Dialogues, by Jerry Brown: on Environment


Jerry Brown: Sustainability ideology obscures need for attitudinal change

There are a lot of good people running around--The Natural Resource of Defense Council, The Environmental Defense Fund, The World Wildlife Fund, Audubon--and there are a lot of corporations talking about sustainability and pollution in their annual reports. And yet, there seems to be a danger in this kind of environmental ideology in that it obscures the need for attitudinal change, for a shift in our relationship to the land, for a spiritual connection to place. The environmental discussion is not only about whether we can make a more efficient car and then recycle all the parts, because if we add millions, or hundreds of millions, of drivers to the planet and don't change the attitude, which emphasizes having rather than being, we will not forestall catastrophe.
Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p.147 Apr 16, 1997

Jerry Brown: International produce supply line is not sustainable

To get more local food sufficiency and more biological diversity, it strikes me that 2 things are going to occur. Number one, you're going to require more human labor in the production of food; and number two , you're going to have to reduce these massive exports from the US.

The Oakland produce market starts opening at about 10:00 at night and these trucks pulling in are gigantic. I saw one truck being unloaded and I looked at some tomatoes that came from Sinaloa, Mexico. There was a whole bunch of produce stacked along the sidewalk there and I asked the driver, "Where did you come in from?" He said, "I came in from Nogales." That's a long way from here.

I just have to think that such a huge truck--the driver said it cost about $150,000--certainly burned up a lot of oil. That supply line, it strikes me, can't be a sustainable system.

Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p. 42-4 Apr 11, 1997

Jerry Brown: Fight to save the Headwaters ancient redwood groves

[Interviewing Gary Snyder:] BROWN: How do you look at the fight to save the Headwaters--a spectacular 60,000 acres of ancient redwood groves in northern CA--owned and logged by Pacific Lumber Company? How can citizens block any further incursion into these remaining groves, which provide a vital habitat for a number of threatened and endangered species?

SNYDER: There are plenty of ways to get all the timber we need by intelligently, sustainably logging 2nd growth, 3rd growth, 4th growth, and on and on, for the next 10,000 years.

BROWN: Does Pacific Lumber have a right to maximum profit, despite the irreparable ecological toll? After all, private property is relatively recent in terms of redwood history.

SNYDER: It's a tragic story.

Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p. 67-8 Dec 9, 1996

Jerry Brown: EPA cost analysis ignores value of standing forests

BROWN: When the Environmental Protection agency recently suggested tighter air restrictions, their reasoning was based on the costs of associated health damage exceeding the cost of reducing toxic emissions. It's the same old paradigm, founded on a simplistic equation whereby the whole argument is expressed in quantitative economic terms. So when you look at the redwood trees, it's the underperforming asset that, when chopped up, starts to really perform.

GARY SNYDER [Poet and writer]: Well, you could even use economic arguments by making a cost-benefit analysis for the next 200 years based on wealthy tourists coming to see the redwoods and paying for the amenities. Those redwoods would pay for themselves many times over.

Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p. 68-9 Dec 9, 1996

Jerry Brown: Animals are public trust; why do trees belong to landowner?

The theory of the law is that the trees belong to whoever has title to the land, whereas the wild animals are held in public trust by the people at large. The only way that the people can stop the cutting of trees is to tie in the disappearance of the trees with the disappearance of the wildlife, which, in effect, does not belong to the landowner. That's the kind of indirect legal framework that creates such difficulty in stopping the massacre of the ancient forests.

Earth First advocates leaving trees to grow for at least 150 years. That might well be incompatible with the financial structure of Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific.

Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p.253 Sep 11, 1996

Jerry Brown: Capitalism needs to evolve to avoid ecological destruction

Capitalism has been with us for just a couple of hundred years and has evolved, it hasn't remained the same. As you look out and see the proliferation of inequality and the continuing assault on the environment, you see that the successes at the material level of the capitalist economy are running into some major contradictions.

What I see here is that the notion of the sanctity of property has obscured the fact that no person created the wildlife or the redwood trees. They were around before America ever became America.

You can't destroy timber in Humboldt County in a way that creates erosion, silts up the streams, destroys the salmon spawning ground, and, in other ways, impacts the larger community and the world.

Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p.254-5 Sep 11, 1996

  • The above quotations are from Dialogues
    by Gov. Jerry Brown.
  • Click here for definitions & background information on Environment.
  • Click here for other issues (main summary page).
  • Click here for more quotes by Jerry Brown on Environment.
  • Click here for more quotes by Noam Chomsky on Environment.
2016 Presidential contenders on Environment:
  Republicans:
Amb.John Bolton(MD)
Gov.Jeb Bush(FL)
Dr.Ben Carson(MD)
Gov.Chris Christie(NJ)
Sen.Ted Cruz(TX)
Carly Fiorina(CA)
Sen.Lindsey Graham(SC)
Gov.Mike Huckabee(AR)
Gov.Jon Huntsman(UT)
Gov.Bobby Jindal(LA)
Gov.John Kasich(OH)
Rep.Peter King(NY)
Gov.Sarah Palin(AK)
Sen.Rand Paul(KY)
Gov.Rick Perry(TX)
Sen.Rob Portman(OH)
Secy.Condi Rice(CA)
Sen.Marco Rubio(FL)
Rep.Paul Ryan(WI)
Sen.Rick Santorum(PA)
Gov.Scott Walker(WI) 		Democrats:
Gov.Lincoln Chafee(RI)
Secy.Hillary Clinton(NY)
V.P.Joe Biden(DE)
Gov.Andrew Cuomo(NY)
Mayor Rahm Emanuel(IL)
Gov.Martin O`Malley(MD)
Sen.Bernie Sanders(VT)
Gov.Brian Schweitzer(MT)
Dr.Jill Stein(MA)
Sen.Elizabeth Warren(MA)
Sen.Jim Webb(VA)

2016 Third Party Candidates:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg(I-NYC)
Gov.Gary Johnson(L-NM)
Donald Trump(NY)
Gov.Jesse Ventura(I-MN)
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