Global warming takes center stage

California AG Jerry Brown and VMware CEO Diane Greene participated in a "Public and Private Sector Accountability and Action" panel at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's "Clean and Green" Projections 2008.

Jerry Brown: I wouldn't call it [GW] the core of my office, because the office has 1,100 lawyers, and maybe 15 are working in this particular area. But it is getting attention because the burning of fossil fuel, oil, gas or coal is at the heart of almost everything we do every day of our lives, and it is the engine that has driven economic growth, prosperity, and the dominance of Western civilization. So when we say that California must reduce by 80 percent the amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by the very process that makes our wealth and our existing society, it's overwhelming at first. ... This is a global problem, but locally, we have a role to play. We'll have a full regulatory framework by 2011. ... The difficulty is that greenhouse gases are generated by refinery expansions, by automobiles ...

Wright: Some Republicans don't like your "aggressive" posture on greenhouse gases and they held up passage of the state budget because of it.

Brown: First of all, the Republicans in the Senate, all 14 of them, objected to the actions of the attorney general. ... they, to a man - and they all are men - they voted against Gov. Schwarzenegger's AB 32. All of them. So they are climate skeptics. They don't - most of them don't - believe in global warming. They're not worried about oil dependency, and they don't want to do a damn thing about it. So, obviously, holding up the budget with that kind of primitive outlook made eminent good sense in a world of nonsense (laughter).

Interview goes on to say... Brown:...technologies that can curb this incredible appetite, wherein Americans generate 24 tons of greenhouse-gas equivalent vs. a worldwide average of two, and to make these two converge in a way favorable to survival. Great...make us just like the part of the world that subsists on $100/year!

Brown: We're going to be very tempered in the use of the coercive power of the state, but very active in the persuasive power. So I'm actually meeting with different jurisdictions, where there's no threat of lawsuits, but bringing to their attention what they should do.

Greene: We have a brand new 29-acre campus that we built and it's a sustainable set of buildings. When we started the process 3 1/2 years ago, we couldn't get approval for solar, but we made the roofs photovoltaic-ready. And now the awareness has grown so much that we're going to be able to go ahead and get approval to put in the solar. But we do a lot of things around busing people that live in the South Bay, or East Bay, or San Francisco, so they all come together on a bus, and we have the bike racks, and we have waterless urinals and all kinds of things.

Brown: The AG's office subsidizes riding on BART. We are right in the process of reviewing our operations, and we're going to do everything we can; but I would say, at this point, we're not ready for our report card yet.

Wright:What kind of car do you drive?

Greene: Well, we own two cars. We own a Prius and a hybrid Camry. And my husband is working on the plug-in for the Prius!

Brown: We own one car, which is a '94 Lexus, and it's driving quite well. I don't see any reason to junk it quite yet.

Wright: Diane, you have commented regularly about the challenges of recruiting and retaining top talent in Silicon Valley. What are the key concerns of your employees, and prospective employees, about the valley?

Greene: Well, certainly the cost of living in Silicon Valley is a huge concern, and then good schools for their children, and can people afford to live here. ... when we open up a new center in Austin or some other place, people - a lot of people - volunteer to be transferred [out of Silicon Valley] because they want to have a bigger house for their family, or yard for their family, that sort of thing.

LOL. She's actively working with Governor Moonbeam to dramatically hike the cost of doing business in California to curb a non-existent problem, and then says it is hard to do business in California because of the high cost of living and people want to leave here to move to Austin. And Republicans, who are trying to contain this insanity, are ridiculed as "deniers." Besides, who in their right mind wants to ride their bike to work and pee in a waterless urinal?

This is just too rich! You just gotta love moonbats!

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