Those must be some mighty green vapor trails ...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who talks a good game on protecting "the environment", apparently isn't so friendly to it himself.

(Photo from L.A. Times article on the Governor's travel costs)

From a Sacramento Bee editorial:

As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the governor has been spending nearly every night in his Brentwood mansion, shuttling between Sacramento and Southern California in his private jet.

The governor uses his own money to pay for his Gulfstream flights, which price out at about $10,000 an hour, the Times reports.

And what about the cost to the environment? The governor's staff says he purchases "carbon credits." Such credits are aimed at offsetting the greenhouse gases generated by his flights but do nothing about the particulates and smog-forming compounds they spew into the air.

Obviously, this green-leaning governor (pictured last year on the cover of Newsweek with a globe on his finger) is sensitive about the apparent hypocrisy of his daily jet-setting.

From another report we learn that The Guvernator apparently flies a Gulfstream IV:

The governor's plane has come under fire previously for its impact on the environment and for its $12,800 hourly cost, paid for by donors, when he goes on trade missions and campaign trips. Schwarzenegger pays for his own daily flight costs and for carbon credits that finance environmental projects to offset his emissions.

Schwarzenegger routinely flies between Santa Monica and Sacramento, about a 50-minute flight. Each hour, his Gulfstream jet emits as much as 4.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the online luxury journal Helium Report. That's roughly equivalent to what a small passenger car produces over the course of 8,000 miles.

So, the jet-set Guv's private jet ride back and forth from L.A. to Sacramento emits as much as a small car driven about 13,300 miles. Nice.

To be sure, we ought not to begrudge Gov. Schwarzenegger his private jet (assuming he's not spending taxpayer dollars on this lavish mode of transportation), but he ought not to be out telling the public that they need to conserve energy, or live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. You first, buddy.