Schwarzenegger: The Fake Environmental Hero (AlterNet)

[marmar]

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

[Buzz Clik]

1. The author hates Schwarzenegger to the point of being blind to the positive things.

Without even doing any research, we know that he has:

1. Put California at the front of global climate change regulations.
2. Poured hundreds of millions of dollars into biofuels research.

Is Arnold perfect? Hardly. But to say he has taken no risks is simply blind.


EDIT: By the way, I used to find AlterNet as an interesting and reliable source of information. Recently? Not so much. It's now a stomping grounds for the self-important and bullshit artists.

[StClone]

2. From the article

"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."

Don't know the author, don't trust Arnold. Arnold (R) drives a green Hummer now...

[Buzz Clik]

3. Right, and a tiny tip of the hat doesn't negate an harshly biased article.

Regardless, I don't trust Arnold, either. We never know when he's playing to the camera or when he's being genuine.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Arnie is trying to triangulate

He's certainly not a predictable and hard-ass Republican, but on the other hand, he's enough of a party brown-noser to be a tool, so we should expect his reign to be a mixed bag of candy and turds.

Then, too, he's a shrewd judge of what his audience wants, and has been playing to it. During the two years where he was an obedient Bushite, his popularity sank like a stone. I also still think that he will become a Democrat at some point -- all he needs is a pretext. He "needs" to be popular. It's too difficult for him to NOT be part of the In-Crowd, and he wants to be The World's Favorite Collyfornian.

He is a lot like Bill Clinton in some respects -- sadly, not the brains.

The solar roof thing seems to be little more than vapor on which he won't be called to deliver -- but it has whetted the public appetite for new energy technologies.

--p!