Kerry and Gingrich at Odds over Affecting Climate Change
CLIMATE
New Bedford Standard-Times
Valerie Sullivan
Boston University Washington New Service
Tuesday April 10, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 10 —Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich disagreed Tuesday over ways of dealing with global climate change, with Sen. Kerry advocating government regulation and Mr. Gingrich calling for voluntary change encouraged by government incentives.
While most government officials now acknowledge global climate change caused in part by human activity, the debate today is about how to approach the problem.
“It is a problem. We should address it,” Mr. Gingrich said.
“Even if we could stop all the emissions [of so-called greenhouse gases] tomorrow, and we can’t, and we know that, damage will continue…. That’s why this is urgent,” Sen. Kerry said.
The two spoke at a Capitol Hill meeting sponsored by New York University’s John Brademas Center.
Mr. Gingrich said the solution must be a partnership between environmental interests and economic interests, with economics playing a key role. He called for “rewarding entrepreneurship, reshaping the market and investing in technology.”
But Sen. Kerry compared such actions to asking Barry Bonds to investigate steroids or letting Enron handle pensions. “You can’t just say, ‘Let the market regulate itself,’ ” he said.
Mr. Gingrich acknowledged the conflicting interests. “If you ask [countries] to choose between the environment and economic growth, [countries] are going to choose economics,” he said.
“I would agree you would get more change more rapidly with an incentivized market” rather than a laissez-faire approach, he added.
He said that his proposal would offer “pleasure” to businesses and countries to encourage them to act in a way that is positive for the environment and that Sen. Kerry’s plan would offer “more pain” to force countries to act..
Sen. Kerry reminded the audience that there has been “no single environmental crisis” in the history of the United States that has been “resolved voluntarily.”
Mr. Gingrich said that Sen. Kerry “wants to impose [a standard] by government coercion” and that his approach would be unlikely to attract China and India. “No strategy which does not bring in China and India” will work, he said.
The environment, Mr. Gingrich said, is “a powerful, emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes.”
“This is a very challenging thing to do if you’re a conservative…. Even if you know it may be the right thing to do, you end up fighting it” to avoid higher taxes and bigger government, Mr. Gingrich said.
Mr. Kerry said he appreciated Mr. Gingrich’s “candor” in “acknowledging the conservative dilemma.”
After the debate Sen. Kerry said, “Massachusetts used to burn whale oil for fuel, then it transitioned to wood, then to fossil fuels, and now our state is slowly beginning to use renewables. But it can’t begin and end there.”
“Unless we make significant reductions in our energy consumption and fuel use, our summers will be warmer and longer, the sea-levels will rise, greatly increasing the risk of coastal flooding in places like New Bedford and the rest of our state’s shoreline,” he said. “These are not just possibilities for some far away place – but for right here in Massachusetts.”
Despite their differences, Sen. Kerry and Mr. Gingrich predicted a successful end to the climate change challenge.
“It’s very important to recognize the adaptability of humans,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I think that we have to have optimism…. The human race has an enormous ability to adapt.”
Added Sen. Kerry, “The American genius will meet this challenge and we will do what we need to do to pass this planet on to your kids in better shape than it was given to us.”
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