Newt Gingrich talks dinosaurs, climate change (Video)

Newt Gingrich fielded a question about climate change at the February 6, 2012 Colorado Energy Summit. The event was hosted by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and Consumer Energy Alliance, a group supported by BP and Exxon Mobil, two of the world's most notorious spillers of oil.

Here's a transcript of his response:

Question: I wonder, do you believe in human induced climate change?

Newt Gingrich: I believe we don’t know.

I am an amateur paleontologist.

The planet has changed its temperature a number of times.

Calista and I were at the field museum in Chicago at Labor Bay looking at dinosaurs from the Antarctic. 

If you look at the Antarctic today you’ll figure it must be a lot warmer when the dinosaurs were there.

What I’ve said in the past is I’m happy to take prudent measures that aren’t very expensive, so if we can find ways to have relatively inexpensive, safe nuclear power, I am for it.

The fact that Iowa produces 20% of its  electricity from wind is fine.

I mean, there a lot of things you could do at the margin.

What I would not do is I would not turn power over to the bureaucracy to run the entire country.

I have always opposed cap and trade.

And I want to be clear, because many of you have seen it, or you'll see ads about it.

The ad I did with Nancy Pelosi is the dumbest single thing I have done in the past 5 or 6 years. 

Okay? It was just stupid, but I did not say at any point in that ad that I was in favor of cap and trade.

In fact, when Gore testified in favor of it, I testified against it the same day.

You can go to Newt.org and see the videotape of the testimony.

I always tell people, even if you thought it was true, that doesn’t mean the only answer is avoidance. 

You know, the Dutch have been faced with the ocean for a long time. 

They did not adopt an Al Gore approach of lowering the sea.

They built dikes.

So there are lots of ways to solve problems that don’t involve institutionalized stupidity. 

Video of Newt Gingrich's climate change remarks:

A complete video of Newt Gingrich's speech at the 2012 Colorado Energy Summit is available on C-Span.