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Gov. Moonbeam is finally sending California into space.

Jerry Brown closed his climate summit in San Francisco Friday with a dramatic announcement: California will launch its own satellite into orbit to track and monitor the formation of pollutants that cause climate change.

“With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we’re launching our own damn satellite,” Brown said in prepared remarks. “This groundbreaking initiative will help governments, businesses and landowners pinpoint — and stop — destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before.”

After decades of being unable to shake the moniker Gov. Moonbeam — which columnist Mike Roykyo branded Brown in 1976 — the governor has come to embrace it in a big way. Brown suggested around that time that California should launch its own satellite for emergency communications. At the time, the governor was in his 30s and full of ideas for the state that critics dismissed as flaky. Some were put into law and established California as a pioneer on various policy fronts, others were put on the shelf.

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