Florida gets real

Florida starts to get real, anyway.

With California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by his side, Republican Florida Governor] Crist signed executive orders setting targets for cutting carbon emissions from vehicles 30 percent by 2016, and rolling back the clock on power plant emissions to 2000 levels within a decade.

Crist also signed agreements to develop climate change policies with the United Kingdom and Germany rather than waiting for Congress and the White House to do so — even pledging to join California in a lawsuit if the federal Environmental Protection Agency doesn't approve its auto emissions standards.

"As the old adage goes, there's strength in numbers," Crist said.

Florida's addition to the growing ranks of states bucking the federal government on climate change has reverberated around the globe.

"Florida is just such an example of a state with so much to lose from climate change, and they have been doing relatively little compared to other states," said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions for the Pew Center on Global Change, who worked with California to devise a plan for creating a market-based carbon emissions cap-and-trade plan.

Spotted here via Google News.

In a nice instance of the Assault on Reason, the article also quotes California weightlifter-in-chief A. Schwarzenegger as follows:

Now Schwarzenegger said the auto industry has put up a billboard in Michigan that reads " Arnold to Detroit : Drop Dead."

"What I'm saying is 'Arnold to Michigan : Get off your butt,'" Schwarzenegger said.

sigh...