Green Gingrich -- or not?

Recently, Newt and John Kerry debated global warming and climate change. After the debate, Human Events' Amanda Carpenter wrote an article, The Greening of Gingrich, in which she claims Newt took liberal positions on the topic. Many others wrote the same thing.

Actually reading the words he used reveals something else, however. He did, as the writers say, make two conclusions:

1. The world has gotten warmer over the past 100 years, and
2. Humans have made some contribution to that

The problem is, Carpenter -- author of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton -- and others made it appear as though the Speaker blamed humans for all of the increase; he didn't. He simply said that humans had some role in the warming, not too controversial.

Moreover, he pointed out that the data does not extend back more than 400 years or so. Because of that, said Gingrich, "we're not actually sure what happened earlier in terms of the planet. And a good example of that would be the fact that 11,000 years ago the Gulf Stream stopped, and for 600 years Europe had a little ice age...then the Gulf Stream started back up and Europe lost the little ice age."

By pointing out that the Earth was warmer 11,000 years ago, Gingrich seems to be downplaying the effect humans have had on the warming of the past century.

He also blasted Al Gore's "science": "[C]omputer simulations -- which are only computer simulations -- show that over the next century there is a probable increase in the sea level between 7 and 23 inches....Very different than the sense that we will be in a catastrophe within a decade."

Gore claims that the sea level will increase by 20 feet.

As you can see, Gingrich is no raving lunatic claiming that the only time the Earth has been hot is after the Industrial Revolution, that this could lead to wide-spread chaos within the next few years.

Just as importantly, Newt wants the marketplace to dictate any changes in energy, not the government. And if the free-market can find ways to make energy cheaper and make the environment a little better, that's great. The bigger advantage would be the cheap energy, of course.

I usually am a big fan of Carpenter's work, but in this case she seems to have twisted Newt's words, as a closer reading of the speech reveals something entirely different than what she wrote.