Monday
Feb152016
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Obama and the climate change musical
Feb 15, 2016 Climate: Parliament Foreign ;)
Republicans in the US House of Representatives are currently trying to get a grip on one small part of the Washington bureaucracy by trying to get the National Science Foundation to concentrate on funding useful science. Lamar Smith, the Texas Congressman who is leading the charge, is firing off shots over NSF's funding for public necessities like a climate change themed musical, an effort that set the taxpayer back some $700,000. He wants standards set in place - things like "increasing the health and welfare of the public".
Reasonable enough? Apparently not. Entirely unembarrassed by their excesses, the bureaucrats and their chums are declaring their outrage. President Obama is even threatening a veto.
They work for you, I'm told.
Reader Comments (28)
It is true that researching one aspect of science can lead to potential discoveries in another! For example, when I worked at Rutherford Lab in Oxfordshire, there was partical beam accelerator research being undertaken, (prior to Culham & CERN), & that there was evidence that some particles were potentially a replacement for X-rays. This was back in the early 80s, so I presume nothing came of it!
It is a way for POTUS to funnel money to his friends. It's what he does.
Because its ALL about politics and Democrats will be using this to paint Republicans as evil and anti-science or something like that.
What these clowns don't understand is that they are all, regardless of the letter after their name, essentially the same!
Malman
Maybe someone should suggest using NSF funds to film Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear' :-)
I think that picture tells you all you need to know about the incumbent POTUS.
Obama?
I hear tell, that, the man who told us, "it's time for change" and did he ever try to change it. Change everything, that is make an attempt to decouple, deconstruct, to smash the institutions which make America the country it is, just about..... a democracy.
Golly gosh and aren't we so blooming lucky? The flagrant one, honeyed toned, unctious sweet nothings mouthed by, the unconscionable Frankfurt Schooled shyster. The man steeped in graft, Alinskyite grievance culture and bent politics all the way from Chicago via the White House, is coming over here to lecture the British public, on signing up to one party dictatorship Brussels style.
"Hell yes! vote (in you're lil ol' referendum) FOR slavery friends", ironic is it not, coming from this son of Africa - mind you the Arabs knew all there was and is to know, about slavery and slaves from Africa.
How lucky can you be?
Paging Mr Lloyd-Webber !!
There has to be a climate rapper out there.... eh?
Gamecock is spot on. Obama is shameless about shunting other people's money in the direction of his financial supporters. Suppose you are a Democrat supporter with a brilliant idea for "renewable" energy. Let's pretend your investment is in a company with a completely unlikely name; for want of a more plausible one, let's call it "Solyndra". You give the successful Democrat candidate for the White House thousands of dollars. Solyndra suddenly gets more than half a billion dollars, courtesy of the US tax-payer (except that, as far as Solyndra is concerned, the money is a gift from the White House).
And they all live happily... Well, not exactly, because Solyndra's technology turns out to be as viable as anything dreamt up by the Academy of Lagado. The US tax-payer takes a bath, but, by a happy circumstance, private investors are able to extract their money, some even making a profit. It's even possible that grateful investors are able to donate the odd greenback to Obama's re-election campaign.
If it is only Obama and the Democrats holding climate science's head above water, I am a Republican.
It maybe why the public on both sides of the Atlantic are realising that fantasy climate modellers are even more useless than their models. Something else Climate modellers never predicted (or projected)
This is part of an even bigger NSF investigation occaisioned by the Shukla affair. Double dipping, violation of the 9 plus two investigator salary rule for NSF grants, foundation funded by NSF grants making charitable contrivutions to relatives in India, lack of NSF audit...all related to climate research. Smith chairs the congressional oversight committee that has jurisdiction over NSF. And NSF funding appropriations arise in the House, on whose behalf he is exercising oversight. Expect the pigs to squeal.
Meanwhile US electricity production was down a massive 5.5 % in November vs Nov 2014.
(IEA monthly electricity report )
Something going down...........?????
Milder weather but electricity production / consumption not very much skewed by weather variations unlike home heating oil consumption.
My guess is much of US primary and basic secondary industry has just shut down.
http://www.iea.org/statistics/monthlystatistics/monthlyelectricitystatistics/
This request for US science funding to be useful is indeed a small part of a larger looming US backlash. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that Obama's plan to shut down power plants through the EPA cannot proceed without Congressional approval, the Paris "agreement" has essentially gone out the window entirely.
And the upcoming presidential elections are believed to be tilting in favour of the Republicans, and certainly both Cruz and Trump are non-believers for AGW. Cruz has even said he'd de-fund the IPCC going forward that's how little he thinks of the entire climate funding issue.
So, this should be a very interesting year for the AGW crowd. It could well be their last hurrah.
Shocking use of money and all that aside. Did a musical (or comedy or poem or any other art form) ever really change anyone's opinion? More to the point would a musical ever change the opinion of the sort of person who doesn't already buy into climate change? I mean, it's not like we're still at the triggering awareness stage where a quirky little tune might get a person to investigate an issue. Will the chorus line be 'WE KNOW'?
We just don't believe anyone who thinks that the things climate science is lacking are guitars and a trumpet section.
Well, not unless they're inserted sideways.
mikegeo.
Man made warming "the last hurrah" - now that's a motto I could really buy into, even sing it, loudly.
Mikegeo, a clarification for those not up on the EPA's Clean Power Plan (Obama's COP21 intention). SCOTUS issued a stay pending adjudication in the courts. 26 states sued EPA on grounds that CPP was unconstitutional. All the stay means is that a majoritynof SCOTUS found: 1. That the states woild be irreparably harmed if they were forced to comply with CPP and then CPP was found unconstitutional, and 2. That the states were likely to prevail.
CPP constitutionality is not yet decided. But the stay is a big hint.
Without 'Man Made' Global Warming to waste precious money and resources on, the world will be a better place.
What the world will do with all these people with qualifications in climate science and earth studies, I am not sure. They will probably end up in politics, which is what they intended all along.
Why76 are there no white guys in the line-up?
Jimmy Haigh;
Because they are racists, and they have probably upset the LGBT community as well, but that's diversity for you.
Well, There you go.
Let's see any other country top that!? It sure looks like we have the crown jewel of the silliest sods pretending to run a country.
Someone should autopsy Scalia and make sure his passing was honest.
What wonderful picture you have chosen! Who needs fossil fuels when such an image warms the heart?
The most rigorous proof of CAGW thus far.
I have some sympathy for the arguments opposing this bill.
Placing judgments on what research is "beneficial" versus "frivolous" is really not much different from a government industry policy; try to "pick winners". We don't in fact know what, immediately useless, research results might lead to in the future, or how they might fill a missing piece of a puzzle from another discipline.
The article at the link makes reference to a social science study on "the love life of a worm", which was found to be of immense value in agricultural science. The facts of that case may be as cited by the Congresswoman quoted, but the point is important.
I have an aversion to people being appointed, or self appointed, arbiters of what is right, correct, useful, valuable. I would be cautious with this legislation for that reason.
Having said that, any grants should pass a basic hurdle of actually being research. A hurdle that a Broadway production never comes close to clearing.
Dave Salt - Yes, isn't it interesting that nearly all Crichton's mature works have been filmed but not State of Fear.
Re photo and skin color.. jeez raise the tone. You can't judge people on one photo and anyway, it's off topic
..Skeptics here are everything from black, white, yellow, red and even green. (He said peeling the sunburn off his red nose)
Michael Crichton used a foot ball field analogy in “State of Fear”:
No surprise Hollywood lefties don't want this analogy illustrated on the big screen
“Imagine the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere as a football field. Most of the atmosphere is nitrogen. So, starting from the goal line, nitrogen takes you all the way to the 78 yard line. And most of what’s left is oxygen. Oxygen takes you to the 99 yard line. Most of what remains is the inert gas argon. Argon bring you within 3 1/2 inches of the goal line. That’s pretty much the thickness of the chalk stripe. And how much of the remaining three inches is carbon dioxide? One inch.
“You are told carbon dioxide has increased in the last 50 years. Do you know how much it has increased, on our football field? Three eighths of an inch — less than the thickness of a pencil. Yet you are asked to believe that this tiny change has driven the entire planet into a dangerous warming pattern.” via Mike M on WUWT
And how many CLIMATE PANTOMIMES have been publicly funded in the UK ?
Weren't we talking the other day about the failed show by Prof Hugh Montgomery of UCL ? (here)
" His deliberate kiddie-scaring initiative the Genie Project and the associated film" from UCL Environment Institute
So YOU taxpayers probably ultimately funded it.
And its not just shows,
We end up funding dozens of climate alarmist propaganda websites.
John Shade lists those just aimed at children (50) ..and at teachers (77)