A Contract with the Earth (Hardcover)

by Newt Gingrich (Author), Terry L. Maple (Author), Edward O. Wilson (Foreword)
Key Phrases: entrepreneurial environmentalism, environmental leadership, United States, Endangered Species Act, Earth Day (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Efforts to cleanse the world's air and water and to put a brake on calamitous climate change aren't exclusive to one political philosophy, Gingrich and Maple argue in this probusiness call for proenvironment action by politicians, corporations and individual Americans. Though the title echoes Gingrich's hard-right 1994 Contract with America, this more conciliatory contract reflects the former academic's penchant for bullet-point sloganeering, with its ten commitments call for politicians to abandon adversarial politics and for businessmen and conservationists to form compatible partnerships. The authors alternately brand their approach mainstream and entrepreneurial environmentalism—mainstream because it rejects alarmist projections based on what they perceive as activist science and hysterical journalism, and entrepreneurial because they reject the notion that free enterprise and a cleaner world are opposing forces. The authors' concern about the future of the Earth is certainly sincere, but their prescription for action breaks shallow ground. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Juliet Eilperin

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a man of contracts. His 1994 Contract with America, a list of 10 poll-tested political pledges, helped him and his fellow Republicans reclaim the House majority for the first time in 40 years. His 2005 book Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America addressed issues ranging from terrorism to education by emphasizing faith and patriotism. And now, he and Palm Beach Zoo president Terry L. Maple are offering Americans a new, 10-point Contract with the Earth.

The fact that a Republican politician and a zoo executive have co-authored a book extolling the virtues of "mainstream environmentalism," warning of dangerous climate change and hailing the Endangered Species Act as a "success story" underscores how much the green debate has shifted. Just a few years ago many Republicans dismissed global warming as a figment of liberals' imagination; now President Bush blames human activities for the rising temperatures, melting glaciers and more acidic seas that scientists have documented around the globe.

A Contract with the Earth is an earnest call to deal with worldwide environmental problems, from disappearing species to ever-expanding roadside landfills. Its central proposals include: "demand objectivity" in science, "educate and inspire" citizens to foster a greater appreciation of nature and "encourage green enterprise." This is no revolutionary manifesto. It's Gingrich as Smokey the Bear, rather than as the provocateur he used to play on the national stage.

Gingrich and Maple acknowledge that addressing the current state of the planet will not be easy. "We learned quickly that green is good," they write, "but we've been slow to learn that green is also hard." Yet they gloss over some of the toughest questions facing international policymakers today, and they compare the environmental records of Bush and former President Bill Clinton in a way that strains credulity.

Calling the country's leadership on the environment "timid and restrained," they write that during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, "there were platitudes and a few praiseworthy achievements, but neither president succeeded in significantly advancing environmental policy." The book praises Bush twice for declaring the Northwest Hawaiian Islands a national monument (Gingrich personally pushed to protect that marine biodiversity hotspot), while saying nothing about the policies of the current administration that have so infuriated environmentalists, such as its efforts to reinterpret longstanding laws to give logging, mining and petroleum companies greater access to public lands and resources. Clinton's many national monument designations -- along with his efforts to keep national forests free of roads, revive international climate talks and tighten national air pollution standards -- go unmentioned.

On the central question of global warming, Gingrich and Maple are closer to Bush than to most of the world's business and political leaders. They argue that climate change poses a serious threat and that the United States should reengage in international negotiations. But they question the wisdom of imposing a mandatory, nationwide cap on carbon emissions on the grounds that Europe's carbon dioxide emissions rose faster than America's between 2000 and 2004. (It's worth noting that since 2000, U.S. emissions have risen at 1.5 times the rate they did in the 1990s, not exactly a stunning model of restraint.) Like Bush, Gingrich and Maple rest their hopes on technological innovation: "The world can be changed faster by the spread of brilliant ideas than by any plodding bureaucracy, and we gladly put our faith in such intellectual and social processes."

In that sense this book is classic Newt, brimming with military metaphors and grand visions of America leading the rest of globe to a brighter future. In environmentalism, as in war, "we must demand a complete and decisive victory," the authors say. "Renewing the earth is surely one of the greatest challenges this generation has confronted, and we understand how important it is to succeed."

To show the value of what they call "business partnerships on behalf of the environment," the authors describe how the Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the Wildlife Conservation Society have made common cause with such corporate entities as Wal-Mart and McDonald's. As a result, much of the book reads like the kind of corporate advertisement that appears on newspaper op-ed pages. Gingrich and Maple contend that the private sector, not government, holds the answers to the globe's biggest problems. The question is whether people in places such as Bangladesh can afford to wait and see if they're right.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801887801
• ISBN-13: 978-0801887802
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #399,941 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Business will not change simply for the sake of change, October 29, 2007

By	Gene Taft (DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Whether you believe we've made tremendous progress in preserving our environment or believe we've made little progress, everyone should agree that there is still a lot more work to be done.

It's refreshing to hear new ideas, fresh ideas from such a familiar figure and such a strong voice for change.

A Contract with the Earth is all about the intersection of business and science.

After all, where would we be today if not for business and science pioneers like the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison? Although few and far between, entrepreneurs such as those men, and leaders like John F. Kennedy and his 1961 goal to go to the moon within a decade are the reasons that we live in the greatest country in the world. We are innovators. We are doers!

I ask all of you out there to reserve judgment on this book until you've read it, and reread it. After hearing another side of the debate, then, and only then can we intelligently enter into a discussion about the solutions to the obvious environmental dilemmas that face America and the World.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If we pass the test, we get to keep the planet (Everglades), December 6, 2007

By	John A. Marshall "JAMinfo" (West Palm Beach, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Local Book Review by John Arthur Marshall, ([e-mail]); President
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation and Florida Environmental Institute, Inc. www.ArtMarshall.org

A Contract with the Earth: Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple; John Hopkins; 2007

Contract with the Earth is an overdue call for local, national and international action in a time of serious need for we planetary occupants to pay much more attention to what we are doing to the planet (destroying our life support system at a seemingly indiscernible rate, with enormous consequences given ubiquitous inaction). This is the major problem that Contract addresses.

Contract might be summarized as a re-call of Teddy Roosevelt conservationism with emphasis on the authors' new advocacy of entrepreneurial environmentalism. All this verges on a matter of insistence, which is good, even great, if twice as many folks that are engaged in the present environmental movement read and heed... Then engage at least one neo-conservationist politician on the need to take on stewardship of the environment as a major issue in the current election debates. We can do it!

As the authors astutely note: Everyone ought to participate in discussions of environmental policies and to that end should have a rudimentary understanding of the processes that make a habitable planet.

Of particular importance in the current elections scenario, the authors identify the need to get the environment elevated as arguably the most important issue confronting society today. How can presidential candidates not pay attention to long-term effects of climate change, and the need for conservation and preservation of what remains of our life support system? A bonus is a call for strategic planning, and adherence to planetary needs.

The authors acknowledge that insufficient attention is being paid by politicians, and with the rest of us, lament that the current administration has been a failure here, even with the late attempt at for lasting legacy to cover inaction regarding potential disastrous consequences in the future.

The author's define the distinction between conservation and preservation in a manner that deserves further consideration. That is left for future readers to discover, in a book that is worth reading, and begging for action by the non-reactive information-overloaded majority.

As President of a tree-planting organization, my most favorite spot in this book is Chapter 8: Renewing the Natural World. This chapter emphasizes the need to preserve rainforests and restore forests and wetlands. Here in Florida we call them forested wetlands, or swamps (lots of cypress and custard apple trees and related species normally in standing water). In the sequence of quotable quotes at the beginning of each chapter, Chapter 8 also holds my favorite quote:

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest perseveration would vanish. John Muir [Founder Sierra Club]; there were also lots of pine trees in Florida. The past-tense is not good.

This quote is an appropriate sequel to another salient section in Chapter 10, with the mention of Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods. Louv amplifies the need for the younger generation to be more exposed to nature, as previous generations were. Something is missing. Louv points out that staying indoors in front of a computer, rather than more exposure to nature, may lead to nature deficit disorder, which he relates to potential attention deficit disorder and maladjustments in life.

As a sixth generation Floridian, following progress of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) I very much appreciate Newt's observation on page 226:

"Florida has the opportunity to become a laboratory that the entire world studies... There are very few places where you have a complex fragile ecosystem this close to this many people". Newt, Associated Press, 1997. Recent AP headlines - Everglades Restoration bogged down - is inappropriate.

The authors also recognize that the proximity of massive land-fills (Mt. Trashmore's we call them) to the Everglades are inappropriate to conservation and preservation of important ecosystems. Currently, local government is considering locating a Mt. Trashmore right next to the Arthur R. Marshall National Wildlife Refuge, a primary subject of CERP implementation. Not only will the landfill be a dominant terrain feature, the creatures this will attract will pose a serious threat to native wildlife, especially wading birds. This could also pose a serious threat to federal funding.

The authors also implore us (again!) to think globally and act locally. OK Palm Beachers, CERP implementation is also about sustaining a viable water supply. This is need to know stuff.

Unfortunately the behavior of government toward CERP, especially in the current federal administration, is much like the authors describe:

The American government, however continues to posture and vent, unable or unwilling to commit or act decisively.... Except possibly to give development overwhelming priority.

If there is one thing that might call for a little reconsideration, it is the authors' inclination to view technological solutions as sometimes preferable to natural one's, without mentioning the precautionary principle, an approach advocated by scientists when there is a dearth of knowledge. Scientists caution on reliance of engineered solutions, as there are always unforeseen, usually adverse consequences here. Humankind's intrusions require natural solutions. Natural solutions are most often perpetual, and the most cost-effective. OK, green energy may be an exception.

At the onset, Contract challenges the readers to take a Test to determine whether (or not) you (the reader) is a mainstream environmentalist. In the end the authors challenge the readers to support the broad principles of the contract, by contributing time and ideas to create together a new kind of environmental movement.

From the Everglades Restoration endeavor, a more widely applicable quote is attributed to the Mother of the Everglades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author of Everglades, River of Grass:

If we pass the Test we get to keep the planet!


DISCLAIMER: The Author of this review, an Everglades restoration advocate, is not a professional book reviewer.


John Arthur Marshall
2806 South Dixie Highway, WPB 33405; 561-801-2165

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's not a mandate., November 14, 2007

By	bluestockings (nc) - See all my reviews

the book is not intended to be a list of demands. I don't think Mr. Ginrich ever intended this to be a mandate.It's aim is help point out ways and ideas to get people thinking of how to help our country clean up.
We really need something besides 'big brother' solution of population control and a 'mare's nest' of new laws for government control. People truly can make a difference and teach their families to do the same. It's not impossible. Thank you Mr. Ginrich