A Convenient Truth

As a part of Newt Gingrich's ongoing Contract with Newt Gingrich (of which the Contract with America was only a small, subsidiary part), he has decided to publish a book on the environment. According to Publisher's Weekly, the book will be creatively entitled A Contract with Earth and will herald "a new era of environmental stewardship." I have no idea what the details are of Gingrich's plan to initiate "bipartisan environmentalism." But I also have no reason to give Gingrich the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure how far into the manuscript Gingrich is, but here is an idea for the book in case he's experiencing writer's block.

First, it should be a novel, since I'm guessing his ideas for the environment are either laughable or fanciful (or laughably fanciful?). He should probably call it, Earth 2050: The Final Contract, so that he can net the scifi geeks along with the hardcore conservatives. My plot idea is as follows:

Newtonian Gingraak (futurisitic enough, right?) is a young idealistic politician who wears one of those collarless jumpsuits we'll all be sporting in 40 years. He lives in a world that is experiencing a true golden age, without poverty, disease or conflict. Unfortunately, the Environment is enraged by its impotence to destroy the human race. It failed at climate change -- but it won't fail again. First, the Environment unleashes a wave of natural disasters Day after Tomorrow style, leveling most of the major cities. But that's not all. As soon as the survivors creep out from beneath the wreckage of their tattered civilization, the Environment sends its foot-soldiers into the fray: lions, sharks, bees, sharks riding on the backs of lions -- it holds nothing back.

In order to save the day, Newtonian must stop the Environment before its too late. To save humanity, he must travel to the ends of the earth and restart an old coal factory that had been shut down in the early 20th century. Can he disrupt the global ecosystem in time or will humanity be the Environment's latest victim in 4.5 billion years of brutal tyranny?

As a side note, Publisher's Weekly didn't mention it, but A Contract with Earth is actually the first of several spin-offs the Gingrich franchise is planning. Be on the look out for A Contract with Breakfast, A Contract with Lunch, and A Contract with Dinner, all introducing the bipartisan way to make all your meals healthy and delicious. Rumor has it that Gingrich is writing a dieting book entitled A Contract with Your Fat in which the main proposal to lose weight is to live under the same conditions as American welfare recipients after his 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. The final book currently in the pipeline is about Democrats and tentatively bears the title A Contract with the Devil. In it, Gingrich reveals his bipartisan plan to forcibly separate the "bi" from "partisan."