Gingrich Kills Chapter on Climate Change in Upcoming Book

He tells a concerned voter it's been dropped, but that's news to the author.

by Sarah Huisenga
Updated: December 31, 2011 | 7:47 a.m.
December 30, 2011 | 5:05 p.m.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Newt Gingrich says he has killed a chapter on climate change in a post-election book of essays about the environment. But the intended author of the chapter, who supports the scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change, says that’s news to her.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech, confirmed in an e-mail interview that she had been asked to write a chapter on climate change for the former House speaker’s book. She said she was approached by former Palm Beach Zoo CEO Terry Maple, Gingrich’s coeditor, at an annual meeting of Republicans for Environmental Protection. Asked to confirm her chapter was dropped, she replied, “I had not heard that.”

Hayhoe was less restrained in a couple of tweets she posted Friday night. “so much 'spare' time wasted I cd've spent w family, & 2. what an ungracious way to find out, eh?” she asked. She followed that with “Nice to hear that Gingrich is tossing my #climate chapter in the trash. 100+ unpaid hrs I cd've spent playing w my baby”

The climate-change issue arose on Thursday night at a Gingrich campaign stop in Carroll, when a woman expressed concern about the chapter. She said she had heard about it on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. As she began to tell Gingrich who the author of the piece would be, Gingrich interrupted. “That’s not going to be in the book,” he told her. “We didn’t know that they were doing that, and we told them to kill it.”

(More here.)