing for proposed legislation that would extend California’s cap and trade program for another decade, and would impose penalties for polluting entities. Without the legislation, the state’s emission-limiting cap and trade program would expire in 2020.

Following Brown’s impassioned plea, with help from Democrats the legislation advanced through the Senate’s Environmental Quality Committee. But it cannot become law until a final vote is held, which could take place next week.