Ahh-nold gets California out in front on global warming

[thatcrazycajun]

Some longtime readers may recall, a few months back, my intemperately wishing an early demise on California's Republican "Governator," Arnold Schwarzenegger. I do believe I apologized for it at the time, but now I wholeheartedly rescind, retract and repent of my earlier death-wishing on him. Instead, I would like to praise him to the skies for being the most prominent member of his party to finally go against the stereotype of GOP public officials pooh-poohing the growing scientific/academic consensus that we humans are indeed causing the planet to heat up, the better to prevent any big-business or tax money from being spent doing anything about it.

This column by Tom Friedman of the New York Times details his own interview with the Guv on the latter's signing into law legislation to drastically reduce the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020. Arnie is firmly convinced that economic success and planetary stewardship need not be mutually exclusive—and as the nation's most visible big-business-friendly Repub, he may be the one to convince both his state's captains of industry and recalcitrant GOP officials elsewhere to stop shoving their heads in the sand—or worse, digging their heels in to stop others from taking action.

Naturally, I don't hold out much hope of the awl-bidness cabal in Junior Bush's White House abandoning their science-hostile viewpoint anytime soon, but one may hope that whoever gets into that chair in the Oval in January 2009, of either party, will be more inclined to listen to Arnie and other like-minded folks on this issue. If, all the gods forbid, the GOP steals wins the Presidency again next year, maybe at least they'll have sense enough to put Arnie in charge of Interior or the EPA.