CE Week #10: “Gingrich goes green without all the guilt”
James P. Pinkerton
Newsday
November 4, 2007
Al Gore and Newt Gingrich are very different figures, but they are both going through a similar process: They are becoming elder statesmen.
And how does one become an elder statesman, anyway? It’s an easy, two-step process: First, have something important to say and be tireless in saying it. Second, stop running for president, because then people will let their guard down; they will listen to the substance of your message, not worry about tracking your upward political mobility.
Oh, and a third thing: Optimism sells better than pessimism. So while the former Democratic vice president is getting most of the glory, worldwide, with his message of profound eco-repentance, it’s the former Republican House speaker’s message of practical problem-solving that is ultimately going to play better in America.
Everybody knows about Gore, of course. But most didn’t know of his interest in global warming until relatively recently. Yes, he has been thinking about the issue for decades, but when he got to the White House in 1993, he was relatively quiet; maybe his quietude had something to do with future political ambitions.
And so, for example, in 1997, when the U.S. Senate, including Barbara Boxer and Teddy Kennedy, voted 95-0 to reject the Kyoto international global warming treaty, Vice President Gore didn’t say much. With public opinion lopsided against the treaty, how could he speak up in protest — and still preserve his political viability for 2000?
In fact, Gore didn’t become his own emancipated man until he left the White House in 2001, finally free to argue for drastic action against greenhouse gases.
Yet, while Gore does a great job of telling us what we’ve done wrong, he’s less effective at outlining a plausible action plan that would solve the problem: reduce the world’s carbon dioxide, as opposed to just America’s CO2. The dilemma is that if we reduce and they increase, nothing is gained.
But, of course, Gore is out of office now, with no plans to run again. He can say what he wants, leaving others to admire him without having to worry about voting for him.
Meanwhile, Gingrich, who retired from Congress in 1998, has trod his own path toward greater environmental awareness. His latest book, “A Contract With the Earth,” co-authored with Terry Maple, former chief of the Atlanta Zoo, carries a friendly foreword from Harvard’s E.O. Wilson, one of the most important and influential biologists of the 20th century.
Yet, Gingrich is not Gore. He does not reach a final conclusion as to whether human beings are causing climate change — and thus many environmentalists will dismiss him. Yet at the same time, Gingrich wants to implement a green agenda, his way. He and Maples write, “We favor reducing carbon loading in the atmosphere as a bold forward step and positive public value.”
So what’s Gingrich’s alternative solution? First, nuclear power. And second, big prizes for inventors who come up with, for example, a workable hydrogen engine. As he points out, there’s a long history of offering prizes. Past awards have fostered advances in construction, navigation and aviation. So why not the environment?
More technology, more incentives — that’s Gingrich’s approach. And interestingly, in his post-presidential run mode, the Georgian is being well received, because people hunger for real solutions, not just feel-good or feel-bad rhetoric.
On Monday, Gingrich spoke at Johns Hopkins University, receiving an overwhelmingly friendly response.
Gore and Gingrich, enjoying their “elder” status, now must watch as their White House-hopeful juniors wrestle with their enviro-ideas. But here’s a prediction: Those who follow Gingrich’s techno-optimism will have an easier time than those who put on Gore’s hair shirt.
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Last line of the article referring to putting on Gore’s hair shirt put a very odd and disturbing image in my mind and I truthfully couldn’t tell you what it was supposed to mean. But anyways, that is beside the point. What I am really trying to say is that I agree with Pinkerton, Gore isn’t really going at this whole global warming issue quite right. If he really is concerned about how we are treating our precious Earth, than why doesn’t he have a game plan? We understand that driving cars and big diesel trucks around town is bad, but what is your alternative to this? Gore never exactly says what we should do to stop global warming, he simply just says that we are doing something that’s hurting our environment and we better stop soon. We all know that no one is just simply going to stop driving their cars, or avoid purchasing gas, so what are we supposed to do? That’s where Gingrich comes in. He simply says yes what we are doing at the moment isn’t working, but have we ever considered using nuclear energy? He gives us a game plan to follow instead of just criticizing the world of how we are destroying our one home that we all share. And when I say he’s criticizing the world, I mean America. Someone needs to tell us what to do and not just what we are doing wrong. If a dog pees on the carpet you can’t just say, “Bad dog! Don’t pee there!” The dog still doesn’t know where to pee until you teach it to go outside in the neighbor’s yard. All I can say is thankfully at least someone is making an attempt to lead our nation away from world destruction.
I rally am glad that our awareness level in America is raising, and I think that both Gore and Gingrich are contributing to it. This is obviously a good thing for our citizens, and obviously, for our environment. With all this in mind, I am still not sure if I am all for this new “green” movement. Yes, again, the awareness is a positive, but look where it is going. Now, the green thing has become a trendy thing, and people support it because it is cool and trendy. Is this really what was intended when we first discovered the idea of global warming? For example, just this week, I was watching Monday Night Football, I believe, and they said they were going green. They turned all the lights out of the studio, yet there were still some powered up. They didn’t really support this green movement, but rather wanted to gain viewers and supporters because they are looked on as green. This is what America has come to: a green movement that has no voice without the fact that it is trendy. I personally support the green movement, but not for the reasons that it is hip or cool, but rather that I agree that the environment needs to be saved, and that is the only reason why it, to me, has importance.
After reading this article I felt that Gingrich’s ideas were very good and yeah we probably do need a new perspective on global warming issues. I feel that what he is doing with rewarding inventors for coming up with new inventions that help the environment is very good and could prove to be very productive. I also think that nuclear power is a very good idea because the benefits really outweigh everything else. I also feel the Gore is more worried about what he looks like politically to do anything to drastic to improve the status with global warming. If Al Gore were really into slowing down the effects of global warming he would have said something in 1993. He did not because he did not want to ruin his political chances in the future. But I think if he had said something it would have been better for him because we would not be having these doubts now whether he is completely committed to help reduce the effects of global warming. He would be know as the person who went out on a limb to try and fight the effects of global warming, and he would always be known for that.
This article was somewhat boring, but very beneficial to see how Gingrich is running his campaign. You know, now that I think of it, it seems that only today, in our current society, is global warming and things surrounding the topic are being brought forth. 20 years ago, you never would’ve heard Presidential Candidates talking about whether they were for making changes immediately or waiting on the topic of global warming.
It doesn’t seem like much of a plan has really been laid out from Gingrich or Gore. You would think that one who has such an obvious concern for global warming in public would act on it, or try to establish some sort of a plan that would help to fix the “problems” our world has. Personally, it seems as though he is trying to score more votes out of something that will come back to bite him sometime soon in the future. But who knows. Things could work out to his advantage in following with Gore in the race against global warming and he may gain himself a few votes that he and his party managers didn’t plan on receiving in the first place. Time will only tell.
It really is too bad that someone who is second-in-command to our nation’s leader can’t really have a real opinion about anything or do something about it. It is nice to see Al Gore being able to stand proud next to issues that are high on his priority list. Grant it, he is no longer sitting in a room adjourning the oval office but still, he no longer has to hide political concerns that he feels strongly about. Of course, it would be great if Gore would actually present us with a solution to the global warming problem as the article stated, instead of just pointing it out. I’m not quite sure of the significance of this whole “elder status” thing but if reporters are saying it will help Gore with his cause well then I say great. After all, some things to get better with age! And it’s interesting…for lack of a better word, to see someone standing next to Gore on this issue. Gore has almost taken such a radical stance that it’s possible nobody would support him. Gingrich has stepped up to the plate though. Maybe if two people are up there swinging the bat, things might get accomplished in this ballpark; two heads are better than one!
I found this article very interesting because Gingrich took a pro-green stance on the global warming issue and is willing to find a solution to the problem instead of moping around and saying the world is doomed. Gingrich, instead of pointing fingers is really stepping up to the plate and taking a hack at this important issue. His actions, or at what he is saying his actions will be are admirable. I feel like Gore dragged on the same dry material for a long enough period of time that America has had a trend of losing interest, or have at least lost sight of Global Warming in all of its seriousness. Al Gore should stop worrying about bringing awareness to the issue, and start working on a solution like Gingrich is doing. It looks like Gore is passing the green baton. It is even more interesting that he seems to be doing a better job at brainstorming places America should be going than Gore, the Global Warming Democrat Guy. This article gives me hope that this global warming issue might come a lot closer to being resolved because Gingrich has a good chance of getting more supporters.
Gingrich maybe should have won the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Gore. Sure, Gore has raised awareness, but that is about it. Other than that he has just told people to recycle and what not. So really, what effect has he had? I agree with Nick that Gore was too worried about his image to bring up global warming when he had the best chance. In 1993, he had the best opportunity to talk about global warming and decided not to. Now that he is “politically retired,” he decides to make it an issue. I don’t know, it just does not make sense to me. The so-called “elder status” is not going to help him. The people who would raise awareness are not the old people, but the young. Gore could have related with some of the younger people all those years back, but now he can’t. Gingrich has something that Gore does not, a game plan. I just wonder if people will listen to him the way they have listened to Gore. If people do though, progress will be made with global warming. I disagree with Brian that global warming awareness has only picked up because of its “trendiness.” I think that people realized that it is a problem that needs to be worried about and it has turned into a “trend” because no one knows where to go. They do not know what to do once the awareness is up because they have not been informed of a game plan. By making people informed, they are trying to get people to come up with the next step.
First off, I want to point out how incredibly dumb those anti-spam words are getting, that we have to retype, today it was “gidday.” wow. Anyways, in response to Stephanie Howerton’s post, America likes Gore right now, because he has brought the subject to everyone’s attention. He is recieving the nobel peace prize for it. That proves our gratitude to him somewhat. Before Gore, the topic of global warming was looked at as much less of a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I am no Gore supporter, but he did have a big part in the huge concert “Live Earth” where everyone pretty much “went green.” (I’m still curious on how much garbage had to be picked up from the parking lots where the concert took place after everything was all said and done) and if one says his name, the first thing that will come to mind won’t be VP, it wont be presidential hopeful, it would be global warming. He has raised much awareness, and that might be what he sees as his purpose. Gingrich decided to create a solution to hypothesise a solution to the problem. Whether it will work or not is up in the air, but he is the newest political figure trying something new, so he gets all of the rightfully deserved attention.
This article caught my attention. It was interesting as well, but I have to disagree and agree to what Jackie said. Jackie said “Gore isn’t really going at this whole global warming issue quite right. If he really is concerned about how we are treating our precious Earth, than why doesn’t he have a game plan?” But that’s wrong. He may not be going the best way to further his cause, but Gore isn’t going at the issue the wrong way. He’s just beating around the bush. (No pun intended.) Gore has gone on the right path to get his cause out there. He did promotional videos and speeches to just get awareness. He has hinted ways to solve the big problem, and yes I know that they aren’t very realistic, but Gore wants to get support before he starts implementing solutions. I do agree that Gore is going to slow. I don’t think that Gore believed that so many people would listen and agree with him, so he kept going with getting awareness. Yes, Jackie, Gore should have the actual plans laid out and he doesn’t, but you went a little far in saying he’s doing it all wrong. That’s what I’m trying to say. But, that’s where Gingrich steps in. He’s got all the plans. “He gives us a game plan to follow instead of just criticizing the world of how we are destroying our one home that we all share.” Go Gingrich!! And also Jackie, I loved that you compared America to a naughty dog that peed on the carpet! HA HA HA!!!
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