Newt Gingrich Jumps on the Save the Earth Bandwagon

Posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

By ahedgehog

Fission in actionAlex Scholz

Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, has just coauthored a book on the environment, A Contract with the Earth, with former zoo CEO Terry Maple, forwarded by the venerable Harvard biologist, E.O. Wilson. One might quibble about the strength or Newt Gingrich’s environmental record, still, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Obviously E.O. Wilson has.

The almost presidential candidate has seen the light on the environment. That’s a fine thing. I heard an interview a few nights ago in which he focused on the need to harness the agility of the free markets to find creative environmental innovations. Check. New technology. Check. He trotted out some platitudes here and there. I have to admit, he still sounds like he is getting the hang of it with environmental issues. He mentioned nuclear power as having a lot of potential. A lot of the folks who came in with the Republican Revolution seem to really like nuclear power–that and the idea of drilling in ANWR. Sometimes I listen to them and it crosses my mind that if they actually got to drill in ANWR along with a few more nuclear power plants, they would think it was better than Christmas and their birthdays rolled into one.

I don’t think I heard him mention anything about having the nuclear power plants insured by insurance companies in the free market. I wonder why? To quote McDonough on it, “Don’t get me wrong: I love nuclear energy! It’s just that I prefer fusion to fission. And thank God we have our nuclear reactor exactly where we want it, 93 million miles away–and its tireless.”

Well if Pat Robertson is talking about global warming, maybe Gingrich with his new-found green credentials will even eventually get his weight behind solar and leave this fission thing behind.

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