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The Green Newt Must Quickly Go Extinct

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 12th, 2011 at 11:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It was 10 April 2007. Senator Kerry and Former Congressman Newt Gingrich appeared to debate one another on Global Warming. Newt Gingrich left John Kerry flabbergasted. He looked even more tongue-tied than he did during the 2004 Presidential Election. The Senator came to debate a Denialist and wound up having to hug the tree harder than his GOP opponent. Gingrich made the following statement during his debate with Senator Kerry.

Gingrich didn’t hesitate. “My message,” he said, “is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading of the atmosphere.” The pro-Kerry crowd applauded. “And do it urgently?” the senator pressed. “And do it urgently, yeah,” the former speaker replied. “I think there has to be, if you will, a green conservatism,” he added.

(HT: Dana Milbank, WaPo)


That was then. Like Mitt Romney promising to kill ObamaCare, or Senator John McCain at least verbally supporting a money-saving move of merging the EPA to the DOE, Newt could have publically walked away from his past association with Global Warming Lobby. Tim Pawlenty did just that before the first GOP debate.

Yet he hasn’t, and walking back his prior stance in favor of regulating Carbon Loading to combat Global Warming will not be an easy task. Gingrich is in the YouTube Hall of Fame for his commercial about AGW in which he co-starred with Nancy Pelosi. A Colorado Group called The American Tradition Partnership brings Gingrich’s record of Anti-Global Warming activism out into the light.

They responded to Newt Gingrich’s announcement of candidacy as follows:

“American Tradition Partnership welcomes Newt Gingrich’s entry into the Democrat presidential primary, where his decades-long record of radical ‘green’ activism will make for a close contest between he and President Obama for the liberal base,” ATP executive director Donald Ferguson said in a release.

(HT: ColoradoIndependent.com)

Ferguson wasn’t through attempting to list the Georgia Newt as an endangered political species. He continues the assault on Gingrich’s environmental pro-regulation stance below.

“Gingrich’s 2008 TV ad he recorded at the request of Al Gore, where he snuggles on a love seat with Nancy Pelosi and blames the American economy for so-called ‘global warming’ is the kind of manifesto that really speaks to radical environmentalists.”

(HT: ColoradoIndependent, ObCit.)

So why would this hurt Gingrich? He’s cute as a fuzzy and crunchy Enviro-Con. If only it were as simple as they cute, little owl saying “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.” Then Gingrich would be an asset. But it’s not an asset, and Gingrich’s beliefs could get a lot of American industrial plants shut down. Ironically, if AGW is actually happening, American Greens could make it much worse. Here’s how the diabolical economic conundrum works.

Cap and Trade, Carbon Taxes and production limits all effectively do the same things. They cause the American economy to produce less. President Obama has gone on record supporting EPA regulations to accomplish this task. “America has 2% of the world’s population and produces 25% of its pollution.” Environmentalists sonorously preach.

What never gets examined is the proper comparison. Per marginal unit of production, how much do American factories pollute? In comparison to factories in China, Mexico, Brazil or India, per marginal unit of production, how much do American factories pollute? Perhaps the recent birth of a bicephalous Chinese Baby is merely anecdotal and has no bearing on the levels of pollution released by Chinese industry. Perhaps not.

Whether the Chinese have greater levels of pollution per marginal unit of production is vital. They were not playing ball in either Kyoto or Copenhagen. Any AGW targeting that American regulators do will be unilateral. It will target only American; and not foreign industrial production.

Thus, corporations would have yet another reason why hiring Americans can be deemed as economically stupid. Industries operating in the US of A already have $1.75 Trillion reasons a year not to hire the Goddam Yankees as it is. The businesses not doing business in the US will do it elsewhere instead.

If “elsewhere” implies a place that is so utterly polluted that women give birth to bicephalous kids, than every unit of production outsourced from the US to “elsewhere” will add to the deleterious environmental impact of economic activity by the marginal difference in pollution per unit between the US and “elsewhere.” This is how American Greens knock-down the double shot. They not only ruin the US economy by getting US workers fired, they also kill the planet by having all the same things produced in dirtier factories, using cheaper labor “elsewhere.”

Thus, the Crunchy-Con mandate becomes vastly clear. We must save our world. We must preserve our industrial economy. We must hug our herbaceous borders. We must vote for somebody other than Newt Gingrich in the upcoming GOP primaries.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ Daniel Horowitz

    People too often laugh off the eco-creeps as obscure and absurd weirdos. As you pointed out, they are among the most consequential parasites on our economy, sucking out $1.75 trillion annually. This must be a litmus test for all presidential candidates. They need to categorically reject the premises of the green agenda. It is more than merely a budget issue.

    The EPA costs taxpayers “just” $10 billion annually, but they extirpate hundreds of billions of dollars, jobs, wages, and cheap products from our economy. That cost is incalculable. This is why it was pathetic for McCain to tout his anti-earmark record, while supporting eco fascism.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      If you want the dirty truth about how common property effects the natural environment, Ecocide In The USSR is a pretty detailed and gory read.

    • jamesonx

      …the country has seen a marked downturn in river fires.


      Fire on the Cuyahoga River.

      • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

        I was totally unaware of where CO2 fit in the Stoichiometric triangle.

  • http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/ kipling

    I could not resist.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack
    • gekster
    • freemanja1991

      He would sign a cap and trade bill?

      • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

        I don’t see why not.

  • Common_Cents

    He’s gotta come clean and admit mistakes early, not shy away and try to finesse it like Romney has w/ romneycare.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      He absolutely needs to repudiate further environmentalism or tie its adoption to improved environmental regulation abroad. Ptherwise, he’s just finishing what the recent recession started wrt the US economy.

  • YnotNOW

    Gingrich has a brilliant mind, and he comes up with some great analysis and recommendations. And some terrible analysis & recommendations. The problem is that he seems to not be able to distinguish between the two, so he needs to work under a leader that can sort out his ramblings and only act on the good ones.

  • msctex

    . . .is perfectly willing not to let Facts get in the way of a Greater Good.

    I can’t help but find Newt too bright to have fallen for The Science. (As in, “I believe in The Science.” Those skewed statistics approaching the status of scripture among those who need it to be so.)

    The only alternative for Gingrich is much, much worse. He has found a reason to need it to be so, or thinks he has.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      He is a me-too crowdist who wanted to hang with the cool kids.

      • msctex

        There’s really no way of knowing for sure without direct and real contact with the man, since we’re trying to discern true motives. I’d like to think the kind of high school priorities you ascribe are beyond the man — or any man his age who wants to influence my life — but we’ll have to wait and see how things play out.

        • haumea

          That’s what it sounds like to me.

          After Climategate he changed course, and is unlikely to reverse.

          • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

            of the trap. What bums me out is just how chummy he got with those guys…

          • Goldwater_Conservative

            the global warming scam is my litums test. Al Gore is about the worst person I can think of in this country, he is a pure fake (maybe even as a human being) and anyone who fell for this UN led lie lacks judgement. People can make mistakes, but falling for this clear scam is a big red flag. Guys like Inhofe and Barton who boldly called this a scam from day one get majors points with me.

          • gpclaw

            that looking at the science (ah-hem), that it may be prudent for individuals to do what they can to lower their CO2 foot print, just in case further research proves climate change theory to be correct.

            It’s another thing all together, to create a massive government program, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, and countless pages of regulations, based of a theory that has yielded no experiments, or predictions establishing it’s validity.

          • Goldwater_Conservative

            if I candidate says I think we should be good stewards of God’s creation and that includes doing what we can in a responsible and cost effective way to lower the pollution that we create, I’m all for that. But anyone who says, like Obama did, that we have a planet in crisis and we must do everything we can or the planet will perish is a scam artist.

          • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

            I’m not 100% convinced that a small amount of AGW isn’t happening. What I am 100% convinced about is that it poses nowhere near enough of a threat to human existance that gets attributed to it. In other words, any AGW mitigation policy that I would actually buy and support would have to have a much lower cost than the proposed alternatives put forward by leaders of either party.

          • YnotNOW

            is that the huge amounts of $$$ and harm to our economy could be better spent on other priorities – every thing from lowering our debt to fighting malaria in Africa. These would have a much better return on investment.

          • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

            Any useful regulation has a Cost-Benefit case to support adoption. I don’t see enough of a threat to justify anything in the same parsec as Waxman-Markey.

          • gpclaw

            Says the federal government.

          • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

            Either an environmental regulation saves x thousand lives + prevents y$mil of medical bills and property loss or its an unjustifiable burden on the taxpaying public. My argument is that given the burden Waxman-Markey would have imposed on business and the unemployment and misery that would have followed, there is zero argument that anything close to enough global warming is occurring to justify that bill ever being signed into law.

          • msctex

            The same people have been spewing slightly different versions of the same crap with the same dire consequences, since before mankind discovered sticking the meat over the fire makes it taste better. Within my lifetime alone, the Gores of the day were claiming the planet was going to be dangerously colder by now.

            Gore is the the stoned guy across the hall in your college dorm, who never seemed to go to class yet somehow got good grades. Upon graduation, there was a new gym with his father’s name on it. And yes, as noted above, he is a profoundly rotten human being.

          • gpclaw

            We won’t experience any of the consequences for decades.

            Maybe I’m crazy, but I but into Ray Kurzweil’s “law of accelerating returns”, which predicts technology to increase at an exponential rate. This would mean that over the next ten years, we will experience the same amount of technological innovation, as we did over the previous 100 years. An example of this, would be to compare the computing power of your average smart phone, to that of a PC in the 90′s. It’s no contest.

            This would suggest, that 50 years from now, with the advancements in nanotechnology and particle physics, if global warming is actually related to CO2, that we should be in a better situation to address global warming at a much lower cost.

            If the “greenies” really want to do something to “fight global warming”, try finding a way to get kids to think that math and science are cool, so we can produce more engineers.

          • msctex

            It might be hard to get an honest answer, but ask a hard-core Green if were your theory undeniably the case, would that make them happy?

            For a few, I’d say yes. There are a few with their hearts in the right place. But for the majority, you would be cutting off their meal ticket, and reason for being.

          • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

            since I always had my doubts and I am just a dumb school teacher, not a brilliant PHD historian. He should have looked at the recent history of scare hoax’s, of which we have had many.

  • freemanja1991

    Abdicate cap and trade or just trying to reduce carbon, because just saying we should reduce could go many routes.

    • The_Gadfly

      the repeated decimation of American manufacturing capacity, regardless of the actual impact on the environment. Moving oil production to Brazil doesn’t increase its safety or reduce its polluting effect. Same thing applies for the carbon tax.

    • gpclaw

      There are a number of quotes from 2007, where Newt states his support for cap and trade. However, he supported a cap and trade system similar to the one used to reduce sulfur dioxide in the 90′s. The difference between that SO2 cap and trade system, and the most recent CO2 system, has to do with how the credits distributed.

      Under the SO2 program, the government didn’t charge businesses for credits, they only set a limit as to how much SO2 they could produce, so the credits were free. If a company came in under the cap, they could hold on the “credits” for future use, or sell them to someone else. So, the program didn’t necessarily increase costs to business, although I’m sure it did for some.

      Under the most recent CO2 cap and trade proposal, if memory serves correctly, businesses would be required to purchase credits from the government, creating an additional cost of doing business.

      There is no getting around the fact that both programs equal government intervention in the free market, although it is clear that the SO2 cap and trade program was less “evil” than the program for CO2.

      • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

        Another thing Newt doesn’t get is that SOx aerosols don’t stay airborne long enough to be well-mixed. That is, the air in and around a coal-fired generating plant will have a much heavier mass loading of SOx than the air near a hydro-electric generating plant. CO2 has a long enough residency time so that its mass loading in ppm will be equally distributed. That’s why you can reduce SOx amounts via Cap and Trade but not CO2. You eventually get the same global concentration whether an equal amount of CO2 is released in either Richmond, VA or Beijing.

  • The_Gadfly

    for quite some time now. Even in the ideas generation department. I am doubtful anything he says over the next 6 months will change my opinion on that. Which is really, really sad since I liked most of what he did in the House. But I feel the same way about Patrick Buchanan.

  • westbrook348

    Could’ve sworn Newt was in favor of ethanol subsidies.. If so, why are we even talking about him?

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      I’m doing my little part to make sure he runs in cement shoes.

  • romeg

    since leaving the House. He is an inside-the-beltway Washington Politician apparently addicted to the social life there. I see no evidence that he has experienced any growth as a conservative Leader.

    Would that he had come back to Georgia and run for Governor. Had he done so and won, he would have the executive experience and credibility necessary for the job of POTUS. Certainly if a crook like Nathan Deal can win in GA Newt could have done so much more easily. I doubt Georgia would be any Worse off and might actually be better off.

    But Newt would know better than to engage in this kind of nonsensical pandering to the Greenies.