Former California Gov. Jerry Brown is living off the grid in retirement, but he’s still deeply connected on two issues that captivated him while in office and now are center stage globally: climate change and the threat of nuclear war.
Brown has organized conversations with John Kerry, Biden's special presidential envoy for climate; Xie Zhenhua, China's climate envoy; and former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He created and chairs the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, which aims to boost collaboration on climate-related research and technology.
The scientists decided to not update the Doomsday Clock, which in 2020 was moved ahead 20 seconds to be set at 100 seconds to midnight, the metaphorical time representing global catastrophe. They did, however, warn Russia's invasion has brought to life the “nightmare scenario" that nuclear weapons could be used to escalate a “conventional conflict."
“We have to have enough bandwidth to look at the big issues, because if they get away from us we won’t have the little issues to worry about,” Brown said. He hasn't gone entirely green — he zips around his property on a gas-powered ATV. He's studying the trees and flowers, determined to learn their names, and in the fall he hosts friends to help harvest olives, which he has pressed into oil.
Sitting outside his home, Brown said he recently pondered what might have been had he won one of his three presidential campaigns, the last in 1992. He decided he'd much rather be in Colusa County.