SAN FRANCISCO - Neither State
Senator Joe Simitian of California nor the state's governor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, bears much resemblance to Dr. Seuss's Lorax. But on
Tuesday, like that fictional defender of the environment, they
spoke for the trees.
Well, at least he's stopped
pretending to speak for conservatives. (And, yes, George
Neumayr
did warn us
about where this would all lead
long ago.) Sigh. Ready for more?
More than six months after two
Santa Clara residents were convicted under a state nuisance law for
letting their redwoods cast shade on a neighbor's solar panels, the
governor signed into law a bill that gives trees the right to grow
as they please-as long as they predate any solar panels they might
be shading. "I think we've demonstrated that there is nothing
mutually inconsistent about trees and solar," said Mr. Simitian, a
Democrat who wrote the bill, shortly after the measure was signed
on Tuesday. "I was frustrated by the tone of the debate at the
outset-that it was somehow about trees versus solar. I thought it
should be about trees and solar."
By all means,
let's not throw trees into an unnecessary cage match with solar!
More diplomacy! Of course, at the same time, there
absolutely
is something "mutually
inconsistent" about trees and solar, otherwise there wouldn't be
the need for a bill to define the apparently separate-but-unequal
rights of redwoods to grow--which is maybe why we need
to
do this stuff in
space. But neither Simitan nor the
Governator can acknowledge basic facts because they might just
muddy up the precious self-aggrandizing rhetoric. And Ahnold
wouldn't have Time
magazine calling him--along with
that paternalizing bore Bloomberg--a
New Action
Hero.
Hey, for the
record Governor, I liked you better in Commando.
topics:
Environment, Law, NATO
