Crist sees parallel with Schwarzenegger
Florida, California governors take bold stance on environment
By Bruce Ritchie
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
They're both Republicans, they're both tanned and they both promote physical fitness.
But there also are other striking similarities between Gov. Charlie Crist and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on environmental issues.
Schwarzenegger, a movie star and bodybuilder, has become the Republican darling of environmentalists as he has led California on agreements to reduce carbon emissions to avoid global climate change.
Likewise, Florida's new governor says he is an environmentalist and is considering putting solar panels on the roof of the Governor's Mansion.
Crist, who took office in January, says climate change is one of the most important issues facing Florida this century. And he acknowledges the parallel with Schwarzenegger.
"I don't think there is any question about it: Governor Schwarzenegger, to his credit, has been a great leader in this regard," Crist said April 3 after the Cabinet held a climate change workshop.
Crist said he's following in the tradition of President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican who is heralded for his environmental achievements, such as establishing the U.S. Forest Service.
"If you reach out and work harder and do sometimes what may be the unexpected, you may be able to go even further," Crist said.
Crist also has said he's unhappy that utilities are proposing several new coal-fired power plants, including one in Taylor County. Tallahassee is a partner in the proposed Taylor Energy Center.
Mark Ferrulo, director of Environment Florida, said Crist - like Schwarzenegger - is saying and doing all the right things.
"Governor Schwarzenegger has really sort of dissolved the partisian divisions in his state when it comes to protecting the environment," Ferrulo said.
"I think Governor Crist also is moving Florida in that direction. He is unabashed in telling anyone who asks he is an environmentalist. That is something we haven't had in the Governor's Mansion in a long time."
Utility lobbyist Chuck Hinson said governors and congressional leaders across the nation are having to deal more aggressively with the climate-change issue. He said Florida's utilities are up to the challenge of using new technology to create renewable energy and increase energy efficiency.
"I expect Crist to be much like Schwarzenegger in being bold and aggressive in all this," said Hinson, vice president governmental affairs for TECO Energy.
Scott Segal, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents utility industry groups, said it's too early to know if Florida will follow a similar path as California.
He said Schwarzenegger has effectively banned coal-fired power plants in California and the import of energy from those plants in other states. He said that's unwise for growth states, including Florida.
"I would say Florida would be ill-advised to turn to California for advice on enegy policy," Segal said, noting California's blackouts in recent years.
Crist has been joined by state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink in advocating a response to climate change. But Attorney General Bill McCollum, who quizzed scientists about climate change during the April 4 workshop, said afterwards he's skeptical about some of the climate change warnings.
"I happen to think we probably are, like everything else, taking things to extremes," said McCollum, a former Republican congressman. "The pendulum tends to swing one way for a while and then the other way for a while."
But scientists who spoke at the workshop said there is little doubt that climate change is occurring and that the effects are being seen in sea level rise that is causing coastal erosion.
Crist said Florida will deal with the challenge as a non-partisan issue.
"There are great opportuinties for Florida to lead the way and I think we are going to do exactly that," Crist said. "That is my prayer."
Governor Schwarzenegger called on his fellow governors to create a regional, market-based program to cap carbon emissions at the 24th Annual Border Governors Conference.
The Governor negotiated a partnership between California and Britain to find joint economic, scientific and technological solutions to global warming.
He led the Western Governors' Association in adopting clean energy goals that will bring 30,000 megawatts of clean energy online by 2015 and increase energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2020.
I know what you're thinking. "Oh God, another enviro RINO!" If you're from the Rodney King School of Human Relations, ("Can't we all just get along?) you'll probably love Florida's new Governor. But if you're a conservative, brace yourself for more disappointment; (Schwarzenegger, Crist, Giuliani.) If you are a conservative traditionalist you might want to find a hole and crawl in it. The world is changing and you may not think it is for the better. The country is more divided than ever (if polls are to be trusted) and in the coming years more center coalitions will be formed in order to get anything done. The challenge for conservatives and climate change skeptics will be to get the country off middle eastern oil without giving too much to the tax and spend watermelons.
21 Dead at Va Tech 22 Wounded
ReplyDeleteWhat's the odds his name's Mohammed?
You mean that being "over there" did not stop them "over here"?
ReplyDeleteIf his name is Mohammed.
Shots were fired at the college's West Ambler Johnston dormitory and at the engineering school's Norris Hall, according to the university's Web site. Police aren't sure if the two shooting incidents are related and declined to identify the people killed, though they said the gunman is dead.
ReplyDeleteFox News reports:
ReplyDeleteTwenty -two dead and 17 injured in two shootings at opposite ends of campus.
The school's Web site earlier said one shooter was in custody and officials searched for a second shooter as "part of routine police procedure," but during the press conference Monday, police said they believe there was only one shooter.
Local FOX affiliate WFXR-TV in Richmond reported that one shooting occurred between 7:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, and another at 10 a.m. at Norris Hall. The school's Web site confirmed the shooting at opposite ends of the 2,600-acre campus.
Police also said there is no evidence the two shootings at opposite ends of campus were related.
Oh, so they were coincidental. I see.
"You mean that being "over there" did not stop them "over here"?
ReplyDeleteIf his name is Mohammed."
DR - your cynicism knows no bounds
Regardless of the person's background and religious conviction, i guess your theory that the FBI and the justice system can protect fellow citizens from such terrorism was just exposed as ridiculous.
Too bad some "armed vigilante" wasn't there to confront this madman and perhaps save some of these poor lost souls.
DR,
ReplyDeleteFind where I've said I would blindly follow the President or Bernard Lewis.
They simply represent counterweights to your defeatest lines and historical misrepresentations.
Tell me since you like to go to 1993 Cheney quotes (pre-9/11) and you also like to go to Iran under the Shah, and since you are fond of quoting generals in opposition to the President ..tell me..Was Lincoln right in placing US Grant in command and WT Sherman? They had mandates to destroy the South completely and they did and won the war. Should Lincoln have listened to Fighting Joe Hooker or Grants arch enemy and politically well connected foe, MajGen John Alexander McClernand (a name you , I am sure will have to Google).
But since you are fond of misrepresenting my positions allow me to summarize them:
1. Before the Iraq invasion I would have bombed them into rubble and rebuild later.
2. The pockets of resistence would be bombed to rubble today.
3.I would use tactical nukes on Iran's nuclear hardened sites and conventional high tech bombs on their cities and infrastucture.
4. I would kill millions of them from the air.
5. Now that Iraq is an established nation I would stand with her until the Iranian backing of terrorists was neutralized and any other backing from other sources, and until her security forces were suffcient to handle her security for the most part.
Very broad outline but you and the bloggers get the idea. No cut and run, no obfuscation of the fact that it is a tough slog. No doubt that it is in our best interests.
Oh yes.
6. I would aid the Israeli's attacking Syria and Iran if that is the decided method.
My approach leads to increased US credibility and victory. Your approach and that of the Democrats leads to a vaccuum in the ME to be filled with other big powers and a total discretiting of US commitment and power.
You DR are part of the problem, not part of the solution. You are the John Murtha and John Kerry of this blogsite.
One thing that has come into very sharp focus over the past five years is that the alliances and world bodies establishes after WWII are totally inadequite for to day's world.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically the UN and NATO.
Prudent women and men who watch world events unfold can see this without paragraph upon paragraph of examples.
New alliances and deliberative bodies must be developed and that debate should be part of this election cycle.
Habu appears to have DR cast in a role that fits.
ReplyDeleteOne thing this tragedy points out is that no country, even the US, can stop everyone who has a weapon and is willing to die, from hurting others. Just because there are still suicide bombings in Iraq doesn't mean their government or our efforts there have failed.
ReplyDeleteI agree, habu.
ReplyDeleteBut if the US does not do those things, it should not continue to what it's doing.
Because it is not winnning doing what's doing.
We'll be leaving Iraq, soon enough, as we left Vietnam.
How we leave and leave behind is how the campaign will be judged. Will leaving radical Shia with a 250,000 man Army be judged a "good thing"?
Not if your scenarios were or are required.
An Asian man in his 20's is how the dead shooter is described.
Quick, round up all the Chinamen and Japs!
All college professors should be trained and armed, just like airline pilots. The college professors could at least die for more than tenure.
ReplyDeleteBut they'll now demand all citizens be disarmed. What idiots!
Since we have completely jumped off the original post, I will pile on. A note from the President of the Republic, my friend and yours:
ReplyDeleteKINKY FRIEDMAN
April 15, 2007 -- Author, musician and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has been friends with Don Imus since 1975, when they met on stage at The Bottom Line.
I MET Imus on the gangplank of Noah's Ark. He was then and remains today a truth-seeking missile with the best bull-meter in the business.
Far from being a bully, he was a spiritual chop-buster never afraid to go after the big guys with nothing but the slingshot of ragged integrity. I watched him over the years as he struggled with his demons and conquered them. This was not surprising to me.
Imus came from the Great Southwest, where the men are men and the emus are nervous. And he did it all with something that seems, indeed, to be a rather scarce commodity these days. A sense of humor.
There's no excusing Imus' recent ridiculous remark, but there's something not kosher in America when one guy gets a Grammy and one gets fired for the same line.
The Matt Lauers and Al Rokers of this world live by the cue-card and die by the cue-card; Imus is a rare bird, indeed - he works without a net. When you work without a net as long as Imus has, sometimes you make mistakes.
Wavy Gravy says he salutes mistakes. They're what makes us human, he claims. And humanity beyond doubt, is what appears to be missing from this equation. If we've lost the ability to laugh at ourselves, to laugh at each other, to laugh together, then the PC world has succeeded in diminishing us all.
Political correctness, a term first used by Joseph Stalin, has trivialized, sanitized and homogenized America, transforming us into a nation of chain establishments and chain people.
Take heart, Imus. You're merely joining a long and legendary laundry list of individuals who were summarily sacrificed in the name of society's sanctimonious soul: Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Joan of Arc, Mozart and Mark Twain, who was decried as a racist until the day he died for using the N-word rather prolifically in "Huckleberry Finn."
Speaking of which, there will always be plenty of Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons around. There will be plenty of cowardly executives, plenty of fair-weather friends, and plenty of Jehovah's Bystanders, people who believe in God but just don't want to get involved. In this crowd, it could be argued that we need a Don Imus just to wake us up once in a while.
There probably isn't a single one of Imus' vocal critics who come anywhere close to matching his record of philanthropy or good acts on this earth.
Judge a man by the size of his enemies, my father used to say. A man who, year after year, has raised countless millions of dollars and has fought hand-to-hand to combat against childhood cancer, autism, and SIDS - well, you've got a rodeo clown who not only rescues the cowboy, but saves the children as well.
I believe New York will miss its crazy cowboy and America will miss the voice of a free-thinking independent-minded, rugged individualist. I believe MSNBC will lose many viewers and CBS radio many listeners.
Too bad for them. That's what happens when you get rid of the only guy you've got who knows how to ride, shoot straight and tell the truth.
I fly for a living and I like knowing that the pilots are armed. I already knew they were dangerous!
ReplyDeleteI hear Don Ho died.
ReplyDeleteImagine Don Ho.
Could it be more timely?
Couldn't have been Don Corleone, no, gotta be one of the Ho's
ReplyDelete