How Green is My Schwarzenegger?

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

Our 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.

Arnold Schwarzenegger does seem to understand that the planet is in trouble. As a green Republican, he is a welcome contrast to the know-nothing, do-less attitude of President Bush. His movie star persona is perfect for delivering lines like "Arnold to Detroit: Get off your butt.“

But when he says the problem with environmentalism is that it’s not hip or sexy – that the movement has been a failure because it’s based on guilt and sacrifice, not optimism and fun – I must respond with one of the more eloquent lines from his signature role as an android assassin:

Wrong.

Here's what the governor said last week at Georgetown University: