Schwarzenegger: The Fake Environmental Hero (AlterNet) [View All]

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Schwarzenegger: The Fake Environmental Hero

By Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group. Posted April 19, 2007.



Schwarzenegger has become the GOP's Al Gore but the trouble is that his "environmentalism" isn't about curbing our reckless consumption; it's about having more cool choices -- if you can afford them.

California's governor, who was oiling his quads for the camera when Lois Gibbs was fighting a chemical catastrophe at Love Canal, is suddenly being hailed as an environmental hero.

He's the GOP's Al Gore. He's simultaneously on the covers of special green issues of Newsweek and Outside, with fawning articles and Q&As recounting how he gets policy tips from his cousin-in-law Bobby Kennedy Jr. and has one Hummer that runs on hydrogen, another on biodiesel.

He's a jet-setting green diplomat, signing global warming pacts with Canada and Britain. He's the keynote speaker at prestigious international climate change conferences.

Fine. To a point.
...(snip)...

He has done nothing to speed up long-overdue safety standards for perchlorate, a rocket fuel waste that contaminates hundreds of water supplies in California. As another drought looms, he has declined to speak out against the wasteful, unfair and environmentally harmful giveaway of California's water to a handful of Central Valley agribusinesses.

None of these actions negates what he's done on global warming. But together they make it clear that as an environmental hero he's a few merit badges short of Eagle Scout.

Heroes take risks. They do things that may not be popular, that will cost them personally or politically. Schwarzenegger's environmentalism lite, on the other hand, is a politically cunning embrace of an issue with no downside. Tapes of the governor's private meetings show that he and his staff understand very well the political value of his green agenda: His communications director Adam Mendelsohn told him last year: "I do not believe it's smart politics here in California to not talk about your environmental stuff."

Duh. Keep talking, Governor, but rather than comforting us with visions of the fantastic green future, start making people uncomfortable. Remind your Malibu neighbors that California has the highest percentage of minority residents living near toxic waste facilities. Tell the chemical industry they have no right to pollute the bodies of babies still in the womb. Announce that you will no longer accept campaign contributions from the oil industry. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/50700/?page=4