Jerry Brown promises to fight Donald Trump over climate change

Gov. Jerry Brown directly challenged the incoming Trump administration on climate change Wednesday, promising that California will fight any attempt to roll back progress on the environment, including possibly launching its “own damn satellite” to track global warming.

“We’ve got a lot of firepower,” Brown told more than 3,000 climate scientists attending the American Geophysical Union conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Not only is California the world’s sixth-largest economy, “we’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the universities, we’ve got the national labs and we have the political clout for the battle. And we will persevere, have no doubt about that.”

Brown said that if Trump attempts to “mess” with research at the University of California labs like the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is funded by the Department of Energy, “I’m going to say ‘Keep your hands off.’”

“As long as the University of California manages those labs, we’re not going to have political interference,” Brown said. “We’re going to have honest, independent science.” Brown is also president of the UC Board of Regents.

Scientists attending the conference this week said they are terrified not only by Trump’s rhetoric on climate change, but by some of the early moves by his transition team.

Trump has erroneously called climate change a “hoax” propagated by China to make American manufacturing less competitive and said “nobody really knows” whether it is real. He is considering withdrawing from the landmark international climate accords reached last year in Paris and has nominated several climate-change deniers to his Cabinet.

Governor Jerry Brown delivers an address Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016 in San Francisco, CA at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting. Governor Jerry Brown delivers an address Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016 in San Francisco, CA at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting. Photo: Eric Kayne, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Eric Kayne, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Jerry Brown promises to fight Donald Trump over climate change 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

Trump transition staff members have asked the Department of Energy for the names of anyone who has worked on climate change there — the department responded by saying it will not release any names. Many scientists there are furiously trying to preserve their research data for fear that it will be destroyed. Trump nominated former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the department — Perry has long called for eliminating the agency.

Trump nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, even though Pruitt sued the agency to stop emission curbing regulations.

A senior Trump campaign adviser suggested eliminating funding for NASA’s climate research program, including for a satellite program that has been gathering information on how the Earth’s atmosphere is changing.

Brown recalled that in 1978, during his second term as governor, he proposed that California launch its own communications satellite.

“So if Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” he said.

“They called me Gov. Moonbeam for that,” Brown said Tuesday. “I didn’t get that moniker for nothing.”

Brown pointed out that California signed on to a memorandum of understanding with more than 200 countries, states and regions, called the Under 2 MOU, to limit greenhouse gases to 2 metric tons per capita annually. He said he spoke to the Canadian ambassador Tuesday to reassure him that California would not be backing out of that or any other climate agreements.

Brown’s 14-minute address Wednesday was part rallying cry for climate scientists to continue to be fearless “truth-tellers” and “the foot soldiers of change and understanding” in this “post-fact” era. He cautioned that “this is not a battle of one day or one election. This is a long-term slog into the future.”

He said he hoped that the ascendance of a climate denier like Trump to the White House would jolt into action those who had been “tepid” about climate change.

“Some people need a heart attack to quit smoking. Maybe we just got our heart attack,” Brown said. “We should start doing the work that it takes to really do what it takes to reduce our climate emissions.”

He urged the scientists to ignore the “miasma” of social media and not just publish their findings but work to promote them.

“It takes some boldness, some risk-taking, but most of all, truth telling and truth seeking. The power of truth is profoundly more effective than the power of rhetoric,” Brown said.

He took a shot at Breitbart News — the conservative website that formerly was directed by Trump’s chief strategist in the White House, Steve Bannon.

Brown said that when he signed a measure reducing methane gas emissions, “Breitbart and the other clowns talked about ‘cow farts.’ Everything is reduced from seriousness to a joke. It’s not a joke. This is not about Twitter and 140 characters and the instant proliferation of meaningless news bits. This is about real life. Real people. Real science — and you’re the custodians of that aspect of our lives.”

Brown also ripped what may be the nation’s next secretary of energy — his longtime rival, Rick Perry. The Texan made several high-profile trips west while he was governor of oil-industry dependent Texas to try to poach jobs from California, the hub of renewable energy.

“Well, Rick, I’ve got some news for you — California is growing a hell of a lot faster (4.1 percent in 2015) than Texas (3.8 percent in 2015),” Brown said. “And we got more sun than you have oil.”

The audience responded to Brown’s speech with a 45-second standing ovation. Afterward, many said it was important to hear a major politician support them in the wake of the rumblings of anti-science rhetoric they have been hearing from the incoming Trump administration.

“I’m uplifted,” said Deb Vane, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “We really needed someone to rally us after what we’ve been hearing.”

After Brown spoke, Secretary of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell took up the theme, warning that “a sea of change in the landscape of science is coming.”

Thousands of American Geophysical Union members depend on federal research funds for their work. But scientists working for government agencies like the Department of Energy or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration already fear that even their research data may be corrupted or destroyed in a new administration.

“Push back against those guys,” Jewell told the researchers, urging them to enlist Congress and the public and to “make the case in a really visceral way.”

Jewell, 60, has been an oil industry engineer, and before she joined the Obama administration she was CEO of REI, the billion-dollar recreation equipment retailer cooperative. She is also an avid hiker, skier and mountaineer.

“The public’s investment in your work is critical,” she told the scientists as she reminded them that even a hostile new administration must recognize that ongoing research in every field is crucial to industry and agriculture.

“Stay the course,” she said.

Joe Garofoli and David Perlman are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com, dperlman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli, @daveperlman