A few weeks ago, I talked about Al Gore’s new “We Campaign” and its multi-million dollar ad campaign featuring such strange pairings as Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, and Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi.
Well the ads are up and running – you’ve probably seen some of them. And, I have to say, they’re pretty amusing, and sort of thought-provoking. Check out the Gingrich-Pelosi ad here. Apparently, Gingrich’s appearance in the ad, and position on the climate change issue, raised the hackles of many of his conservative supporters. Today, Newt responded, saying:
“There is an important debate going on right now over the right energy policy, the right environmental policy, and making sure we do the right things for our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. Conservatives are missing from this debate, and I think that’s a mistake. When it comes to preserving our environment for future generations, we can’t have a slogan of “Just yell no!”
I have a different view. I think it’s important to be on the stage, to engage in the debate, and to communicate our position clearly. There is a big difference between left-wing environmentalism that wants higher taxes, bigger government., more bureaucracy, more regulation, more red tape, and more litigation and a Green Conservatism that wants to use science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurs, and prizes to find a way to creatively invent the kind of environmental future we all want to live in. Unless we start making the case for the latter, we’re going to get the former. That’s why I took part in the ad.”
I couldn’t agree more with Newt’s position here. I’m a conservative, but I’m also a passionate environmentalist. And it dismays me to see that, somewhere along the way, conservatives wrote themselves out of the environmental debate. I don’t question the motives of my liberal environmentalist friends, but I do question their methods. And I genuinely believe conservatives have something to say on this issue. As a reader recently wrote on this site, conservation is inherently conservative.
It’s time that conservatives and Republicans got involved in the environmental debate. Now more than ever, we need a seat at the table on this issue. It’s good to see that Speaker Gingrich agrees.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Climate Change, Politics/Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I couldn’t disagree more. The clear perception here will be that conservatives agree with the premise that: 1) there is Global Warming, 2) it is caused by man, and 3) that it is dangerous and must be stopped/reversed.
I disagree with the false premise. Over thousands and thousands of years, there have been natural warming and cooling cycles. Over the past decade, there has been NO change in the climate at all. This winter was the coldest on record for half of the planet. Many, many notable scientists and climatologists do not believe there is any manmade global warming. And conservative acquiescence simply persuades more people that the science is definitive. I just don’t believe it and won’t believe it until there is proof. At this point, it fits the definition of religion to me.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
You may not question the motives of your liberal friends, but you should be questioning the motives of the people from whom they get their information. Newt’s response frankly doesn’t hold water. The only piece of actionable information that people get from those ads is a website put together by one of Al Gore’s organizations. The solutions they propose on that site are anything but “free-market.”
If we agree with Newt that we must accept the premise of anthropogenic climate change, it is still a poor move to show up in a thirty-second ad that sends people to a website promoting leftist solutions and assume that somehow people will magically stumble onto your free-market position. All that Gingrich accomplished by doing this ad is strengthening the Left’s position on this issue.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
If Newt was a Democrat advocating for “prizes,” which one would think have to be paid for with “tax money,” wouldn’t conservatives be crying tax-and-spend liberal? And if that’s not what he’s advocating, what DOES he mean? I don’t get how Newt can claim he’s advocating for climate action without supporting carbon caps. Don’t “prizes” without caps amount to incentives without objectives?
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I am not sure why some conservatives are caught up in this fraud. This is what I had to say about Newt. http://mark24609.blogspot.com/2008/04/newt-nancy-and-global-warming.html
I believe in the environment, but this environmental movement is nothing but a fraud. The latest bit of fraud in Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” http://mark24609.blogspot.com/2008/04/earth-day-38th-anniversary.html is just part of string of factual errors no different than Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
No matter how long you tell a lie does not make it true. Sure, the earth is warming. So what? No one can prove CO2 is the cause, and even if they could, they don’t know how to decrease it. In fact every measure that has been tried (Europe) has not succeeded. The only thing these fear mongers will succeed in doing is destroying the economy. Conservatives are falling for this fraud hook line and sinker
Conservatives should not be falling for this fraud, we should present the case of why the liberals are just plain wrong. And, if these environmental wackos are so concerned, why are we not building nuclear power plants, that produces the cleanest form of energy. And why do we continue with other fraud corn ethanol that produces more CO2 than fossil fuels.
Instead of perpetuating this fraud, we should be drilling for oil on our own land, looking for feasible alternative forms of energy like natural gas and building nuclear power plants. This world has gone mad.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I love Newt, I really do. He’s one of my role models for conservatism. But, on this ad campaign, he’s dead wrong. He of all people should understand what this ad looks like to the average American, but he is apparently missing the point entirely.
I know he’s got a serious bone to pick with Pelosi’s methods, and I know where to find his side of the debate. Most Americans, however, don’t, and they won’t bother to go looking. All they know is that this ad shows Newt Gingrich agreeing with Nancy Pelosi, so when she trots out the next massive ‘green’ energy bill they will automatically think Gingrich is on board.
It would be different if Newt still held office and had an active role in driving the methods used to address the environment, but he doesn’t. It would be different if it was made clear in the ad that he didn’t agree with Pelosi’s ideas or plans, but it isn’t. It would be different if Gingrich had the opportunity to outline the differences in the liberal and conservative approach in the ad, but he doesn’t. Those critical omissions mean that he has no realistic leverage with the American people against whatever Pelosi says, and that means he loses the PR battle before the legislative war even begins.
He didn’t just shoot himself in the foot, he just shot off his entire leg.
I agree that conservatives need to get into this fight, but we need to get into it based on the correct premise, and that does not include any compromise with the far Left. We must unapologetically promote free market solutions based on economic growth and innovation, and never, ever, EVER give an inch to the liberal theology that is man-made climate change.
This ad campaign was a big mistake. Now our task will be much more difficult than before.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
[...] Besides, there’s tons of green dough to be made off of all-things-eco. Call your broker now. Full post here. [...]
April 24th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I, a libertarian conservative, share your feelings of importance for cleaning up the environment. But that is NOT what Newt Gingrich was talking about in the video. He said “We [he and Nancy Pelosi] do agree that our country must take action to address climate change.” This is an agreement that man is causing global warming.
We aren’t.
Newt Ginrich has never been a conservative. He has always been an establishment man.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
[...] “conservative” friends at Terra Rossa alerted me to this responsive post by Whit Ayers.  I couldn’t agree more with Newt’s position here. I’m a conservative, but [...]
April 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I’ll begin with a disclaimer: I’m a democrat. So it’s obvious from the tone of many of the comments here that many of you will write me off witthout a further thought. That’s a shame because I don’t write off Newt, even though I disagree with him on lots of things. He is dead on here.
I gotta say: You guys need to wake up in the 21st century and get with the program. There are plenty of legitimate arguments about what to do about climate change. Conservatives ought to be weighing in with creative solutions to this, and some are. But flogging the dead horse of denying it’s happening is looking increasingly silly. It will only marginalize and isolate conservatives in the end. Almost everywhere I look, mainstream conservative leaders — like Newt, like President Bush (at least in lip service), like Governor Schwarzenegger (OK, you can argue whether he’s a conservative), even Pat Roberston for cryin’ out loud — have gotten over it. They have accepted the overwhelming evidence for human-induced climate change and moved on to the hard job of figuring out what to do about it. I salute them. Many of the comments in this forum, in contrast, seem to be coming out of a time warp.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
The earth is flat, I don’t care what anybody says! Still denying climate change and/or that people are a primary cause of it (directly or indirectly) makes as much sense as that statement. How do you begin to have a dialogue with a flat-earther?
April 24th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I’m not sure, but I know how to squelch a debate–call someone a flat-earther.
Nice one, Jack.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Let me reiterate: we are not denying climate change. We are denying the supposition that man is causing climate change. There’s a critical difference. Serious people are not denying that the climate is changing - that’s a ludicrous statement. One quick example: why is Greenland covered with ice, while Iceland is covered with green foliage? It’s because they used to be reversed. The Earth goes in cycles, and that includes a general warming and cooling cycle. Duh.
The problem I (and many of my fellow conservatives, I’m sure) have with climate change hysteria is the idea that man is causing it. These natural cycles have been in effect long before humans were belching out CO2 or using oil for millions of vehicles around the world. To think that man has had a drastic impact upon the global climate is not only the height of arrogance, but also to show a vast misunderstanding of the global climate itself.
Sure, climate change is happening, but we are not the cause. If, then, we are not the cause, there is really nothing significant we can do to ‘fix’ it. So, get government out of the way (how’s that for a creative solution?) and let the free market incent those who innovate to improve emissions or find alternative fuels that are effective.
That is a true solution that will work.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I don’t believe that conservatives do not care about environment. In fact, I think they care more than left and with far more logic and reason. The left tends to add a whole lot of BS to the mix creating chaos and confusion.
IMHO, what is happening here is that the concerns of the right regarding the environment is simply being ignored. Therefore, I applaud this blog for tackling this issue; however, Newt made a horrible error in judgment by nationally advertising with Pelosi. Talk about a sure-fire way to insult the true Republican base! He could have done a pro-environmental push without her by his side. That would have carried a heck of a lot more weight. Instead, it was revolting to see him sitting there next to that destructive female politician.
I was sent a respectful e-mail regarding this blog and its purpose; sincere thanks for that as I’d not yet heard of it. However, while I respect your sentiments regarding what Newt has done, I cannot support his actions. I do; however, agree with you that red-staters need join the environmental debate. Guess I’m meeting you halfway??
Godspeed.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
The problems I have with green conservatism include:
1. Green conservatives claim green conservatism is an alternative that is more rational and viable than liberal environmentalism, which is not the truth
2. Green conservatives claim that environmentalists rely solely on litigation, regulation or statist solutions to environmental degradation, which is not the truth
3. Given the rhetoric it often seems that green conservatives have developed market-based mechanisms as an environmental management tool to fight environmental degradation, which is not the truth
4. Green conservatives ignore and leave environmentalists left asking the tough more applicable questions to environmental degradation like what will we do about an increasing world population
5. Green conservatives demonize litigation and regulation when in reality these tools are very much needed especially under the Bush Administration
6. Green conservatives are stealing elements of environmentalism like market-based mechanisms and making them their own. Environmentalists have been using market-based mechanisms to fight environmental degradation when appropriate. Certain fisheries use quota systems as a natural resource management tool but the quota system must exist within a regulatory framework. Otherwise, people will cheat.
7. The Law of Entropy will not allow free markets/market-based regulatory systems to stand alone
8. Personally, I believe it is dangerous to politicize environmentalism because environmentalism at its core is not to be politicized. Politicization demands benefit to politics or a political ideology or system and not towards the environment or Nature.
“conservatism…wants to use science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurs, and prizes to find a way to creatively invent the kind of environmental future we all want to live in.” You are literally cherry picking the elements, which sound the best.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
[...] is one. As my fellow Terra Rossa contributor Whit Ayres pointed out last week, Newt has been feeling the heat for his position on climate change and for appearing with Speaker Pelosi in a recent TV ad on the [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 12:23 am
I agree with Newt. Conservatives do need to be part of the debate, and the jury is still out on whether or not humans are causing global warming.
I also think that the motives of the liberal environmentalists ought to be questioned. I am sure that you will find that there are those who are more interested in advancing their world socialist agenda at the expense of the USA than really care about the environment just as surely as you can find big businesses more interested in making a buck than in the environment.
The greatest failure of the conservative movement is its failure to go out and explain and sell their positions to the people. And this is on every issue, not just the environment. Every time they raise an issue they meekly allow themselves to be shouted down with over emotional nonsense like “they want to poison our drinking water”, “they want our grandparents to be forced to eat dog food”, or look at the poor polar bear on his ever shrinking ice berg. Nobody refutes their allegations. Instead, the Mccain-s, Bushes and Dole-s of the world cave in and agree to some “compromise” legislation until the left gets what they wanted, but in increments.
Environmentalists friends have hyperventilated to me many times over how the air and the water just keep getting dirtier and we must do something. They refuse to acknowledge the progress that has been made in cleaning up the air & water over the last several decades. One day they are in a tizzy about banning mercury thermometers, the next day in a tizzy about how we all need to use mercury containing compact fluorescent bulbs. There were scientists in the 70-s who wanted to spread coal dust on the polar ice caps to reverse global cooling. Where would we be now if that would have happened? But we cant learn from our mistakes. Instead we must make knee jerk reactions in the opposite extreme.
When William F. Buckley Jr. had his TV show, he would have hippie radicals on from time to time. While they spewed their emotional propaganda nonsense he would reply with calm reasoned responses. This is what conservatives ought to be doing with the environmental debate, and I think that is what Newt is trying to accomplish. Conservatives need to start making calm and reasoned arguments about the environment, economics, and national security and keep saying it until the message gets across. Start worrying about the long term views of the people, not about winning the next election.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:30 am
[...] last week’s post about Newt Gingrich and green conservatism generated quite a debate among our readers and quickly became, I believe, the most-read post in the [...]
May 7th, 2008 at 10:08 am
[...] the need to get conservative voices into the debate over energy and the environment (see part 1 here, and part 2 here). My views on these issues have generated quite a debate among our readers, and [...]