Arnold the Governator Tackles Climate Change

So yesterday Yale hosted the governor's summit for climate change - three governors and a bunch of other big shot state government guys convened to sign an 18-state committment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2015. Gov's from NJ, CT, and CA were there. Lucky for us our good friend Becca did us a huge favor and took Kate on short notice so we could go check out the scene in Yale's largest meeting hall (think Harry Potter style). I go to a lot of these talks during the week, but it was really nice to have Jill to keep me company on this one. The first hour or so was pretty boring, but once the speakers started going, it got interesting. An indian guy who won the nobel prize with Al Gore for climate research was there and his main message was that we need to act now to reverse our carbon footprint. His forecasts project we have a 7-year window to reverse the growth of our emissions or the world will end! Just kidding, but yeah, he was pretty adamant about how urgent it is to prevent sea levels from rising, precipitation patterns to be permanently altered, and some endangered species to continue.

Anyway, the highlight was definitely Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's a really good speaker and started comparing environmentalism to how body building used to be. I guess working out used to be shunned in society, but major strides were made after his book Pumping Iron came out. He also talked about how the answer to reducing emissions shouldn't involve trying to make people feel guilty. I actually really agree with this. At risk of boring you, I'll include some quotes:

"So someone the other day just
showed me a cartoon that was of a car salesman in a showroom talking to this
couple. And the car salesman pointed at the car and said, "This car runs on an
ordinary gasoline-powered engine, and then when it feels a little guilt, when it
senses guilt, it switches over to battery power." Now, that’s funny, it’s a
cartoon. But let me tell you something; there’s a lot of truth to that. For too
long the environmental movement had been powered by guilt. But I believe that
this is about to switch over from being powered by guilt to being powered by
something much more positive, much more dynamic, something much more capable of
bringing about major change. You know the kind of guilt I’m talking about; the
smokestacks belching pollution that are powering our Jacuzzis and our big-screen
TVs, and in my case powering my private airplanes. So it is too bad, of course,
that we can’t all live simple lives like the Buddhist monks in Tibet. But you
know something? That’s not going to happen.

So ladies and gentlemen, I don’t
think that any movement has ever made it and has ever made much progress based
on guilt. Guilt is passive, guilt is inhibiting, and guilt is defensive. You
remember the commercials a number of years ago, the commercials specifically of
a Native American who sees what we have done to the environment and then a year
runs down his cheek. You all remember that? Well, let me tell you something;
that approach didn’t work, because successful movements are built on passion,
they’re not built on guilt. They’re built on passion, they’re built on
confidence, and they’re built on critical mass. And often, they’re built on an
element of alarm that galvanizes action."