Sludgie

Naked, caked head to toe in mud, and armed with primitive weapons carved from wood and stone, Arnold Schwarzenegger swung through the tree branches into the heart of the California’s political jungle and emerged this morning with global warming’s ochre-blood-oozing skull mounted on a landmark plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

Having cleared the Senate with a 23-14 vote, it awaits approval in the Democratically controlled Assembly, which is expected, and then goes to Arnold’s dialogue-punchers to script a pithy aside, hopefully some sort of pun, that Arnold can make as he unveils the plan and kisses the buxom starlet. So far, they have Arnold tossing the emissions pact on the chest of global warming’s bleeding corpse and saying “Chill out.”

Today's news coverage is peppered with all the hints that suggest this is one of those rare truly successful environmental victories – a lofty quote from the NRDC, the phrase “Republicans blasted the bill,” etc. Part of the reason that opposing sides were able to trample election-year politics and come to a consensus may not just be eco-altruism or the desire to be a leader in the nation in yet another category (we already have the Internet, porn and avocados!) but also the 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit difference it would take to melt the Sierra Nevada snowpack earlier in the year and flood the Central Valley, threatening the state's long-term supply of agua.

The bill requires industries to cut their greenhouse emissions by an estimated 25 percent by 2020 and charges the California Air Resources Board with picking out “market-based compliance mechanisms” to reach the cap. After seeing Who Killed The Electric Car? I’m a little nervous about the reigns being given to the California Air Resources Board, also known as CARB (perhaps because of the way the 11-member panel makes the state beurocracy fatter.) In the late 90’s, their gutless backpedaling on the zero emissions law, which was basically the only reason the auto industry bothered with developing a car that runs on electricity, led to those proudly trumpeted triumphs of auto engineering mysteriously disappearing from the streets of Los Angeles. Nonetheless, that was a different governor-appointed panel and presumably political resolve will be strengthened this time by an unsettling poster of the governor wearing sunglasses and toting a submachine gun surreptitiously taped on the wall of the Board’s meeting room.

Calif. Unveils Anti-global Warming Plan (A.P.)

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