‘60 Minutes’ video: Governator’s green challenge
NOTE: This is a transcript of a segment of 60 Minutes that aired Sunday.
President-elect Obama is 30 days from office. For a window on his future, turn west for a moment, to a chief executive who is already up to his neck in the nation’s troubles.
This month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned of financial Armageddon, as California faced a potential $40 billion deficit that threatened jobs, roads, schools, and public safety. At the same time, he’s pushing some of the world’s toughest environmental laws to make California a leader on climate change.
The governor agreed to take 60 Minutes along during his most challenging times. How does he deal with it all? Well, what would you expect a former action hero to say?
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“The more difficult it gets, the more joy I find in it. Because it’s just great to figure out all of the ways of bringing people together and shaping policy. But to get it done, to get there, is always a long process. But when you get it done, it’s very satisfying,” Gov. Schwarzenegger told correspondent Scott Pelley.
Maybe it was acting. When 60 Minutes met Schwarzenegger at the state Capitol in Sacramento, he had just declared a state of emergency. His budget plan touched off a political firestorm, which in California would, of course, be accompanied by a real one.
Schwarzenegger and Pelley visited one Los Angeles neighborhood burned to ashes just weeks before–evidence to Schwarzenegger that even in these times, the greatest threat is climate change. “It all happened so fast, they couldn’t save one single one of those homes. Over 500 homes here were destroyed within hours,” Schwarzenegger explained, as they walked through charred remains.
“You know, there’s been a lot of research that suggests that there are more fires, and there are hotter fires, because the fire season has been extended by climate change,” Pelley remarked.
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“Well, we have been doing some research in that, and we have seen the changes. We don’t have a fire season anymore. It starts in the beginning of the year and goes all year around, and so it has created, of course, big challenges,” the governor said.
Asked what he tells someone who says climate change is theoretical and questions the harm, Schwarzenegger told Pelley, “I always say, well, there were people that were debating over if the world is a globe. They thought for a long time it was flat. And there are still people who think that it’s flat. And there are people that still live in the Stone Age.”
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