The Green Giant; Carbon czar: California's Hummer-loving governor is turning the Golden State into the greenest in the land, a place where environmentalism and hedonism can coexist. How a star turned pol's become the muscle behind saving the planet.(Arnold Schwarzenegger )(Cover story)

Byline: Karen Breslau

"Pimp My Ride" isn't the sort of television program one watches for a lesson in eco-consciousness. Each week on the MTV reality show, one lucky teenager's old clunker is transformed into an outrageously appointed dream car (imagine: a Ford Pinto with 600 horsepower, blinding chrome and hydraulic suspension that's the envy of every lowrider in your 'hood). Galpin Auto Sports in Van Nuys, where the cars are tricked out, is filled with row upon row of gleaming, vintage muscle cars--here a 1970 Ford GT two-seater (13mpg/city), there a 1968 Shelby GT 500 KR convertible (15mpg/ city), each bearing a six-figure sticker price and a "gas-guzzler tax" of $1,300. For today's episode, "Pimp My Ride" has invited a man who knows a thing or two about muscle. Peering under the crimson and white hood of a pimped-out '65 Chevy Impala, Arnold Schwarzenegger all but caresses the new 800-horsepower engine, which has been overhauled to run on bio-diesel for a special Earth Day episode of the show. "You can have an engine that's fast and furious and still reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 to 40 percent," Schwarzenegger declares for the cameras. "This is the future."

Once pilloried for driving his Hummer (he now has hydrogen and biodiesel models), Schwarzenegger is out to prove that environmentalism and hedonism can coexist. "That was the point of doing the show," he says later, over lunch. "To show people that biofuel is not like some wimpy feminine car, like a hybrid. Because the muscle guys, they have this thing: 'I don't want to be seen in the little, feminine car'."

That kind of talk might not sit well with the typical socially liberal environmentalist who belongs to the Sierra Club. But Arnold doesn't care. Re-elected and popular again in the polls thanks to his newfound "post-partisan" style, the Republican governor is peddling feel-good, consumer-friendly environmentalism that resonates not only with fluorescent-light-bulb-worshiping hybrid drivers, but also with big business and those who think "green" is a synonym for "Chicken Little." His faith in the power of technology and free markets to slow global warming is neither depressing nor polarizing. As a Republican, Schwarzenegger says, his environmentalism is easier to sell in some quarters. "I can pick up the phone and talk to a CEO and say 'You don't want your guys to fight that' easier than if I was someone known for going around talking about 'I want to protect this tree' or 'There's a fish I want to save.' They are not so suspicious."

His approach is a world away from Al Gore's alarming climate lecture, captured in the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." (For the record, Schwarzenegger says he's deeply impressed with Gore's work: he even popped into a Beverly Hills book-signing not long ago with his ...