"Green Conservatism?" at GOPProgress

There is an interesting post by Liz Mair over at GOPProgress that I wanted to share an excerpt from:

For those who missed it, yesterday, John Kerry and Newt Gingrich went head-to-head on the subject of climate change. The upshot? Kerry trotted out the same, tired, lefty enviro talking points, while Gingrich said something bold and thought-provoking: climate change is a problem, and we need deal with it--but not by creating a regime that will increase fines, bureaucracy, and litigation and, very likely, do too little to actually solve the problem in question.

The ideas that Gingrich voiced were not completely radical or never-before-heard. As my friend Phil Klein at the American Spectator wrote yesterday, "he suggested that the government offer tax credits for the market to develop new technologies, and prizes for the invention of new technologies such as a hydrogen car." Such initiatives would be strikingly similar to some previously suggested, and indeed pushed in major legislation, by Republicans like Chuck Hagel and Judy Biggert. Hagel was instrumental in pressing for tax credits to encourage more car buyers to purchase hybrids, and Biggert pushed similar, follow-on legislation in the last Congress.