But that was then. Today, the former professional bodybuilding champion is a champion of global warming and climate change, and because he is he believes he has the singular right and duty to make your future commutes as expensive as possible.
As reported by Politico Magazine, Schwarzenegger announced at the annual SXSW event in Austin, Texas, that he was in talks with private attorneys over plans to sue big oil companies for — now get this — “knowingly killing people all over the world.”
“This is no different from the smoking issue. The tobacco industry knew for years and years and years and decades, that smoking would kill people, would harm people and create cancer, and were hiding that fact from the people and denied it. Then eventually they were taken to court and had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because of that,” Schwarzenegger said.
“The oil companies knew from 1959 on, they did their own study that there would be global warming happening because of fossil fuels, and on top of it that it would be risky for people’s lives, that it would kill,” he continued.
“We’re going to go after them, and we’re going to be in there like an Alabama tick. Because to me, it’s absolutely irresponsible to know that your product is killing people and not have a warning label on it, like tobacco,” he said. “Every gas station on it, every car should have a warning label on it, every product that has fossil fuels should have a warning label on it.” (Related: Oil pipeline company sues Greenpeace for racketeering, defamation, inciting violence and instigating eco-terrorism.)
Schwarzenegger appears to be referencing a prediction made by nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller, who warned about “energy patterns of the future” in a speech in November 1959 to more than 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives attending the “Energy and Man” symposium, which was organized by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business.
In his speech, he warned of increased carbon dioxide levels due to the burning of fossil fuels, which would lead to higher global temperatures and the melting of polar ice caps.
Has that happened? Yes, to some extent. But are any changes to weather and climate patterns and temperatures due to the burning of fossil fuels?
We don’t know that, despite what Schwarzenegger claims and despite what the Alt-Left says.
To date, there has been much speculation that the burning of fossil fuels has led to changes in weather and climate, but no hard data to back it up. So for California’s former governor to claim that the oil industry ‘has known since 1959’ that its products are “killing people” isn’t just hyperbole, it borders on the criminally negligent.
But giving a speech at the annual SXSW event and making wild, baseless claims is one thing; proving your allegations in a court of law is something else entirely. And thus far, no one has been able to do so, despite having knowledge of and access to the very same statements made by Teller in 1959.
That said, the state of New York has also filed suit against “Big Oil,” making similar claims. What if that suit is ultimately successful? What if Schwarzenegger’s effort bears fruit this time around?
You can kiss affordable fuels goodbye, for such a ruling would essentially bankrupt the oil giants (and I’m not entirely convinced that’s not the state of New York’s goal — extract billions from Big Oil to fund an increasingly large welfare state).
That means higher prices for gas, which will come out of consumers’ pockets. It means higher prices for diesel, which will be reflected in higher prices for everything that moves by truck or rail. It will mean higher prices for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.
None of which will affect the multi-millionaire Schwarzenegger or the well-compensated New York attorneys.
J.D. Heyes is editor of The National Sentinel and a senior writer for Natural News and News Target.
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