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Earth Chats: Newt GingrichHow to lower carbon output without hurting the economy or expanding governmental powers.

Posted Monday, April 21, 2008, at 12:27 PM ET

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Newt Gingrich: You raise a good point, and as somebody that studies paleontology, I am well aware we have had much higher carbon levels (pre-historic time periods, probably caused by volcanoes) and much higher temperatures in the past. In addition, around 11,000 years ago, the Gulf Stream stopped for 600 years for reasons we don't understand. Europe went into an ice age. Then the Gulf Stream restarted for reasons we don't understand and the ice age disappeared.

So a great deal of the "current science" is in fact politics.

However, the word "conservative" includes "conservation" as its root. And conservatives should be cautious. Therefore, I am willing to look for methods of lowering carbon that do not destroy the economy or give the government increased power.

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Washington: Critics of the property rights platform of the Contract With America argued that requiring the public to routinely pay to protect the environment would impose large and unfair financial burdens on the taxpayer as well as derail environmental protections. Where do you stand now on that part of the Contract?

Newt Gingrich: I think property rights are an inherent part of our constitutional liberty and I do not understand those who would steal without compensation. If it is important enough, the government can pay for it. Taking without compensation is tyranny.

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McLean, Va.: In the 1990s, when you ran the House, you tried to shut down the Department of Energy, successfully cut research funding and other support for all clean energy research (including biofuels), fought (actually stopped) the joint government-industry effort to develop a superefficient car, shepherded efforts to zero out all the programs aimed specifically at reducing greenhouse emissions and accelerating technology deployment, and eliminated the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). Considering your actual record, why should we take your prescriptions seriously?

Newt Gingrich: Well, Edward O. Wilson, one of the leading biologists in the world, described me as the savior of the Endangered Species Act. As Republican whip in 1990 I helped pass the Clean Air Act which led to a dramatic improvement in acid rain. And I have been actively involved in environmental issues since I taught environmental studies at West Georgia College from 1970-78.

We should distinguish leading on the environment with sustaining bureaucracies that do little. The Office of Technology Assessment was bureaucratic and obsolete and I recommended Congress develop a relationship with the Nat'l Academy of Sciences which would give us better scientific advice. The project on the car threw money away without achievement. The Dept. of Energy is an obsolete bureaucracy that has failed to solve our nuclear waste problems despite spending an immense amount of money.

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Chicago: "I prefer incentives to punishments because they work faster and with less distortion of the economy." But didn't a cap-and-trade system work well in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions in the 1990s?

Newt Gingrich: That cap and trade system involved a very small number of players and a very specific product. A carbon cap and trade system would be massively more complex. It would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy.

I think that tax credits for reducing carbon loading would work faster in a much more decentralized way by rewarding people for doing the right thing.

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Burbank, Calif.: Would you accept being Secretary of Energy if President McCain asked you?

Newt Gingrich: No but I would be willing to Chair a Commission on establishing huge tax-free prizes for all the breakthroughs we need.

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South Bend, Ind.: Obviously the United States taking action on reducing its carbon emissions would be a good thing, but how would you propose to get China, India and the developing world to use greener technologies and prevent deforestation?

Newt Gingrich: You ask exactly the question which led me to write Contract with the Earth with Terry Maple. A regulatory litigation model of coercing change has no hope of being effective in China and India in the next 30 years because they are desperate for economic growth and a higher standard of living. Therefore, a successful environmental movement has to use science and technology and entrepreneurship to develop dramatically better solutions at much lower cost. For example, a very inexpensive hydrogen car would change the entire trajectory of environmental impact for China and India. CAFE standards have no prospect of working in those countries because the sheer number of additional cars would dramatically increase carbon loading. But American help in developing a next-generation hydrogen automobile system could preempt enormous quantities of carbon from every going into the atmosphere, and would be acceptable in China and India, not to mention the United States and the rest of the industrial world.

Thank you for having me. I encourage you to visit www.contractwiththeearth.com to learn more about green conservatism.