Newt Gingrich: global warming "should not be a priority"

Newt Gingrich talked at length about global warming during a November 16, 2011 appearance on the Mark Levin Show. Here's what the former House Speaker and 2012 Republican presidential candidate had to say:

Mark Levin: Global warming: Yes, now or you don’t know?

Newt Gingrich: I think that I don’t know, but I do know that I am opposed to cap and trade and I am opposed to any kind of massive government response.

I think there is no evidence that justifies a large government centralized response of any kind right now.

The most you can argue for I think is more research.

Mark Levin: Now on this research issue, we have the UN’s IPCC findings that have been widely discredited. 

We have over 30,000 experts, including 9,000 with Ph.Ds, who signed a petition saying “No” to manmade global warming and no to scientific consensus because that’s not what science is, it’s not about consensus.

 Newt Gingrich: Right.

(cross talk)

… for example the recent Cern study. Cern is a research center in Switzerland – which came out and said that based on their analysis of space based data, the current models are off by at least 400 percent and how they explained heat leaving the earth.

In fact, much more heat leaves the earth than the current models suggest, and therefore any plausible danger of warming is dramatically smaller than any of these computerized models suggest.

Mark Levin: Well the science has been so thoroughly bastardized and politicized, how would you get to the bottom of it?

Newt Gingrich: Well, I think ultimately you’ve got to look for evidence rather than arguments.

You know, when Einstein first discovered relativity, none of the older physicists believed him. And most of them died not believing him.

I mean, science operates by somebody going out there, looking at the facts, trying to figure out what’s going on. And fairly often in science, one person who’s right matters more than 3,000 people who sign a petition.

Mark Levin: Right, but hold on now, they have to be proven right. So who’s Einstein right now? There isn’t one.

Newt Gingrich: That’s exactly right. I think all I can suggest to you is that there has to be transparency of the data. It has to appear in the court of public opinion.

And ultimately on a political issue, remember what you do in this kind of a setting is a political question, not a scientific... 

The American people have the right to see the data. And the American people have the right to render judgement.

Mark Levin: But the data’s all over the place. I’ve studied it. I’ve put it in my book. There’s a bunch of other people who’ve written about it. Spencer and Horner, and I could go on and on and on and on, so it seems to me it should not be our number one or number two or number 10 priority.

Newt Gingrich: Exactly. Well, I don’t think it should be a priority at all right now, except for research.

I think that the objective reality is we have no proof that justifies a large scale government program that distorts the economy and centralizes power in bureaucrats.

None.

There is no proof to justify that program.