THE HOT HOUSE

April 01, 2008

Arnold: "I am downsizing"

Under fire for his frequent flying, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today a major downsizing in his Size 24 carbon footprint.

Unveiling a new, cleaner, greener personal agenda, Schwarzenegger said he is getting rid of his collection of Hummers and other cars; is moving his family to Sacramento; will no longer fly constantly between Brentwood and the Capitol; will stop using suspect "carbon credits" to gloss over his greenhouse gases; and will tear down the Capitol parking garage and replace it with an organic vegetable garden to improve the diet of obese legislators.

Arnold 2.0 intends to be nearly as monastic as former Gov. Jerry Brown.

"I don't want to just talk the talk. I want to walk the walk," said Schwarzenegger at a press conference of stunned reporters.

Continue reading "Arnold: "I am downsizing""

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 06:39 PM | Comments

March 17, 2008

Got bait? Schwarzenegger touts future of nuclear power

The blogosphere is abuzz about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments last week saying that the future looks bright for nuclear power.

The governor's full comment:

"I, myself think that nuclear power has a great future. I think that we should look at it seriously again. I know there are people that are scared about it. I know that there are certain environmentalists that put the scare tactics out there and they frighten everyone that we're going to have another blowup and all of those things, but I think that knowledge has advanced so much, and also that we are now seeing that there is such an unbelievable reduction in waste, nuclear waste. So they're really bringing it way down, so that now we can really, I think, relook at that issue again rather than just looking the other way and living in denial. Because it will be very beneficial, like in France where they get 82% of their energy through nuclear power, to look at that because there's no greenhouse gas emissions. So we talked about that. We had an interesting discussion."

It's the first we've heard from the governor on the subject of nuke power. When he ran for governor in 2003, he released a 7-page paper on his environmental positions. Nuclear power was not mentioned, although he went on at length supporting other alternatives to coal and gasoline, including compressed natural gas, liquified natural gas, ethanol, hydrogen, electric cars and fuels made from low-sulfur and non-petroleum diesel.

The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital reported on the governor's comments Friday, and now it's been picked up by Assemblyman Chuck Devore, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Atomic Insight and others who support nuclear power.

Sacramento Bee Photo/Lezlie Sterling

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 04:44 PM | Comments

March 14, 2008

Mary Nichols: New technologies will allow us to do anything!

Mary Nichols, the chair of the Air Resources Board, has come to the defense of her boss, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his near-daily flights between Southern California and Sacramento.

In a letter to The Bee published today, Nichols states that "people around the world want to live like Schwarzenegger" and that new technologies will eventually "enable people everywhere to have both freedom of travel and a healthy environment."

So just keep living your lives, everyone. No need to worry about current patterns of resource consumption, or concerns that upticks in "vehicle miles traveled" will overwhelm improvements in fuel efficiency. Technology will fix everything. Really, it will.

The full text of Nichols letter:

Re "Air Schwarzenegger: The governor wings his way home daily," editorial, March 10: The Bee wants Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to buy a house in Sacramento and donate it to the state instead of flying home to Los Angeles to be with his family. The newspaper proposes this at least in part on environmental grounds.

The Bee might also concur on a new measure by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to eliminate the home mortgage tax deduction for houses over 3,000 square feet as a way of making the wealthy pay the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than making the congressman's Michigan truck and car company backers clean up their products.

Both of these proposals suffer from the same delusion that taxing rich people's pollution is the way to solve global pollution problems. People around the world want to live like Schwarzenegger and other successful Americans. Keeping them in their place is just not going to work. The solutions must come from technologies that enable people everywhere to have both freedom of travel and a healthy environment: zero-emission vehicles running on renewable energy sources. Fortunately, California researchers, investors and regulators – spurred on by Assembly Bill 32's challenge to reduce our state's emissions to sustainable levels – are on track to provide those solutions and create green jobs in doing so.

- Mary Nichols, Sacramento
Chair, California Air Resources Board

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 02:59 PM | Comments

March 13, 2008

Thanks to Drudge, “Air Schwarzenegger” stirs up the masses

The Sacramento Bee ran a snarky editorial Monday about the governator’s near-daily commutes, via jet, between Brentwood and Sacramento. (Full disclosure: I might have had something to do with that editorial.)

For some reason, this little ditty was picked up by the Drudge Report, which gave it a much greater national online audience than our editorials normally receive.

On a good day, our missives generate a few hundred hits on our Web site. So far, "Air Schwarzenegger" has generated more than 150,000. And apparently there is a strong stripe of opinion (at least from the Drudgery) that Schwarzenegger, along with Al Gore and other climate crusaders, are hypocrites for their frequent jet setting.

A sampling of reader reaction:

"Perhaps the Governor will use biodiesel in his jet (see Sir Richard Branson for any tips), and ramp up the effort to get excess NOX out of the emissions."

"Carbon Credits are a joke. A few people will make a bundle for a while then the small investors will take the hit when the Global Warming from C02 scam is exposed. Arnold, I don't think there are many trees at 30 thousand feet to use the C02 your jet produces."

"Talk about hypocrisy! You liberals are the ones who claim that buying carbon credits from the God of global warming, Al Gore, makes everything OK. Schwarzenegger is playing by YOUR rules. According to Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore, you can do whatever you want as long as you pay him thousands of dollars. He flies all over the world in his private jet and has made millions of dollars trying to con people into paying him "guilt" money."

"That's the problem with these people. Environmentalists like Gore, Laurie David, and Schwarzenegger claim to be so pro environment but they live in big mansions which consume more energy than the average home and they get around on private jets. As for local travel, they may drive hybrids for some photo ops but Gore was being shuttled around in a limo in his movie and Arnold has his Hummer."

"Perhaps the governor, being the Servant of the people, could move his family to Sacramento, as suggested by another writer, and donate the $10,000 to hurting Californians who are being foreclosed daily."

"He is showing an amazing amount of arrogance and elitism, and is showing himself to be the hypocrite that he is. Arnold, if you're going to force us to cower in fear over the myth that is Global warming, at least be the first to change YOUR lifestyle, apply the rules you have forced upon us to your own life."

Sacramento Bee Photo/Brian Baer

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 05:27 PM | Comments

March 07, 2008

Schwarzenegger's carbon footprint grows larger

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, depicted on magazine covers as a climate crusader, is now commuting nearly every day via private jet from his mansion in Brentwood to the governor's office in Sacramento. So reports the Los Angeles Times today in a front page article.

The Times reports the governor is buying carbon credits -- at about $43 per hour of flight -- to offset the resulting greenhouse gases, "although they don't eliminate the pollution from Schwarzenegger's plane."

Schwarzenegger is paying for all this jet setting with his own money, although he also has taken several international trips courtesy of foundations funded by various business groups. The Fair Political Practices Commission has proposed a ruling to restrict such gifts, as The Bee reported earlier this week.

I'd be interested to see how Arnold would fair if he used the state's new carbon calculator to estimate his carbon footprint.

Sacramento Bee photo/John Decker

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 05:28 PM | Comments

January 30, 2008

Will Schwarzenegger endorse McCain?

U.S. Sen. John McCain enjoyed a gator-sized boost in Florida after he earned the endorsement of Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican governor who, like McCain, has made climate change a big part of his policy platform.

That raises the obvious question: Will Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now endorse McCain? And why hasn't he done so already?

Of all the GOP contenders, McCain has an energy and global warming platform that is in line with that of Schwarzenegger's. The California governor seemed to be hedging his bets while Rudy Giuliani was in the race, but Rudy dropped out yesterday and endorsed McCain.

So what is Schwarzenegger waiting for?

It could well be that McCain doesn't want Schwarzenegger's endorsement as he trolls for conservative votes. Nonetheless, CNN ran a piece today speculating that Schwarzenegger may endorse McCain today or tomorrow. CNN's Wolf Blitzer is plugging an interview with the governor "coming up" at any moment.

UPDATE: Schwarzenegger didn't take the bait. Pressed by the bearded Blitzer, the governor declined to say if he will endorse McCain, or endorse anyone, before or after the Feb. 5 primary. "I have nothing to announce today," the governor said.

UPDATE #2: The Bee is reporting that Schwarzenegger is "set to endorse McCain."

Associated Press photo

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 03:35 PM | Comments

October 08, 2007

Schwarzenegger -- the smackdown continues

The Bay Area media elite seem to be tag-teaming efforts to keep the pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his environmental stances. Some examples:

Schwarzenegger, of course, isn't the only Sacramento politician who jets around the world basking in his green image while equivocating on environmental positions. His "Twin," so to speak, is Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who was the subject of a recent story by the Los Angeles Times' Nancy Vogel. Headline: "Nunez travels the world like a high roller."

Triple ouch.

Bee Cartoon/Rex Babin

Posted by Stuart Leavenworth at 03:56 PM | Comments