User talk:Paris1127/Archives/2016/July

Re George E Brown

I see you edited the George E Brown bio, so am posting you.

also I just set up a wikipedia acct so if I do something wrong, let me know

I see there is an error (well two errors) - and I would like to make a suggestion re the Congressman's posting

see this par in his bio: >Consistent with his long-held conviction that the nation needed a coherent technology policy, Brown developed an extensive technology initiative during his term as Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee (2002-2004). This work articulated his concept of a partnership between the public and private sectors to improve the nation's competitiveness. Such successes and his continuing concern to demonstrate the practical application of advances in science and technology, he instituted the first video conferences in the U.S. Congress between the US and the Soviet Union/Russia, betwe1987 and 1990.

The Congressman passed away in 1999 and was not a Chairman in (2002-2004)

also note the typo 'betwee' in the last sentence

and a suggestion: The Congressman, whom I personally knew for many yrs (eg, see a mediawiki site page here -- http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:US_Environmental_Protection_Agency or here http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr) was a principal author of the legislation that set up the US EPA. This accomplishment perhaps should be mentioned in his legislative record section

The LA Times obit says he 'championed the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency' -- if you would like other cites re George and the EPA (and/or other envir legis from the era in which he was very involved), I'll find them for you. The EPA's origins are important

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jul/17/news/mn-56747

THXS

Greenalot (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Greenalot

I fixed the typo (no idea how that happened) and will look into these other edits. Thank you for being up front about your connection with the late Congressman, it's important that Wikipedia avoids any sort of conflict of interest. You're still free to edit the encyclopedia, FYI. More sources are always good, do you have any others which explicitly state that Brown created the EPA? Or the name of the bill? It's not in the Times link you provided. And FYI, you're free to post messages on the article's Talk Page. You can post what you might like to have written there and I or another user can smith it.

Sounds like a fascinating man. I'm certainly grateful to him for sponsoring the legislation that made Landsat satellite imagery freely available to the public (I work in GIS/Remote Sensing). Paris1127 (talk) 18:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

You are fast Paris1127 ;- Thank you. Just quickly, I'll look for some links about the Congressman's role in the initial EPA and other environmental legis of that era. Here's one to start - http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2347 - This article of the Univ of Calif, Riverside states "When he died in office in 1999 at the age of 79, he left an enviable legacy that included establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency" and goes on to talk about the original source material/Congressional papers donated to the UCR library -- re the EPA, it is important to get the exact phrasing of Rep Brown's contributions as there were a number who proposed and legislatively 'created' the EPA and, also, an initial slate of foundation environmental bills -- there will not be a link out there to 'explicitly state that Brown created the EPA' -- as no individual person can claim credit for the EPA's creation (altho President Nixon did sign the authorization) -- I'll see what source material is readily available online and may call the university library w/ a request -- imo, this is one of the more important historical moments in environmental law history and the beginning of the agency and US envir legis and actions are, more and more, models/templates for other nations as they look to become environmental stewards.

I do not feel confident to edit any article yet or even post on the George Brown article Talk page, so let me review the Welcome message content just sent me about 'Getting Started' while I look for links on this EPA/envir legis subject, then if it's ok with you, I'll post your Talk page again on this as a next step

and yes, he was one of the orig 'open sourcers' who believed that science data, eg Landsat, needed to be freely shared and distributed -- much of today's #EarthScience research from space can be seen starting up with his 'big science' efforts

as a longtime Chair of the Sci com't and believer in visionary science, he was out in front

Greenalot (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Greenalot

Update: Last week I spoke with the three individuals at the Univ of Calif Riverside library, which houses the George E Brown 'special collection' from his yrs in the US Congress. Note Jessica Geiser 951-827-2850 and Robin Katz 951-827-3398. They are now embarked, per our conversation, on going thru the "yet uncatalogued" part of the collection and determining citations that they can pass along to Wikipedia on the Congressman's contribution as a 'instrumental' force in the creation of the EPA and other 'first generation' environmental legislation. Citations are the goal. I will follow up.

Also, do consider adding now that the Congressman served for more than 30 years on the House Science Committee. See last paragraph here, a NY Times citation - http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/09/science/a-conversation-with-george-e-brown-jr-the-congressman-who-loved-science.html

Also note and consider this quote from the NY Times (a few months before his death in 1999) >He was an author of legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, a prime mover behind efforts to include ozone layer protections in the Clean Air Act and an advocate of restructuring the national weapons laboratories to meet the needs of a peacetime economy.

Also re the current Wikipedia bio wording >Among some of his many accomplishments during his service on the House Science Committee:

>Established the first federal climate change research program in the Federal Climate Program Act of 1978

In fact George Brown was the principal author of the initial legislation and leader on this climate change/policy issue (and considering the importance of this subject, climate change, it really should be cross-linked to climate change somehow don't you think?) I will leave this to you, with your experience to decide on links and also wording, ie I'd recommend wording that is more exact -- eg, "author of legislation that established..." and adding a link to the exact Legislative Bill ie, Public Law 95-367 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf (ie, add the statute link to the current link to H.R.6669, the link in the bio is http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d095:HR06669:%7CTOM:/bss/d095query.html) Adding the specific language about his drafting the bill is historically important and would be much more precise than "during his service on the House Science Committee"..."established the first federal climate change program..."

Go here for a verification citation from bio info from Brown's Chief of Staff at this time 77-78 >During this earliest period of Mr. Stiles’ service on Capitol Hill, Congressman Brown was the author of legislation in 1977-78 that established the first federal program of research on climate change (Public Law 95-367). http://www.wetlandswatch.org/Portals/3/WW%20documents/veabio.pdf

Greenalot (talk) 23:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Update:

Heard back from the Univ of Riverside library collection of George E Brown (via Jessica Geiser). They have been going thru his papers, as promised. The attached http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Can_our_environment_be_saved_George_Brown-Omnibus_Environmental_Bill_1969.pdf is one of the early bills introduced and an 'Omnibus' environmental overview from the Congressman who was out in front on many environmental initiatives (the Omnibus is from 1969) and tied in with NEPA and the EPA.

One issue is (as it turns out) the collection of the Representative's papers/documents has little from before 1973.

I have updated the George E Brown site at GreenPolicy (MediaWiki) here -- http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

Greenalot (talk) 15:21, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

July 2016

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Ted Cruz. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Repeated vandalism can result in the loss of editing privileges. Thank you. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:11, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that was one of my Chrome extensions. I double-checked for another one, but didn't consider that this one would also affect the page. I was trying to fix the last sentence: there should be a space separating the sentence and the period. To remedy this, I've downloaded yet *ANOTHER* extension which disables these specific ones on Wikipedia domains... I hope this works. Paris1127 (talk) 04:19, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I hope it works too. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:30, 21 July 2016 (UTC)