California and New York City aren’t the only extortionists seeking global warming reparations through court rulings. Former muscle manic, actor and governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening a climate lawsuit of his own.

Seven municipalities in California are currently pursuing legal action against the world’s most illustrious oil companies. The state alleges that these companies are legally accountable — and therefore financially liable — for the side effects of global warming. The lawsuit urges the courts to coerce Big Oil into funding mitigation measures.

On the other Left Coast, New York City’s Neanderthals aim “to shift the costs of protecting the City from climate change impacts back onto the companies that have done nearly all they could to create this existential threat.”

Schwarzenegger’s allegations are far worse — and deeply delirious. By his estimation, “The oil companies knew from 1959 on” about the ramifications of drilling and internally knew “that it would be risky for people’s lives [and] that it would kill.” He blustered, “If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first-degree murder. I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies.”

He went on to warn: “We’re going to go after them, and we’re going to be in there like an Alabama tick. Because to me it’s absolutely irresponsible to know that your product is killing people and not have a warning label on it, like tobacco.”

For starters, Schwarzenegger is a bona fide hypocrite. In March 2008, a Los Angeles Times article revealed that “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now spends more than three hours commuting because he lives so far from the office. But his ride is a private jet.” Gas-guzzling SUVs get a bad rap from environmentalists, but they’ve got nothing on jet fuel consumption. He’s in good company with fellow jet-junketing Hollywood glitterati and environmental “stewards” Matt Damon and Leonardo DeCaprio. “Get to the choppa!” has a whole new meaning.

Of course, it’s not really the environmental blowhards’ jetting around the globe that’s contemptible; it’s their hypocrisy on the matter. They know fossil fuels aren’t really as bad as their rhetoric makes them out to be. In fact, it’s the opposite. “Here’s a better idea,” posits Investor’s Business Daily. “Thank the oil industry for contributing to unprecedented prosperity around the world.”

After highlighting the erroneous comparison between tobacco and global warming — the consequences of the latter are purely theoretical — Investor’s correctly says “mankind will adopt and continue to thrive, even if the climate does noticeably change.” The editorial continues:

> It should go without saying that most of that progress over the past two centuries — the vast reduction in poverty, improved nutrition, longer lives, better health, vast increases in prosperity — is largely the result of the discovery and production of vast amounts of cheap, reliable, easy-to-transport, multiuse, energy-dense fossil fuels. Indeed, if there’s one single discovery that has contributed the most to the betterment of mankind, it is arguably the very product that Schwarzenegger now describes as a killer.

Make no mistake: Fossil fuels are second to none when it comes to expanding human progress. Our world would look extremely different — and not in a good way — without them. How about fighting legitimate first-degree murder — like the hundreds of thousands of babies terminated through abortion every year?

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