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A Contract with the Earth
Focusing the environmental debate on the principle of common commitment, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and eminent conservationist Terry L. Maple present A Contract with the Earth. They declare a need for bipartisan environmentalism -- a new era of environmental stewardship with principles that they believe most Americans will share. While acknowledging that liberals and conservatives do not see eye to eye on many issues, Gingrich and Maple argue successfully that environmental stewardship is a mainstream value that transcends partisan politics. Their thoughtful approaches to our environmental challenges are based on three main environmental leadership is integral to America's role in the world, technologically savvy environmental entrepreneurs can and should be the cornerstone of environmental solutions, and cooperation and incentives must be dramatically increased to achieve workable and broadly supported environmental solutions. Gingrich and Maple believe that most people -- regardless of how they categorize themselves politically -- are weary of the legal and political conflicts that prevent individuals and communities from realizing the benefits of environmental conservation. The foundation of the book -- a ten-point Contract with the Earth -- promotes ingenuity over rhetoric as the way forward.
- GenresNonfictionPoliticsGreen
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 26, 1994
9 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Newt Gingrich
114 books544 followersNewt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. After he was elected Speaker, he disrupted the status quo by moving power out of Washington and back to the American people. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, the first balanced budget in a generation, and the first tax cut in sixteen years. In addition, the Congress restored funding to strengthen defense and intelligence capabilities, an action later lauded by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.
Today Newt Gingrich is a Fox News contributor. He is a Senior Advisor at Dentons, the world’s largest law firm with more than 6,500 lawyers in 50 countries and offices in more than 125 cities. He advises the firm’s world-class Public Policy and Regulation practice. He is also a Senior Scientist at Gallup.
From May 2011 to May 2012, Newt Gingrich was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, winning the South Carolina and the Georgia primaries. The campaign was especially notable for its innovative policy agenda, its effort to bring new coalitions into the Republican fold, and for Newt’s debate performances. His $2.50 a gallon energy plan set off a nationwide discussion about the use of America’s energy resources.
But there is a lot more to Newt Gingrich than these remarkable achievements. As an author, Newt has published twenty-nine books including 14 fiction and nonfiction New York Times best-sellers.
Non-fiction books include his latest, Breakout, in addition to A Nation Like No Other, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, To Save America, Rediscovering God in America, 5 Principles for a Successful Life, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, Real Change, A Contract with the Earth, Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, To Renew America, Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Saving Lives & Saving Money, Window of Opportunity, and The Art of Transformation. He is also the author of a series of historical fiction books including, Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant the Final Victory, 1945, Pearl Harbor, Days of Infamy, To Make Men Free, To Try Men’s Souls, Valley Forge, and Victory at Yorktown. These novels are active history studies in the lessons of warfare based on fictional accounts of historical wartime battles and their aftermaths. His latest novel, Treason, is the sequel to Duplicity and is a thriller of Washington intrigue and international terrorism.
Newt and his wife, Callista, host and produce historical and public policy documentaries. Recent films include The First American, Divine Mercy: The Canonization of John Paul II, A City Upon A Hill, America at Risk, Nine Days That Changed The World, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, Rediscovering God in America, Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage, and We Have the Power.
In his post-Speaker role, Newt has become one of the most highly sought-after public speakers, accepting invitations to speak before prestigious organizations throughout the world. Because of his own unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Newt is able to share unique and unparalleled insights on a wide range of topics. His audiences find him to be not only educational but also inspirational. For more information about Newt’s speaking engagements, please visit the Worldwide Speakers Group.
Widely recognized for his commitment to a better system of health for all Americans, his leadership in the U.S. Congress helped save Medicare from bankruptcy, prompted FDA reform to help the seriously ill and initiated a new focus on research, prevention, and wellness. His contributions have been so great that the American Diabetes Association awarded him their highest non-medical award and the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Citizen of the Year.
To foster a modern health system that provide
Today Newt Gingrich is a Fox News contributor. He is a Senior Advisor at Dentons, the world’s largest law firm with more than 6,500 lawyers in 50 countries and offices in more than 125 cities. He advises the firm’s world-class Public Policy and Regulation practice. He is also a Senior Scientist at Gallup.
From May 2011 to May 2012, Newt Gingrich was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, winning the South Carolina and the Georgia primaries. The campaign was especially notable for its innovative policy agenda, its effort to bring new coalitions into the Republican fold, and for Newt’s debate performances. His $2.50 a gallon energy plan set off a nationwide discussion about the use of America’s energy resources.
But there is a lot more to Newt Gingrich than these remarkable achievements. As an author, Newt has published twenty-nine books including 14 fiction and nonfiction New York Times best-sellers.
Non-fiction books include his latest, Breakout, in addition to A Nation Like No Other, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, To Save America, Rediscovering God in America, 5 Principles for a Successful Life, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, Real Change, A Contract with the Earth, Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, To Renew America, Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Saving Lives & Saving Money, Window of Opportunity, and The Art of Transformation. He is also the author of a series of historical fiction books including, Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant the Final Victory, 1945, Pearl Harbor, Days of Infamy, To Make Men Free, To Try Men’s Souls, Valley Forge, and Victory at Yorktown. These novels are active history studies in the lessons of warfare based on fictional accounts of historical wartime battles and their aftermaths. His latest novel, Treason, is the sequel to Duplicity and is a thriller of Washington intrigue and international terrorism.
Newt and his wife, Callista, host and produce historical and public policy documentaries. Recent films include The First American, Divine Mercy: The Canonization of John Paul II, A City Upon A Hill, America at Risk, Nine Days That Changed The World, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, Rediscovering God in America, Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage, and We Have the Power.
In his post-Speaker role, Newt has become one of the most highly sought-after public speakers, accepting invitations to speak before prestigious organizations throughout the world. Because of his own unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Newt is able to share unique and unparalleled insights on a wide range of topics. His audiences find him to be not only educational but also inspirational. For more information about Newt’s speaking engagements, please visit the Worldwide Speakers Group.
Widely recognized for his commitment to a better system of health for all Americans, his leadership in the U.S. Congress helped save Medicare from bankruptcy, prompted FDA reform to help the seriously ill and initiated a new focus on research, prevention, and wellness. His contributions have been so great that the American Diabetes Association awarded him their highest non-medical award and the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Citizen of the Year.
To foster a modern health system that provide
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 22, 2019
Newt Gingrich, hyper-partisan hack and author of the book “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” (which, in light of the BP oil spill disaster, reflects just how very, very shortsighted and wrong an individual can be) wrote a book promoting the environment?!? Given the anti-environmental rhetoric coming from the right wing coupled with their abysmal track record over the past 30 years regarding environmental protection who woulda thunk it? Yet Gingrich has tried to do just that in “A Contract with the Earth” a bullet-point filled book which outlines his vision to restore the environment.
Though the book didn’t get much attention when it came out in 2007 and the republican party has yet to stand up for environmental protection, it is at least a start. Given that economic security, family values and the other things the wingers value cannot occur if the environment collapses it’s about time one of them has begun to talk about it, even if only briefly and even if he was largely ignored.
Gingrich does seem to understand that the environment is important. He’s got the green rhetoric down and when speaking in generalizations is largely indistinguishable from a dirty tree-hugging hippy. The main difference comes in terms of solutions and he seems to believe that private industry and technology, spurred by government incentives will ride in like the cavalry to remake the planet into a green Eden. His rationale goes like this …. as individuals become more prosperous they demand a cleaner environment, therefore as countries become richer they will naturally become greener. There’s a grain of truth here. Americans don’t participate in slash and burn agriculture since we don’t rely on it for subsistence. The failure of the logic, however, is easily demonstrated by the fact that the US is richer now than it’s ever been. By applying Newt’s premise that richer is greener you’d expect the environment to be significantly improving on every front. Instead we see continued loss of biodiversity, ever higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, collapse of fisheries and an oil spill that threatens the southeast coastline. Richer doesn’t necessarily mean greener, if fact it probably enables ever increasing levels of consumption which only creates further stresses.
On the positive side, technology certainly does have a role to play in minimizing the human-caused damage to the planet, particularly since technology has also been the cause of so much environmental degradation. The problem is that technology alone, in the absence of behavioral and regulatory changes, is unlikely to go far enough to address the large scale environmental problems we face.
With that said, Newt’s half measures are worth pursuing (in conjunction with other measures) and maybe they could be used to provide the basis for a bipartisan discussion to begin to address environmental issues.
Though the book didn’t get much attention when it came out in 2007 and the republican party has yet to stand up for environmental protection, it is at least a start. Given that economic security, family values and the other things the wingers value cannot occur if the environment collapses it’s about time one of them has begun to talk about it, even if only briefly and even if he was largely ignored.
Gingrich does seem to understand that the environment is important. He’s got the green rhetoric down and when speaking in generalizations is largely indistinguishable from a dirty tree-hugging hippy. The main difference comes in terms of solutions and he seems to believe that private industry and technology, spurred by government incentives will ride in like the cavalry to remake the planet into a green Eden. His rationale goes like this …. as individuals become more prosperous they demand a cleaner environment, therefore as countries become richer they will naturally become greener. There’s a grain of truth here. Americans don’t participate in slash and burn agriculture since we don’t rely on it for subsistence. The failure of the logic, however, is easily demonstrated by the fact that the US is richer now than it’s ever been. By applying Newt’s premise that richer is greener you’d expect the environment to be significantly improving on every front. Instead we see continued loss of biodiversity, ever higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, collapse of fisheries and an oil spill that threatens the southeast coastline. Richer doesn’t necessarily mean greener, if fact it probably enables ever increasing levels of consumption which only creates further stresses.
On the positive side, technology certainly does have a role to play in minimizing the human-caused damage to the planet, particularly since technology has also been the cause of so much environmental degradation. The problem is that technology alone, in the absence of behavioral and regulatory changes, is unlikely to go far enough to address the large scale environmental problems we face.
With that said, Newt’s half measures are worth pursuing (in conjunction with other measures) and maybe they could be used to provide the basis for a bipartisan discussion to begin to address environmental issues.
December 6, 2011
I had a hard time believing I was reading a book written by Newt Gingrich. It sounded like it might have been co-authored by Al Gore. Written late in President Bush's second term, but read as we're nearing the 2012 Presidential primary period, I sense that Newt has now seemed to have backed away from much of what was written in this book. As the GOP 2012 Presidential Primaries are beginning, it appears that Gingrich recognizes that the positions taken when he wrote this book probably won't fly with the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, for one, in December, 2011, released an ad questioning Gingrich's "serial hypocrisy" and quoting newspaper articles, pundits and conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh to illustrate Gingrich's numerous policy changes. The Paul ad began with a commercial Gingrich shot with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in 2008 promoting bipartisan solutions to climate change. In December, 2011, Gingrich now says that making that ad "was probably the single dumbest thing" he's ever done. Yet in this book, Gingrich wrote that climate change is supported by a wealth of scientific data derived from a diversity of measurement techniques. Political posturing aside, Gingrich seemed sincere in his writing, so it's probable that during the Primaries, Newt is following the advice of political advisors and reaching out to the most conservative wing of the Party to try to win the nomination, and may back off positions contrary to those listed in his book should he win the nomination and then try adopt a more center to right of center position to appeal to more of the Independents. Aside from now wondering about Newt's change in feelings and original reason for writing the book, the other part of the book I didn't like was the endless platitudes vs. practical working solutions offered. Most of the ideas were things like "we all need to do better", " we need to respected the environment", "we need to foster better cooperation between government and the private sector", etc. But if you get through the somewhat superficial elements in the book, there are some decent ideas offered. I just no longer know whose ideas these are, and what direction Newt will take if he does get back into a position of political leadership.
July 31, 2009
I deeply enjoyed this book. Newt has such an intellengent way of organizing ideas. In the book he clearly shows that liberals don't have the only solutions to the environmental problem. He give good ideas on how Democrats and Republicans can work together to inspire new green innovations and improve our planet. Great read for any conservative who cares about the planet.
September 16, 2010
I thought this book was okay. There are plenty of things we can do to improve the environment, but it won't be solved by government. Only businesses and motivated individuals can do their part to make a difference.
July 14, 2019
This book takes a unique, optimistic view of fighting climate change and embraces doing so from a conservative point of view. Gingrich may not always practice what he preaches in this book but it is insightful nonetheless.
October 2, 2009
I expect more from Newt. A mere recollection of the importance of conservation and some success in doing so.
August 16, 2010
Some parts made me laugh because of its simplistic point of view, it is a very quick read.
March 22, 2012
This book was OK, nothing remarkable and not bad either. It was surprising to see him come out in full force of what I see as liberal policies, but nothing that he wrote about was groundbreaking.
November 24, 2014
I'm just not sure where Newt was coming from with this. It just doesn't sound like his voice. I do appreciate that he tries to not politicize the issues he discusses.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews