Looks like Arnold flip-flopped. Here's a quote from him from just a few months ago:
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Wright: What are the big hurdles ahead with implementing AB 32, and how will you clear them? And as a follow up, is nuclear power on the solution table?
Schwarzenegger: We're not talking about nuclear power at this point. I think what is important for us is to be part of a movement that fights global warming. We've got to recognize that this is a manmade creation, that we are responsible for global warming. I think that we have to do everything in our power to fight it and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We are making a commitment to roll back our greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the year 2020, and then an additional 80 percent by the year 2050. We (California) have just signed a pact with 25 of the European nations, and with additional states in the United States, and provinces in Canada, and with Australia and so on. It is a pact that actually the United States should have signed when they were over at the last G-8 meeting, but it didn't. We are not waiting for Washington for action. We are going to create the action here in California, because California has been No. 1 in so many things, we can also be No. 1 in fighting global warming, and really show leadership. As you know, in order to reduce the greenhouse gases a lot of things have to happen. But the greatest thing that is happening is that we're seeing innovation in green technology, clean technology. It's been booming in these last few years, and this has been really huge, because venture capital is being poured in - more than $1 billion last year alone - and I think that we will see more increases in venture capital that is being put into clean technology by at least 20 to 30 percent a year for the next 10 years. So this is a whole new way of creating jobs and creating revenue for our state, and I'm really looking forward to that.
Wright: Why is nuclear not on the table for you right now?
Schwarzenegger: I think nuclear will be on the table. But as long as we are struggling with the nuclear waste issue, it doesn't make any sense to do something nuclear. If technology develops so that we know what to do with that nuclear waste, maybe to use it as a source of power again, as we are doing now with greenhouse gases, then I think then we can look at nuclear power.
Ruth:
I think what happened to Governor Schwarzenegger in this case is called "listening" followed by "learning", not flip flopping. I think it is pretty admirable for someone in a position of leadership to find people that really understand a subject and pump them for as much information as possible.
Taken together, the quote that you provided from a November 2007 interview and the one that I found from Friday March 14, 2008 provides an interesting progression. In November, Arnold said that "we're not talking about nuclear at this point" and that "I think nuclear will be on the table."
He also stated that the big issue for him was an answer to the "nuclear waste issue."
Last week, his statement indicated that nuclear is now on the table for discussion. He clearly stated that he brought up the issue when talking with John Bryson and that they had a good conversation about the topic. He said it is time to "look at it seriously again", and that "there is such an unbelievable reduction in waste, nuclear waste."
Because of better understanding of the technology (perhaps he has learned that used fuel can be recycled) he said "now we can really, I think, relook at that issue again rather than just looking the other way and living in denial."
Back in November, his advisors and confidants (remember, this guy talks to mainstream environmentalists, venture capitalists, and entertainment industry leaders a lot) had him convinced to keep the issue off of the table and to live in denial. Now, he has learned enough to change his mind, stop the denial and lead a new discussion and debate on the topic. I am excited by that.
If you listened to the whole interview, you will find that he still needs some education on the relationship between the mass of a vehicle and the amount of energy that it takes to move it from place to place, but that is someone else's job.
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