Like I said, I understand the tradeoffs, and agree that it looks like they'll tilt favorably to electric cars, in the longer run. My point is that the rhetoric

Like I said, I understand the tradeoffs, and agree that it looks like they'll tilt favorably to electric cars, in the longer run. My point is that the rhetoric Arnold is using is a classic form of what psychologists call "extremifying," i.e. presenting a danger or tradeoff as much more dangerous or binary than it really is -- in order to, you know, get people to "do the right thing". (Or perhaps because he can't really tell the difference). And in a world beset with ignorance, chronic attention deficit and a lack of critical thinking skills all around, this is not a good thing.