Newt on the Environment in Real Change

Today is Earth Day!  Over the course of this month, I have been blogging through A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple.  For today, I will blog about two chapters on the environment in Newt Gingrich’s Real Change.  They are Chapter Sixteen, “Green Conservatism Is the Real Answer to Environmental Challenges”, and Chapter Seventeen, “Energy Strategies for National Security, the Environment, and the Economy”.

Regarding Chapter Sixteen, there were some differences between that chapter and A Contract with the Earth.  Not contradictions, but differences.  Whereas A Contract with the Earth was for America weeding itself off of fossil fuel, Chapter Sixteen of Real Change included building more oil refineries under the rubric of Green Conservatism.  Chapters Sixteen-Seventeen also promote nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions, something that did not strike me as a prominent theme in A Contract with the Earth.  Chapter Sixteen of Real Change was also more partisan.  It criticized the Superfund and an approach to the environment that emphasizes “lawsuits, paperwork, litigation, and bureaucracy” rather than encouraging the development of new technology that will help the environment (page 191).  Chapter Sixteen also disapproves of Al Gore’s contention that all humankind and posterity, not just individuals, have rights, for Newt interprets this as “some collectivist and non-democratic elite’s interpretation of what is needed” (page 194).  In A Contract with the Earth, by contrast, Newt is not partisan but focuses on the good that people are doing to help the environment.

I learned about the polar bear Knut in Chapter Sixteen of Real Change.  See here for wikipedia’s article.  According to Newt, Knut’s mother did not feed him, and so human caretakers at the zoo did so, and that outraged animal rights activist Frank Albrecht, who thought that the zoo should kill the bear because it would have died in its natural habitat.  I found it sad that an animal rights activist would support killing an animal, for the idea behind animal rights should be the preservation of animal life.  As I read some about Albrecht’s position, however, I saw that he was concerned that keeping Knut alive would not be in Knut’s interest, for Albrecht did not deem it appropriate for humans to feed Knut by hand, in light of animal protection laws, plus he thought that Knut was dying a slow death because he was separated from his mother.  Albrecht probably saw killing Knut as a form of mercy-killing.  When Knut demonstrated that he could live on his own, however, Albrecht reversed his position that the zoo should kill the bear.

A feature of Chapter Sixteen that I appreciated was Newt’s discussion of how the Trust for Public Land will give Atlanta twenty-two miles of parks and trails.  Newt did not mention how nature can spiritually edify us, but that’s what I thought about when reading that passage: that walking on trails and observing nature will remind us of how small we are and allow us to see nature’s beauty, things that Newt discusses in A Contract with the Earth.

Chapter Seventeen of Real Change surprised me because I was expecting a lot of “Drill, Baby, Drill”, but that’s not what I encountered.  Rather, Newt focused on green technology and hydrogen.  He even argued that nuclear power could support our conversion to hydrogen power, saying that “Nuclear power has an additional bonus in that nuclear power plants can produce hydrogen for a hydrogen-powered automobile system at night when the electricity grid does not need the power” (page 200-201).

My overall reaction to Newt’s discussion on the environment is that green technology should be encouraged and promoted, by government and within the private sector.  I would not, however, dispense with government regulations, for those keep businesses accountable.  I’m for the regulations being sensible, however, and the focus should be on results: Are the air and water cleaner, and have CO2 emissions been reduced?

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I finished A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple.  What interested me in my latest reading was the biography of Newt at the end of the book.  Among other things, it states the following:

“Since his days as a college professor in western Georgia, where, in the early 1970s, he was an environmental studies professor, he has been involved in a variety of environmental initiatives.  He was the founding chair of the West Georgia College Chapter of the Georgia Conservancy.  He has championed various environmental causes, including efforts to create the Chattahoochee River Greenway, protect the wild tigers of Asia, and establish the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary.”

This tells me that Newt has long been concerned about environmental issues, meaning that he wasn’t just writing a book about the environment for the sake of writing a book about the environment.  He has a record of concern on this issue.  On some level, I already knew that, for I remember hearing in 1994 the story of how Newt as a child got involved in the political process by lobbying for a zoo.

But is Newt’s political and governmental record environmentally friendly?  I’d say “yes” and “no”.  You can read here, here, and here to see what I mean.

So what are my impressions of A Contract with the Earth?  I liked its optimism and its accounts of how people in the private sector are working to protect and improve the environment.  Whether their efforts are enough, I’d probably say “no”, since environmental problems still remain.  But at least they’re doing something.

I would have liked to have seen more of Newt’s critique of current environmental policy.  I wrote here a while back, in discussing an NPR story on Newt’s Contract with the Earth:

“According to Gingrich, the environmental movement has turned many conservatives off from caring about the environment. He states that, starting in the 1980′s, ‘the leading environmental groups on the left — particularly the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters — began to equate the environment with litigation, regulation, taxation, [and] bureaucracy[,] and you were either for their solution or you were against the environment.’ For Gingrich, the result of liberal ‘solutions’ was harm to the economy. As an alternative, Gingrich proposes (in NPR’s words) a ‘science-and-technology-based, entrepreneurial, free-market approach that incentivizes the development of new systems and new technologies that can lead you to a better environment.’”

I wish that I saw more of a discussion of these issues in Newt’s book: the history of environmentalism, and how left-wing environmental policies have failed.  I did learn some about the history of environmentalism in the book, for Newt and Maple talked a little about the Muir-Pinchot debate.  I just wish I saw more about the history of environmentalism.

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In my latest reading of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple appear to disapprove of hysterical scenarios about potential environmental and other catastrophes, for they believe that cooler heads can develop technology that will save the day.  For example, Y2K was averted through technology, and some of the technology installed to prevent Y2K allowed some potential 9/11 problems to be circumvented years later.  And, although Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich in 1968 predicted that there would be a world famine between 1970 and 1985 due to overpopulation, what happened was quite different, according to Newt and Maple: “Instead, the world experienced a precipitous drop in fertility and food was exported by the United States at record levels because of the effects of the so-called green revolution in agriculture” (page 186).

As I have read A Contract with the Earth, I have wondered about the stance on climate change that is held by Newt and Maple.  On the one hand, they don’t care for apocalyptic scenarios, and they appear to express some doubt as to the extent to which human beings are causing climate change.  On the other hand, they advocate the reduction of CO2 emissions, which implies that they believe that humans are contributing to climate change, on some level.  In my latest reading, they say that we should seek to reduce CO2 emissions (through public and private encouragement of new technologies) in order to mitigate climate change, and, if that doesn’t work, then we’ll have to find a way to adapt.  Newt and Maple affirm on page 193 that “We cannot afford to be wrong about global climate change”, but they do not think that doomsday scenarios and paranoia really help the situation.

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In my last reading of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple quote a statement by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods:

“Nature—-the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful—-offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot.  Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.”

Louv’s point (in the words of Newt and Maple) is that “children need exposure to nature for the healthy development of their senses, to learn and to create” (page 181).  Louv believes that their lack of exposure to nature has contributed to ADHD.  Earlier in the book, on page 176, Newt and Maple refer to the example of Charles Darwin, who was enchanted with nature from an early age and whose “youthful enthusiasm for nature lasted a lifetime” (page 176).  (Is Newt a Republican who believes in evolution?)

I believe that nature is valuable apart from whether or not it benefits human beings, but I do agree with Newt and Maple that people lose out when they are not exposed to nature.  Nature makes us feel small when we look at its greatness and beauty.  It inspires us and makes us think about “infinity and eternity”.

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For my write-up today of A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple, I’ll highlight a passage from page 167:

“Sustained environmental protection and new, safe, and clean environmental technologies will require commitments that cross hardened political boundaries.  We face funding shortfalls in energy research, which has plunged to nearly half the levels established a decade earlier.  Because venture capitalists tend to fund ideas that are nearly ready for the marketplace, the type of arduous research that produces real breakthroughs can only be funded by astute governments.  America used to be that kind of government, but our commitments have wavered in recent years so government incentives for energy research will be issues in future political campaigns.”

The impression that I’ve gotten from much of the book is that the private sector is eager to do the pro-environment thing because it is right and also profitable.  Newt and Maple appear to prefer letting the private sector do its magic rather than relying on top down, one-size-fits-all government regulations.  In the above passage, however, they acknowledge that doing the right thing is not necessarily profitable in an immediate sense, and so the government should play a key role in getting energy research off the ground.

Newt and Maple argue for strong leadership.  Could Newt be that strong leader, though?  I respect that he has thought a lot about environmental issues, for he has been an environmental studies professor.  At the same time, his support for “drill, baby, drill” and his attacks on his opponents during his Presidential candidacy make me wonder if he can be a unifying leader on the issue of the environment.  Moreover, it has been argued that Newt is good at coming up with ideas, but not so much at seeing those ideas through.   Granted, Newt got the Contract with America on the table when he was Speaker, but my hunch is that he’s come up with far more ideas than he’s made into policy.

A Contract with the Earth 17: More on the Muir-Pinchot Debate

In my latest reading of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple talk more about the Muir-Pinchot debate, which I discussed in my post, “A Contract with the Earth 14: The Muir-Pinchot Debate”.

Gifford Pinchot was President Theodore Roosevelt’s head of the U.S. Forest Service, and he believed in conservation but also using the forests to benefit the economy.  Newt and Maple state on page 161 that Pinchot “believed that forestry managed wisely should yield economic benefits, whereas romantic preaching was doomed to failure.”  That “romantic preaching” was done by John Muir, who was more of a preservationist because he thought that nature had spiritual value for people.

Newt and Maple quote Georgia Tech professor Bryan Norton, who offered definitions of conservation and preservation.  Norton says the following:

“To conserve a resource or the productive potential of a source-generating system is to use it wisely, with the goal of maintaining its future availability or productivity…To preserve it…is to protect an ecosystem or a species, to the extent possible, from the disruptions attendant upon it from human use.”

Newt and Maple then say that “Intense conflict has been generated from these distinctions as they are practiced today, but there is plenty of opportunity to find common ground.”  And Newt and Maple appear to see value in both points of view.  On the one hand, like Pinchot, they talk about how devastating the environment has a deleterious economic impact on human beings, for resources are plundered and the sea-food business suffers when certain sea-creatures vanish.  On the other hand, Newt and Maple resemble Muir in that they point out how nature inspires us as well as advocate the preservation of biodiversity.

A Contract with the Earth 16: Caps

On page 148 of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple say the following:

“…in a command and control environment with mandated caps on carbon dioxide emissions, Europe lags behind the free-market American achievements, with Europe emitting carbon dioxide at a growth rate three times that of the United States, according to data gathered from 2000 to 2004.”

This didn’t sit right with me, for a variety of reasons.  First of all, how can Europe have a high growth rate of carbon emissions, when it sets caps on them?  Are the caps too high?  Are people choosing not to follow the caps set by law?  Second, I thought that Europe had lower CO2 emissions than the United States.  In part, I assumed this because of what Arnold Vinick said on The West Wing: “You want to know why Europe’s CO2 emissions are so much lower than ours?  Nuclear power!”  But there are also statistics that show that Europe has lower CO2 emissions than the U.S., which is number 2, after China (see here).  Of course, Newt and Maple mention the “growth rate”, which is probably different from how much CO2 is actually emitted.  But the latter is relevant, in my opinion.

I still agree with a lot of what Newt and Maple argue, notwithstanding my reservations on this point.  I agree that command economies are not necessarily cleaner than free-market economies, and I also believe in encouraging green technology.  I still think that caps are necessary, however.

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In my latest reading of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple talk about such issues as people who have planted trees that have removed air pollution, the role of cleaner cars in reducing pollution, Shell Oil’s acknowledgement of human-made global warming and support for alternative energy, and George W. Bush’s support as Governor of Texas for renewable energy.  This is a very optimistic book, which is why I enjoy reading it.  I’d like to think that there are a lot of people out there who want to do the right thing.  But there is an opposite tendency in human nature, as well.

A Contract with the Earth 14: The Muir-Pinchot Debate

On page 130 of A Contract with the Earth, Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple say the following:

“The current debate about park management mirrors the Muir-Pinchot debate that arose during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency and continued for many years while Gifford Pinchot headed the National Park Service.  The ultimate utilitarian, Pinchot believed that parks and reserves had to be managed.  In fact, any park that experiences heavy human visitation will not be successful unless it is managed and managed well.”

This passage stumped me somewhat.  I was expecting for Newt and Maple to explain what the Muir-Pinchot debate was—-as in where exactly John Muir and Gifford Pinchot differed.  I can tell that Newt and Maple respect both men.  Newt and Maple agree with Pinchot that parks and reserves should be managed well.  And the chapter opens with a quotation of John Muir, who said:

“Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees.  Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.”

So where did Gifford and Muir disagree?  Although Newt and Maple do not say “Muir believed this, whereas Pinchot believed that”, what they do share about these men exemplifies their positions, although I wish that Newt and Maple went into more detail.

The wikipedia article here explains where the difference was, as does this article on the Vermont Public Radio site.  The wikipedia article states the following:

“In July 1896, Muir became associated with Gifford Pinchot, a national leader in the conservation movement. Pinchot was the first head of the United States Forest Service and a leading spokesman for the sustainable use of natural resources for the benefit of the people. His views eventually clashed with Muir and highlighted two diverging views of the use of the country’s natural resources. Pinchot saw conservation as a means of managing the nation’s natural resources for long-term sustainable commercial use. As a professional forester, his view was that “forestry is tree farming,” without destroying the long-term viability of the forests.  Muir valued nature for its spiritual and transcendental qualities. In one essay about the National Parks, he referred to them as “places for rest, inspiration, and prayers.” He often encouraged city dwellers to experience nature for its spiritual nourishment. Both men opposed reckless exploitation of natural resources, including clear-cutting of forests. Even Muir acknowledged the need for timber and the forests to provide it, but Pinchot’s view of wilderness management was far more utilitarian.”

On the surface, the difference between the two-men sounds rather hair-splitting.  Both were against ransacking the forests.  Both acknowledged that the forests could be used for human commercial and utilitarian purposes, such as timber.  But Muir believed that the forests had spiritual value and thus he leaned more towards preservation than Pinchot, who did not share Muir’s spiritual outlook and was more open to using the forests for human commercial and utilitarian purposes.  According to the wikipedia article, in terms of concrete issues, this meant that Pinchot supported the grazing of sheep in forest reserves, whereas Muir was against that, and Pinchot supported a dam that Muir opposed.

(UPDATE: Newt and Maple go into more detail on the Muir-Pinchot debate later in the book.)

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For my write-up today on A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple, I’ll highlight a couple of points from pages 121-122.

1.  On page 121, Newt and Maple refer to a TV ad from the Chesapeake Bay Program, which is “a subsidiary of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency”.  The TV ad was talking about the disappearance of water into a storm drain and the threat that land fertilizer during the spring could end up in the Bay.  The announcer says “No crab should die like this”, right before he says that “they should perish in some hot, tasty melted butter!”  The ad was promoting seafood as a reason to preserve the bay.  By preserving the environment, we are preserving things that we love.

But what if our desires come into conflict?  We want oil to power our cars, but an oil-spill can ruin the seafood business.

2.  Should we preserve the environment only out of our self-interest?  On page 122, Newt and Maple say that conservation efforts will be expensive and yet profitable.  But they affirm that such efforts should not be motivated by profit alone, for “We will endeavor to cleanse the earth because it is the right thing to do.”