Schwarzenegger for grassroots climate action

Young climate change activists calling for composting, home insulation and smart energy management

Listening to the radio earlier today I heard a report about Arnold Schwarzenegger supporting a campaign to encourage people, companies, towns, regions etc. to move ahead and take action to work against climate change in their own everyday lives or spheres of action. The tenor seems to be: if we wait for the international negotiations to reduce emissions and halt climate change – we could wait a very long time. But action at a personal/local/regional level might have an impact, if enough of us get involved. Nothing new about that, you might think– but it often depends who’s saying it.This reminds me of a debate I was involved in about how to get people interested in halting climate change. One of the things we established was that celebrities can help. Film and pop stars have a huge influence on masses of people. If they indicate it’s cool – and maybe even economically sensible – to do things that reduce emissions and pollution, a lot of people might think about it who would otherwise show no interest. The combination of movie-star and ex-governor of California seems to attract plenty of public interest. Anything for publicity? The reporter on the station I was listening to finished up by saying the Schwarzenegger campaign wouldn’t do any harm, whatever the chief motivation.