Five Years Ago Today: California Governor: “In Less than Five Years, Even the Worst Skeptics Will Be Believers”

Reader Jason S writes:

Hey Anthony,
I set my calendar to remind me of this story. It’s been 5 years since Governor Brown made this statement! One for the failed predictions pile!
Thanks again for all you do,
Jason

I’m not sure how to create a list of the “Worst Skeptics” but I assume Anthony Watts is on it as well as Steve Koonin, Richard Lindzen, John Clauser, Alex Epstein, the 1600 or so signatories of the the Clintel Declaration, every conservative pundit, and a whole bunch I can’t think of at the moment.

This will be added to the Failed Predictions Timeline.

Thank you Jason.

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Decaf
November 18, 2023 2:04 pm

They are their own best debunkers. All we need to do is wait. Usually it’s not too long, because they cannot resist a short timeline for disaster.

Bill Toland
Reply to  Decaf
November 19, 2023 2:48 am

In the last five years, I have not personally known a single sceptic who has become a climate alarmist. But I know some climate alarmists who have become sceptics.

gezza1298
Reply to  Bill Toland
November 19, 2023 5:29 pm

Even Fritz Varenholtz believed in the great scare with a misguided faith in the IPCC…..and then he looked at one of their reports and realised how bad they were. In the book The Deniers, there was also misguided faith in the work of others by many of those featured in the book where they had a problem with the work of activists in their own field.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Decaf
November 21, 2023 8:35 am

The problem with waiting is that they do all sorts of bad stuff in the meantime.

Tom Halla
November 18, 2023 2:05 pm

Jerry Brown was bad enough as Governor his first time out, and got worse. As an example, he appointed Adriana Gianturco as head of CalTrans, a person who hated the idea of actually building roads.

Curious George
Reply to  Tom Halla
November 18, 2023 2:20 pm

If God gave you an office, surely He gave you a super intelligence as well 🙂

barryjo
Reply to  Curious George
November 18, 2023 4:02 pm

Must be a letent talent!

barryjo
Reply to  barryjo
November 18, 2023 4:03 pm

‘latent’.

Bryan A
Reply to  Curious George
November 18, 2023 5:30 pm

Now that’s a funny way to spell Orifice.
Though Brown definitely has a couple and both spew identical effluent

Edward Katz
November 18, 2023 2:12 pm

What he really meant was that the worst skeptics will be believers that the alarmists are nothing more than panic-mongerers who often stand to profit if governments enact new taxes, laws and restrictions on ordinary consumers.

alastairgray29yahoocom
November 18, 2023 2:16 pm

I am proud to be one of the baddest of the bad, as a signatory to the Clintel declaration

Phillip Bratby
Reply to  alastairgray29yahoocom
November 18, 2023 11:12 pm

Me too.

TSEight
November 18, 2023 2:44 pm

Give them their dues, they have battered us relentlessly with tales of weather extremes, record heat, record rain, record drought, record ice lows, record everything. They expected their efforts to dodge actual evidence, while brainwashing people through agenda supporters in the mainstream media, would turn us all around. It’s been red meat (or wet lettuce) to Just Stop Oil, but that’s about all.

J Boles
Reply to  TSEight
November 18, 2023 3:21 pm

But the believers are always screaming that the extremes are happening NOW! I hope we have already seen peak gang green. I sure fear it going any further, but that is really ALL they have.

Bryan A
Reply to  TSEight
November 18, 2023 5:31 pm

Battered yes, bettered not by a large margin

MarkW
Reply to  TSEight
November 18, 2023 9:28 pm

We’ve been battered, but never bettered.

antigtiff
November 18, 2023 2:52 pm

Always remember these offices are about votes…illegal or legal votes…not about a person’s abilities or intelligence. A Roman Emperor appointed his horse as a senator….maybe America would be better off if some offices were filled with horses…dogs….goats….than the humans in the offices.

Reply to  antigtiff
November 18, 2023 3:08 pm

In many governments around the world, including here in Oz, they have started building horses, starting with several horse’s arses.

Gregory Woods
Reply to  antigtiff
November 18, 2023 3:13 pm

We already have turkeys.

hiskorr
Reply to  Gregory Woods
November 18, 2023 6:42 pm

Also, parts of horses!

Reply to  antigtiff
November 21, 2023 6:39 am

“A Roman Emperor appointed his horse as a senator . . .”

That’s nothing. California voters have elected many a horse’s ass to be governor. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom being among the top ones.

ScienceABC123
November 18, 2023 2:59 pm

The lesson learned here is… “People who regularly deny reality should not make predictions.”

Reply to  ScienceABC123
November 19, 2023 5:17 am

The problem with delusional people is they don’t know they are delusional because they are delusional.

Gregory Woods
November 18, 2023 3:10 pm

But us more worster skeptics will always be
Deniers.

Scissor
Reply to  Gregory Woods
November 18, 2023 3:34 pm

Richard Page
Reply to  Scissor
November 18, 2023 4:10 pm

That’s very good. Like it.

abolition man
Reply to  Scissor
November 18, 2023 6:23 pm

Thanks, Scissor! I sure miss those guys!

Scissor
Reply to  abolition man
November 18, 2023 6:53 pm

Me too.

Janice Moore
November 18, 2023 3:18 pm

Brown says “skeptic” like it’s a bad thing…. 🤨

comment image

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
November 18, 2023 3:19 pm

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

Richard Feynman

Janice Moore
November 18, 2023 3:21 pm

“Skeptic” = pro data-driven science.

Count me in! 😀

November 18, 2023 3:37 pm

Didn’t Brown also claim that California was in a state of “permanent drought” and that California was in a state of “permanent flooding”?

antigtiff
Reply to  Gunga Din
November 18, 2023 4:11 pm

Callyfornia seems to be in a state of permanent scumbag politicians.

Reply to  antigtiff
November 18, 2023 5:24 pm

What does that say about the voters?

Bryan A
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
November 18, 2023 5:34 pm

It’s from proximity to the Left Coast

MarkW
Reply to  Bryan A
November 18, 2023 9:30 pm

California is proof that the country is tilted to the left. All the fruits and nuts have rolled to the west coast.

Reply to  MarkW
November 19, 2023 3:57 am

California has a peculiar mentality partly because of a handful of geographical accidents. The climate seems benign, but it isn’t. The land seems fertile and benign, too, but it isn’t. Fertile, yes, but prone to natural disasters like floods, fires, droughts and earthquakes.

The seemingly benign climate and the seemingly benign land are both the result of north-south mountain ranges catching Pacific Ocean moisture for part of the year, and shielding the region from frigid, continental air masses, while channeling the rivers into directions where they can be exploited for irrigation and municipal water supplies.

Settlement got under way in earnest when prospectors discovers “Gold, GOLD in them thar hills!” 60 years after the gold rush, filmmakers located there for the easy outdoor shooting conditions. Farmers used the flat valleys for large-scale agriculture of profitable specialty crops.

Add it all up, and you find a get-rich-quick mentality, mixed with resentment over the other guy who got the lucky breaks.

abolition man
Reply to  antigtiff
November 18, 2023 6:35 pm

Commiefornia’s Prop 65 warning labels would be more apt if they read:
WARNING! Large government bureaucracies are hazardous to your health!
Increases in depression, despondency and suicidal ideation are directly linked to bloated federal, state and local governments! They may also cause cancer if used regularly!

MarkW
Reply to  abolition man
November 18, 2023 9:31 pm

As for Prop 65, they might as well come up with a single label, everything you eat and drink is bad for you. Stop at once.

November 18, 2023 3:42 pm

This was Jerry Brown in 1992 when he thought he was done with politics.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/257560891

Scissor
Reply to  Hoyt Clagwell
November 18, 2023 6:55 pm

Wow, what a rare admission.

November 18, 2023 3:44 pm

I lived in San Diego during all of Moonbeam’s terms. His most notable accomplishment was dating Linda Ronstadt in her prime.

Scissor
Reply to  Shoki
November 18, 2023 6:59 pm

True that.

Reply to  Shoki
November 19, 2023 7:02 am

Her cover of “Blue Bayou” was wonderful.

Reply to  mkelly
November 21, 2023 6:43 am

She sang that, with feeling, directly to/for governor Brown . . . as in “Blue Bye-You”.

mikelowe2013
November 18, 2023 3:52 pm

So I’m no longer a “Worst Skeptic”. Now I can sleep at nights!

Bruce Cobb
November 18, 2023 3:56 pm

It’s like a flat-earther telling us that “within five years, the worst of us flat-earth deniers will become Believers”.Uh, no.

November 18, 2023 3:57 pm

I would be honored to be placed on your list of worst skeptics.

ladylifegrows
November 18, 2023 4:07 pm

Maybe he thought the censorship would be more effective than it has been. It is impossible to find the most-viewed climate website on any search engine unless you use “skeptic” or “denier” or know exactly what site you are looking for.

KevinM
Reply to  ladylifegrows
November 19, 2023 10:21 am

True. It’s a reason to read it.

eo
November 18, 2023 4:19 pm

I am conservative in my predictions. Ten years from now the most adherent CAGW believer will be skeptical

Reply to  eo
November 18, 2023 5:51 pm

Nah – they’ll just say we were lucky we were in the 99th percentile of model results and that it was chance along with the trillions we wasted wisely spent on subsidizing ‘carbon free’ alternatives that saved us from certain calamity.

Reply to  eo
November 19, 2023 5:29 am

I think it will take a decade or two of cooling to really smash the climate alarmists.

All the CO2/climate alarmists have now is the satellite-era temperature record (1979 to present) to point to as correlation, and only because it has been warming during this part of the climate cycle. But when the temperatures start to cool, then they won’t have anything to point to as evidence that CO2 is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm, because it won’t be warming, while CO2 will still be increasing.

That time might not be far off.

KevinM
Reply to  Tom Abbott
November 19, 2023 10:27 am

I’d rather they were right. Cold sucks. Reading UKLeguin’s classic Left Hand of Darkness and the plot leans on icy climate as the bad guy- but also logs solid evidence of CO2-AGW theory going back >40 years. Most things people think are new are way, way older.

Bob
November 18, 2023 4:51 pm

Jerry Brown is not someone I would look to for guidance.

November 18, 2023 5:39 pm

How do you sign up/apply to be a ‘worst skeptic’? I have an excellent resume of downvoting Griff, Nick Stokes, and Final Nail’s comments.

KevinM
Reply to  Tommy2b
November 19, 2023 10:34 am

Those three are strangers in a strange land here, like roomy pilgrims on a mission to save us from their demons. If you’d like recognition for social media banter,, go raise your voice somewhere where their opinions are well represented. Regular readers here tend to agree on the core issue. AGW: Nah no big deal.

Reply to  Tommy2b
November 21, 2023 6:45 am

Start by getting to the back of the line.

Doud D
November 18, 2023 6:45 pm

As my former Governor I can attest that very few things he said were ever found to be true .Reminds me of my favorite anti Jerry bumper sticker “ If it’s Brown,Flush it “

David S
November 18, 2023 8:51 pm

Gov Jerry Brown also once said:

California will face billions of dollars in spending to cope with the consequences of rising sea levels if low-lying communities along the coast are ultimately submerged, as scientists predict, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday.
Brown’s remarks came a day after the release of two studies finding that a slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun and could cause sea levels to rise worldwide by four feet within 200 years.
“If that happens, the Los Angeles airport’s going to be underwater,” Brown told reporters at a presentation of his revised state budget proposal in Los Angeles. “So is the San Francisco airport.”
https://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-brown-sea-level-airports-20140513-story.html

But LAX is 128 feet above sea level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_International_Airport
And the quoted sea level rise is 4 feet in 200 years or 2 feet per century
At that rate it will 64 centuries or 6,400 years to reach Lax. Will we even need airports by then?

sturmudgeon
Reply to  David S
November 18, 2023 10:11 pm

We’ll need SOMEPLACE to park all those Electric Airplanes.

Richard Page
Reply to  David S
November 19, 2023 10:12 am

I think the ice will reach LAX before the sea does!

Reply to  David S
November 21, 2023 6:47 am

No fair . . . you’re using scientific data and math!

Phillip Bratby
November 18, 2023 11:11 pm

As of yesterday, it was 1,841 signatories, and the number is still rising.

observa
November 18, 2023 11:54 pm

You get lots of true believers with massive hidden slushfunding bribes-
True Cost of Electric Vehicles Is More Expensive Than Expected | Positive Encouraging K-LOVE (klove.com)
It’s when you ask folks to dip into their own wallets with user pays for the cause the virtue signallers quickly evaporate.

May Contain Traces of Seafood
November 19, 2023 12:20 am

(Sing along if you know the words)

I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles and never frowns
Soon I will be president…

atticman
Reply to  May Contain Traces of Seafood
November 19, 2023 8:43 am

May contain more than a trace of nuts?