A little over a week ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at Yale, positing that the green movement is gaining momentum because it has stopped trying to motivate with guilt:

“I don’t think any movement has ever made much progress based on guilt,” he commented. “Guilt is passive, inhibitive. Successful movements are built on passion, on confidence, on Teddy Roosevelt’s bully pulpit, on critical mass. The environmental movement has switched from being powered by guilt to something much more positive and dynamic … capable of bringing about revolutionary change.”

I’m not sure I agree that the environmental movement is quite there yet.  I don’t think that it is in Southern California.  Do you buy local for the public kudos, or with a grim sense of responsibility?

Still, I loved his insight into the message that environmentalism advocates often send, and I find it pretty convincing that guilt can’t work.  I have to wonder: what other messages are D.O.A. until activists squash the liberal guilt out of them?