Two shades of green

IT HAPPENED SO QUICKLY and, at first, so quietly, that no one saw it coming. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hummer-driving, cigar-chomping, muscle-bound king of over-the-top movie machismo, became the nation’s spokesman for environmentalism. He glommed on to a greenhouse gas bill last year by former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and rode it to political rebirth, reelection and a new platform of post-partisan accomplishment. Now he’s on the cover of Newsweek, the Earth balanced on his index finger, the symbol of the green awakening.

Is it leadership or show business? In the Schwarzenegger universe, they are one and the same. California’s governor recognizes that getting things done in the political world requires more than a little bit of marketing. Speaking last week at Georgetown University, Schwarzenegger told environmentalists that their movement needs some glitz. “We have to take it mainstream,” the governor said. “We have to make it sexy. We have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate.”

It’s as if the high school quarterback, who happens to date the head cheerleader, decided to stop poking fun at the nerds in the chess club and instead join the group and become club president. Suddenly, chess is cool. But does the quality of play improve?

Sometimes marketing is just marketing. The best ad campaign in the world can’t turn “Red Sonja” or “Jingle All the Way” into Oscar winners. And Schwarzenegger, as detailed by Times reporter Peter Nicholas on Friday, is spotty on the substance of protecting the environment. He vetoed bills such as SB 927, a smart measure that would have helped clean the air and curb traffic by imposing a fee on cargo containers passing through San Pedro and Long Beach. He killed other bills that ran afoul of his friends in the oil industry, from whom he has accepted more than $1 million in campaign donations. A veneer of ecological do-goodism is meaningless if it’s simply a cover for business as usual.

It’s easy for skeptics to dismiss the governor as all talk and no action. He’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, for heaven’s sake. He told Newsweek that he put greener fuel in his Hummer to “show people that biofuel is not some wimpy feminine car, like a hybrid.” This is the new spokesman for environmentalism?

Yet his Hummer stunt actually can make a difference. For environmentalism to be reinserted into the top tier of U.S. policymaking, it needs to catch on among non-environmentalists. It is they to whom Schwarzenegger is speaking. They are far less likely to heed one of the chess club nerds. A guy like, say, Al Gore.

The former vice president has been sounding the alarm on global warming for years, and not without effect. His bestselling book, “Earth in the Balance,” refocused many Americans on the environmental crisis, and as vice president he used his status to raise awareness, if nothing else.

It’s interesting to note, though, that he made his biggest splash in Schwarzenegger’s medium, not as an action hero but as the star of a documentary about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Gore’s film won an Oscar, something Schwarzenegger will probably never be able to say. But as popular as “An Inconvenient Truth” remains, it has attracted far fewer viewers than the California governor’s movies. “Successful movements are built on passion,” Schwarzenegger said last week. “They aren’t built on guilt.”

Well, maybe a little guilt. Schwarzenegger’s upbeat optimism, can-do attitude and marketing savvy would never sell the whole story without the more ominous warnings from high-profile spokesmen such as Gore. To move forward and sell the message, we need Gore’s guilty yin along with Arnold’s cheerful yang: both hybrids and biofuel-guzzling Hummers; serious policymakers such as Fran Pavley and passionate leaders such as Schwarzenegger.

The governor has turned out to be a boon for the environment. His leadership on global warming is irreplaceable. His image as a muscleman and his background as a moderate, businessrespecting Republican give his message a heft that the earnest Al Gores of the world aren’t able muster on their own. The world, ever warmer, needs both.