Global Warming, the Musical!

In the annals of mindbogglingly stupid ways to waste taxpayer money, producing a play nicknamed “Climate Change: The Musical” has to rank right up there. And, as you would expect, it was an utter disaster.

Now, you would think that this fiasco was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, but you would be wrong. It was funded by the National Science Foundation. Here are the details from Fox News:

The curtain has come down on Climate Change: The Musical and reviews of the taxpayer-funded play about global warming are downright icy. The play, which is actually entitled “The Great Immensity,” and was produced by Brooklyn-based theater company The Civilians, Inc. with a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, ended its run early amid a storm of criticism from reviewers and lawmakers alike. It opened a year late, reached just five percent of its anticipated audience and likely fell short of its ambitious goal of informing a new generation about the perceived dangers of man-caused climate change.

Plus, it apparently wasn’t very good.

$700K right down the drain. I wonder if the Producer’s name was Max Bialystock? (Click on the link. It will explain who Max is) The reviews were brutal.

“Despite fine performances, the musical mystery tour is an uneasy mix of fact and credulity-stretching fiction. It’s neither flora nor fauna,” New York Daily News reviewer Joe Dziemianowicz wrote in a review at the time. “[The] songs — whether about a doomed passenger pigeon or storm-wrecked towns — feel shoehorned in and not, pardon the pun, organic.”

I followed the link to Mr. Dziemianowicz’s review and the above paragraph, along with comments about the cast in his review, was probably the nicest thing he had to say about it. Now you might be wondering just how badly this thing flopped? How about this badly?

The play, which featured songs and video exploring Americans’ relationships to the environment, opened in New York in April with a three-week run before going on a national tour that was supposed to attract 75,000 patrons. But it stalled after a single production in Kansas City, falling short of the lofty goals outlined in a grant proposal.

And what were those goals?

It was envisioned as a chance to create “an experience that would be part investigative journalism and part inventive theater,” help the public “better appreciate how science studies the Earth’s biosphere” and increase “public awareness, knowledge and engagement with science-related societal issues.”

Oh it gets “Better” for varying degrees of “Better.”

According to a plot description on the theater company’s website, “The Great Immensity” focuses on a woman named Phyllis as she tries to track down a friend who disappeared while filming an assignment for a nature show on a tropical island. During her search, she also uncovers a devious plot surrounding an international climate summit in Auckland, New Zealand.

I wonder if the people who apply for these grants have to take a drug test? I’m guessing not, because this sounds like whatever moron dreamed this up swallowed, snorted and injected the entire contents of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s evidence locker. The link is still valid, but how long it will remain live is anyone’s guess. Needless to say, Congress is taking notice of this flop, and not in a good way.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said the dramatic debacle was a waste of public money.

“There is no doubt that the Great Immensity was a great mistake,” Smith told FoxNews.com. “The NSF used taxpayer dollars to underwrite political advocacy dressed up as a musical. And the project clearly failed to achieve any of its objectives.”

Well, if it’s objective was to waste $700K in taxpayer money, then it was a smashing success. If it was to be a successful propaganda piece for the Church of Global Warming, it didn’t work out to well. The National Science Foundation has responded that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions over the success or failure of this play.

“This particular project just concluded in August and the final report has not yet been submitted to NSF,” the statement said. “Final reports are due to NSF within 90 days following expiration of the grant. The final report will contain information about project outcomes, impacts and other data.”

Now, allow me to give you a blurb from the About the National Science Foundation web page on just what they are supposed to be doing with our money.

NSF’s job is to determine where the frontiers are, identify the leading U.S. pioneers in these fields and provide money and equipment to help them continue. The results can be transformative. For example, years before most people had heard of “nanotechnology,” NSF was supporting scientists and engineers who were learning how to detect, record and manipulate activity at the scale of individual atoms–the nanoscale. Today, scientists are adept at moving atoms around to create devices and materials with properties that are often more useful than those found in nature. Dozens of companies are gearing up to produce nanoscale products. NSF is funding the research projects, state-of-the-art facilities and educational opportunities that will teach new skills to the science and engineering students who will make up the nanotechnology workforce of tomorrow.

I don’t see where funding a propaganda play for the Church of Global Warming has anything to do with science or engineering. Apparently, the House committee is also asking some unpleasent questions of the NSF.

FoxNews.com first reported on the House Committee’s dismay over the grant program back in March. Smith had also questioned the validity of other grants from the NSF including; $200,000 towards a three-year study of the Bronze Age, Another $50,000 towards the survey of archived lawsuits from 17th century Peru and $20,000 for a study on the causes of stress in Bolivia.

Without seeing the grant application, the study of the Bronze Age might be justifiable. However, $50k to read about lawsuits in 17^th Century Peru? Nope. That might be something a legal academic might do for some sort of history book that no one will read, but it isn’t going to help push forward engineering science at all. And the study of stress in Bolivia? Who cares?

I have no idea how grant proposals are selected for funding by the National Science Foundation, but whoever agreed to pay for “The Great Immensity” needs to lose their job. This modern day version of “Springtime for Hitler” smells to high heaven of either a complete disregard for science, or someone was ripping off the government. And for those of you who don’t know about “Springtime for Hitler,” here’s a short video:

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmYIo7bcUw’]

The difference between Global Warming: The Musical and the move The Producers is simple. The movie was meant to be a comedy and it worked. The Great Immensity was meant to be a serious play that should have been a comedy. I’m sure every single taxpayer who helped pay for this drivel is laughing all the way to the bank…NOT!

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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