So why did Newt agree with Kerry and say not only that there is a problem but that the problem is so urgent that it calls for immediate and dramatic action right now.
Because there’s tons of money to be made on this scam and Newt wants his cut.
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You weren’t listening. The scam was the cap in trade or carbon credits regime that Kerry was advocating.
Newt was opposed to that.
He was in favor of giving tax credits to companies that produced non carbon based energy and investing considerable sums in getting the USA away from dependence on foreign oil.
My take on this “debate” was that Newt, being in front of the “far left green” audience, decided to sidestep the arguing about how much, if anything, CO2 is a problem, and tried to redirect their fear of “global warming” into market-based solutions to the problem of dependence on foreign oil - like nuclear power etc.
In other words, he is trying to hijack their irrational fear of GW, and point them to solutions to our real problems, instead of them blindly following the scammers like Al Gore if they can’t be convinced that GW isn’t caused by CO2...
Right now, scammers like Gore present to their faithful a “problem” (”Global Warming” and “climate change” due to man-caused excess of CO2 output) and a “solution” (”cut down CO2 output, and/or pay for it and submit to draconian regulations”) - so, if you can’t convince them that “problem” doesn’t exist, you can’t convince them that “solution” isn’t needed. Newt correctly decided in this “debate” not to argue about the “problem” (much to our chagrin, but probably correctly, given the audience) and concentrate on more productive task of redirecting them to understanding why the alternative “solutions” would be significantly better.
He may have done it clumsily but, given the audience and the task in hand, I think he may have reached far more people to at least see that the GW alarmists’ scam will not bring the results they truly want.
Clumsy from our point of view, but more effective overall to help achieve the same goals we desire - less energy dependence, cheaper, more efficient, cleaner energy?