Schwarzenegger pumps up green movement

[KILLER74Z28]

To bad Schwarzenegger can’t run for president… I'd vote for him.

Schwarzenegger pumps up green movement
POSTED: 7:23 p.m. EDT, April 12, 2007


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- He's on a mission to save the planet. But first, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to pump some sex appeal into environmentalists.

"You have to make it mainstream. You have to make it sexy. You have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate," the Republican governor said at Georgetown University Wednesday.

As a former bodybuilder and actor, Schwarzenegger says he's familiar with polishing images. And he says environmentalists could take a lesson from bodybuilders. (Watch the governor warn against becoming a political penguin )

"Like bodybuilders, environmentalists were also kind of thought of as weird, strange and fanatic and kind of serious tree-huggers, as you know. Environmentalists were no fun," he said.

Schwarzenegger is trying to make them cool and edgy. He says just like his 1977 movie "Pumping Iron" made bodybuilding mainstream, the same can be done with environmentalists without sacrificing for the cause.

"We don't have to take away the cars from the people. The SUVs, the Hummers and the muscle cars. No, that formula is a formula for failure," he said to the Council on Foreign Relations Thursday. "Instead, what we have to do is make those muscle cars and those SUVs and those Hummers environmentally muscular."

His solution? Drive environmentally friendly Hummers like his that run on biofuel and hydrogen fuel. Before his Hummers went green, he was the target of protests for driving gas guzzlers.

One environmental group in California says his record is mixed. The California League of Conservation Voters did not endorse him last year in his election bid, but says Schwarzenegger is evolving. "We're excited and I think the environmental movement across the country, more or less, [and] in the state of California is grateful that he's taking this issue on and being so visible about it," Rico Mastrodonato of the league said.

In the past year, Schwarzenegger has helped pass laws in California to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. He said he signed two laws, one to curb emissions 25 percent by the year 2020 and the other to cut the carbon content in transportation fuel by 10 percent.

He issued a warning to other politicians who don't follow his lead.

"Your political base will melt away as surely as the polar ice caps -- I can guarantee you of that," Schwarzenegger said. "You will become a political penguin on a smaller and smaller ice floe, drifting out to sea. Goodbye, my little friend."

CNN's Mary Snow and Lauren Kornreich contributed to this report

[Mindz]

I don't agree with him on a lot, but this is one of his smarter movements.

[unkbd]

I don't agree with him on a lot, but this is one of his smarter movements

All to often in politics, the word "movement" isn't interpreted to mean what it really ought to mean. (ie. BM)

[Mr. Wyndham]

He is supposedly working with the New York Governer, Elliott Spitzer, to help New York out, and to get help from New York...He commented a few times that The two biggest states - One on the East Coast and One on the West, can help inspire all those i between to take a page out of thier books. Instead of "waiting for the Federal Governments decisions"

[TAG UR IT]

"You will become a political penguin on a smaller and smaller ice floe, drifting out to sea. Goodbye, my little friend."



I like that. Don't take away the musclecars....just make them environmentally muscular.

[LSxcellent]

Sometimes he is strange, but sometimes he's awesome... I really like his penguin analogy. AND I think he is right... don't take away what people want, just make it better! Figure out some way to make these cars better, for less money, and people will buy them.

Related to this topic is a RI company called 'StarTech'. If you haven't heard of them, go look them up! They turn trash into energy in a VERY environmentally friendly way... they hit it with PLASMA (same stuff that fires out of a welders plasma torch but on a huge scale). It turns ALL trash into its most basic components (like tossing it into the sun)...

Cool stuff, and probably the solution to ALL our major problems.

~LSx

[Moosen75]

you go Arnold, save our muscle cars. What did the terminators run on in the movies? nuclear power?

[LSxcellent]

Nuclear Powered Camaro? Nice. I betcha could get some good power! 10,000hp Z28? SURE! Why not...

I _WOULD_ however like a camaro with a liquid metal looking body. Polish the steel to a mirror finish! That would be awesome...

~LSx