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Arnold Schwarzenegger Is As Green As The Jolly Green Giant

By Robert Paul Reyes

Environmentalists are often portrayed in the media and in popular culture as effete liberals and chowderheads who care more about obscure species of insects than human beings.

I write an opinion column for my local newspaper with the tagline: From the left. Because of my liberal persuasion everybody assumes I'm an environmentalist. I often receive email from environmentalist organizations asking for financial contributions.

I may be a chowderhead at times, and I am an environmentalist, but I am too poor to respond to most of the appeals for help from green-oriented groups.

I'm persuaded that our planet is in peril due to the effects of global warming, so I put up with the insinuations that conservationists are girly men.

But now you can be an environmentalist, and not have folks question your masculinity. Who is responsible for this sea change in the way environmentalists are perceived by the public? None other than the ultimate tough guy: Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie star and governor of California.

Arnold is so green that he could be mistaken for the Jolly Green Giant:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger near-and-dear fight to make the state greener is adding a lot of new jobs to the state's already-in-the-red payroll.

The governor's latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million." Quotation from the San Francisco Chronicle

If a business is reluctant to go green Arnold could always resort to a threat: You have three months to go green, or I'll be back with a bulldozer.

With Arnold on my side I feel empowered: Yeah, I care about this planet, what are you going to do about it punk!