Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been passionate about giving back. The former governor of California began contributing to charities early in the 1970s, and at 75, he founded an international climate initiative. Recently, Arnie sat with his dear friend and also a co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, José Andrés. During their conversation, the two friends talked about climate action, and the renowned Spanish chef disclosed some alarming stats about fossil fuels. 

The bodybuilding icon, who considers the Michelin Star chef his “twin”, listened to the 53-year-old with rapt attention. He praised Andrés for his solution and promised to discuss the issue during his environmental conference. 

A simple but unfathomably large undertaking

Earlier in the clip shared by Schwarzenegger, the 53-year-old revealed one of the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions. “The way people feed themselves the way people cook,” said Andrés. “Almost 3 billion people! 3 billion people! cook with charcoal with fossil fuels,”  he added. “They cook with three rocks on the floor and some wood or some charcoal. In the process of feeding themselves, they’re making themselves unhealthy,” said the Spanish Michelin Star Chef.

Hence 3,000,000,000 people are contributing directly to global warming, pollution, and deforestation. However, the renowned chef also had a solution to the problem. “I do believe if we provide every family in the world with a clean kitchen like you and I have at home, we can help,” said Andrés.

According to Andreas, if every home on the planet had a clean kitchen, then emissions, deforestation, hunger, poverty, and many other issues could be controlled better. Modern, “clean” kitchens have cooking appliances powered by either LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) or electricity. While LPG is derived from petroleum it burns much cleaner than the charcoal Andrés mentions.

Meanwhile, electricity power appliances like induction stoves, microwaves, etc, have no direct emissions. Schwarzenegger agreed with his 22-year younger twin. “I think this is a brilliant idea,” responded the Governator. “We definitely will bring this up in our discussion with our Environmental Conference,” he added.

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Schwarzenegger must’ve been fascinated with his friend’s suggestion as he retweeted the clip. “Always great talking about a cleaner future with my friend @chefjoseandres,” wrote the 75-year-old. However, while Jose Andrés’s idea would have a massive, positive impact, the sheer scale of the undertaking would be unfathomable.

Providing three billion people with clean technology would require a collaborative effort on a global scale. However, now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to act on it, Andres’s idea would reach a lot more people around the globe.

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