Sarah Palin Terminates Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Climate Change Stone Age Dig

The Man Who Be Climate Change King: Why Arnold Ditched his Hummers Prior to Attending the U. N. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

Sarah Palin’s Stone Age RV

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Sarah Palin climate change “Stone Age” dig in the Financial Times has gotten a rapid response from Palin via her Facebook page:

Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation’s only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change. While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act “greener than thou” when talking to reporters.
- Sarah Palin’ Facebook Retort

According Jim Boren’s editorial in the Fresno Bee, Schwarzenegger has been taking swipes at Palin over Palin’s views on global warming and that the California governor, who is attending the UN Climate change conference in Copenhagen, had this to say about Palin in the Financial Times:

“I think there are people that just don’t believe in fixing and working on the environment. They don’t believe there is such a thing as global warming, they’re still living in the Stone Age, which is OK, we need people like that, too,” he said.

Boren made this point:

But you have to love Schwarzenegger. He’s the only California governor with a foreign policy — at least since Jerry Brown. I just wonder if the governor should be in Sacramento trying to balance the state’s budget instead of being in Copenhagen urging action on climate change.

We wondered what the carbon footprint was of Arnold Schwarzenegger, terminator of global warming?

On July 23, 2009, Deceiver posted an account of Arnold and his bodyguards going for a bike ride on Sacramento’s bike trails. Deceiver posted photos of Arnold and his “pack of bodyguards” plus a photo of one of the five Hummers Arnold’s posse used to get to there.

Arnold’s Instant Climate Change Image

Today, Politico posted that Arnold had “ditched” the Hummers and was now “flying commercial”. Politico wrote that Arnold was the “star of the show”, where Arnold “swooped in to say small is beautiful”.

Contact Music had more on Arnold’s penchant for Hummers which began in 1992 when Arnold was one the first to “own one”, and, when Arnold gave up his “Hummers”, which wasn’t until September:

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER has ditched his beloved $950,000 (GBP500,000) fleet of Hummer cars in a bid to save the environment. The TERMINATOR movie star-turned-California governor is devoted to the sport utility vehicles for their “precision”. He was the first person to own one of cars in 1992 after persuading manufacturers to make them for non-army purposes. But Hummers emit three times more carbon dioxide than a regular car – and after the State of California announced it was suing carmakers Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Honda, Chrysler and General Motors over greenhouse gas emissions, ex movie star Schwarzenegger felt it was prudent to make the change. Eco-aware campaigner AL GORE confirms, “Arnie has given up his Hummers.”

Arnie may given up his Hummers but he didn’t dispose of them until four years after he, as governor of California, signed an Executive Order and Assembly Bill 32 regarding “sweeping” climate change legislation:

California’s first major climate change initiative came in 2004 with the passage of a regulation that would reduce passenger car greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 30 percent by 2016. This was followed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2005 Executive Order plus Assembly Bill 32, the state’s sweeping climate change law passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor in September, 2006. These two actions require California to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – a reduction of about 25 percent, and then to reach 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. This challenge has fallen to the California Air Resources Board (ARB) and other state agencies gathered together in the Climate Action Team.
-Climate Registry

As for Arnold “giving up” his private jet, cccording to Private Jet Daily, Arnold “parked his coveted Gulfstream private jet at home”:

A spokeswoman for the governor said that he is flying commercially to conserve energy, which is one of his main concerns.

Schwarzenegger has already been criticized for driving around California in a hummer. Using a private jet to fly internationally would further hurt his public image.

A couple of years back, Schwarzenegger had 13 flights using his private jet. This was subjected to public scrutiny. However, members of his entourage say that he paid for those trips by purchasing green credits.

The LA Times published an account of Arnold’s carbon footprint in 2007:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves a big environmental footprint for one man, specifically with his frequent use of private jets to ferry him throughout California and the world. His two estates are large enough to house small villages. And the champion of environmental controls to curb global warming pumps far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than an ordinary citizen, by far. He is driven everywhere in a caravan of two black SUVs and, sometimes, a lead sedan.

And the “other” private jets Arnold favors:

Depending on the private jet he chooses from NetJets – usually it’s a relatively large one, to include staff and CHP bodyguards – Schwarzenegger and his posse could dump as much as 8,700 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a single one-hour flight from Santa Monica to Sacramento, according to data from TerraPass, the carbon retailer.

And,

Schwarzenegger is the most traveling governor in California history – sometimes twice-weekly flights to Sacramento and numerous weekend trips to his Idaho estate, to Maui, Las Vegas, Washington D.C. and other out-of-state places over the past three years. (His campaign picks up the multi-million dollar tab.) It should be noted that Schwarzenegger has unique security needs that probably require private travel. He is considered an icon of the Western world and he’s married to a Kennedy. Enough said.

Arnold’s Favorite Mode of “Modern Stone Age” Transportation, $38 Gulfstream IV Private Jet

In 2008, Halogen Guides Jets had more on Arnold’s “daily” private jet “commute”:

Even more than the impact that may be wrought on the environment by Schwarzenegger’s private flights, what fascinates us here at Halogen Guides Jets is what the impact must be on his pocketbook. In 2007, Schwarzenegger spent $591,000 in campaign funds on travel expenses. Given the frequency of the governor’s travel, he’s actually one of the few private flyers for whome whole ownership is the most economical option. After all, Schwarzenegger’s flying isn’t limited to just his commute. His duties as governor take him to locations across the state, and as a rising star in the Republican Party, Schwarzenegger frequently travels outside of California to lend his celebrity to the aiding GOP candidates across the country, not to mention international trips.

But even if we just count his commute between L.A. and Sacramento—a one hour flight in each direction—and conservatively estimate that he makes the round trip four days a week, 49 weeks out of the year, we find that Schwarzenegger is logging over 390 hours of flight time. To match that number, Schwarzenegger would need sixteen 25-hour Marquis Jet fractional cards, $349,900 a pop for use of a G-450 (a small upgrade on the governor’s G-IV), costing a total of $5.6 million a year. Even if Arnold were to purchase a ½ fraction of a jet, which grants its owner 400 hours of flight time, the near daily frequency of his flights would likely make this less than an attractive option.

Compared to Sarah Palin’s RV for her “Going Rogue” book tour, it’s safe to assume that, while Palin may be “living in the Stone Age”, Arnold Schwartzenegger is a climate change modern day politician who, it’s apparent, sacrificed his hummers and flew “commercial” when it was politically savvy.

Tags: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Sarah Palin, Stone Age