But, hey, it’s “only” $4.9 million of federal taxpayer money
(Free Beacon) The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave nearly $5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to create scenarios based on America’s actions on climate change, including a utopian future where everyone rides a bike and courts forcibly take property from the wealthy.
The government has awarded $4,911,961 for the project, which is slated to run until March 2016 and for which the school has created a website suggesting different possibilities of what Yahara, a Wisconsin watershed, will be like in 2070.
In the scenario where Americans “shift our values,†people live in hippie-like communes after “youth culture†convinces the world to give up their cars and eat vegetarian.
“By the 2020s, the world seemed at the edge of environmental and political collapse,†the scenario says. “Despite this predicament, youth culture becomes empowered to shift the course of humanity. Disenchanted with the country’s highly consumptive culture, the younger generations embrace community building and sustainability and work together through grassroots action to get their voices heard.â€
Well, hey, what else do the youth have to do? Thanks to Leftist economic policies, jobs have dried up. Their “climate change” and healthcare policies have made the situations worse. Climate change policies will cause prices to skyrocket, meaning everyone has to ride a bike because they cannot afford to even buy a car, much less put gas in one. And is anyone surprised in the least about one of the conditions being Government forcibly taking property from the wealthy? Are you further surprised that they’ve wrapped their pet cult of “climate change” into so many other progressive policy prescriptions?
Make sure to read the entire article for the full effect, and what the Progressive utopia looks like. Of course, most Progressives want Other People to live like this. They refuse to change their own lives.
welcome to the tyrannical socialistic nightmare. HELL and anarchy.
The Washington Beacon, a far-right scandal sheet, is willfully misleading you, the hapless reader, once again. Mr. Teach is more than happy to pass along the misinformation since outrage is his only product.
The NSF grant not only supported significant research resulting in dozens of scientific papers over the years, but indirectly stimulated the economy during the great recession. A win-win.
The website derided by The Bacon, was just a tiny bit of the community outreach associated with the project.
So for less than the cost of the seat assembly for an F-22 (1 F-22 cost about $150 million), for about the cost of an advanced Tomahawk cruise missle (single use only!) we gathered significant scientific knowledge AND helped a community!
For perspective, the cost of the grant, spread over its 4 year term, is 0.000033% of Federal spending over that time. During the great recession, the proceeds paid salaries to faculty members, students, trainees, enabled hiring of laboratory technicians, paid for supplies, research, travel, laboratory instruments, administrative costs and indirectly caused apartments to be rented, grocery stores to remain in business, used cars to be purchased, schools to remain open, teachers to keep their jobs etc.
But since it supported many of the things that the far-right hates – research, education, professors, science, publications, universities, and the government – the whole process is mocked (never discussed – just ridiculed).
Here are just a few of the published works from the grant. Note the paucity of references to Gaia and socialism and note the abundance of references to inorganic phosphate, watersheds and planktivorous fishes. Or are the scientists in Wisconsin part of the conspiracy to take over the world one planktivorous fish paper at a time?
M. E. Soylu, Kucharik, C. J., and Loheide, S. P., “Influence of groundwater on plant water use and productivity: Development of an integrated ecosystem – Variably saturated soil water flow modelâ€, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol. 189, pp. 198-210, 2014.
S. R. Carpenter and Lathrop, R. C., “Phosphorus loading, transport and concentrations in a lake chain: a probabilistic model to compare management optionsâ€, Aquatic Sciences, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 145-154, 2014.
R. C. Lathrop and Carpenter, S. R., “Water quality implications from three decades of phosphorus loads and trophic dynamics in the Yahara chain of lakesâ€, Inland Waters, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-14, 2014.
C. J. Kucharik and Brye, K. R., “Soil Moisture Regime and Land Use History Drive Regional Differences in Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Storage Across Southern Wisconsinâ€, Soil Science, vol. 178, no. 9, pp. 486-495, 2013.
J. X. Qiu and Turner, M. G., “Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershedâ€, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 110, no. 29, pp. 12149-12154, 2013.
C. Bernes, Carpenter, S. R., Gardmark, A., Larsson, P., Persson, L., Skov, C., and Van Donk, E., “What is the influence on water quality in temperate eutrophic lakes of a reduction of planktivorous and benthivorous fish? A systematic review protocolâ€, Environmental Evidence, vol. 2, no. 1, 2013.
S. R. Carpenter, Arrow, K. J., Barrett, S., Biggs, R., Brock, W. A., Crepin, A. S., Engstrom, G., Folke, C., Hughes, T. P., Kautsky, N., Li, C. Z., McCarney, G., Meng, K., Maler, K. G., Polasky, S., Scheffer, M., Shogren, J., Sterner, T., Vincent, J. R., Walker, B., Xepapadeas, A., and de Zeeuw, A., “General Resilience to Cope with Extreme Eventsâ€, Sustainability, vol. 4, no. 12, pp. 3248-3259, 2012.
Am not sure what you are arguing against there J. Teach did not make anything. The WA Free Beacon didn’t make anything up, and of which I note that you didn’t accuse of making anything up. You even noted that the story is true by defending it.
An $5 million dollar NSF grant, which started in April 2011, lasting 3 years so far not 4, and is “estimated” to expire in 2016.
Certainly sounds like to me that the website was mentioned as being PART of that grant. And, I don’t see Teach making mention that this website was the ONLY outcome of that grant.
And as far as your suggestion that a small amount of money is no big deal for this bloated federal budget, you are the perfect reason why our budget continues to bloat and expand despite a stagnated salaries, depressed economy, and extremely high unemployment.
BTW,
Two things here. The US Federal Gov’t can not stimulate the economy by removing monies from it and then giving it back somewhere else. The UW-M is a state funded university that charges its students and its people per-credit-hour rates to pay for educating its members and hire personnel. I’ve got issue with Feds taking money from others to give it to academia.
Secondly, are you suggesting that this grant took place during the Great Recession of the 30’s?
And are you suggesting that the defense of this nation from evil is far less necessary than funding research in to phosphorous loading of S. Wisconsin waterways?
Teach seems to hate that youth culture thing, except when they are posing for him. Teach the politics of American youth are not those of conservatives only about 1/4 would admit to being “conservative”
Gas prices topped out under BUSH not Obama, they are 10% now than they were under Bush’s high point
Jobs ?? that is something the government is responsible for ? I thought that was why we kept the taxes on the rich low, you know, so they could create jobs.
The Dow has gone up 250% under Obama’s “LEFTIST” policies.
The unemployment rate is LESS than when Bush left us with a crashing economy
The deficit is now LESS than the one Bush left us with which was an all time record high budget deficit.
Gumballs,
“The US Federal Gov’t can not stimulate the economy by removing monies from it and then giving it back somewhere else.” That statement is absolutely false and shows your lack of understanding of macroeconomics. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both stimulated the economy with massive deficit spending. The US has been able to borrow money at 0% for several years now. So if we borrow $5 million at 0% interest, distribute that to citizens who spend it, and pay it back over 20 yrs with dollars diminished by 2% inflation, are you really saying that is not an economic stimulus??
“…you are the perfect reason why our budget continues to bloat and expand despite a stagnated salaries, depressed economy, and extremely high unemployment.” The yearly deficits are plummeting, so why are you whining? Did you mean to imply that a budget deficit contributes to stagnated salaries, depressed economy and unemployment? If so, explain the mechanism, please.
And are you really suggesting that we should only spend money on war?
Ok, let’s try this. You have 2 water wells. The old kind that had to be dug. Both are however connected to the same aquifer.
You pull up 2 buckets of water from well A, and then carry those buckets over to well B. You dump those buckets in to well B.
Now, did you gain water?
Gumballs,
Cute and irrelevant story.
Let’s say you have an economy with overall decreased demand because consumers either do not, or perceive they do not, have extra money to spend. People lose their jobs. Businesses fold. Small businesses that supported the larger businesses suffer. More layoffs, fewer new hires, even though young people are entering the workforce. People lose their health coverage. If the government cuts taxes on the working poor, make direct payments to the unemployed, enroll the unemployed and underemployed in programs such as Medicaid, contract to re-build infrastructures – all of these efforts stimulate the economy. Where does the money come from? Borrowing.
Countries, individuals and businesses love to loan money to the US. Why? Because we pay it back.
First off, your “story” is not correct. You have 2 things going on. YOu have current spending and taxes and borrowing. Then you have extra borrowing and spending.
Current spending and borrowing pays for:
~government cuts taxes on the working poor (which they never do, besides the working poor dont pay taxes)
~make direct payments to the unemployed
~enroll the unemployed and underemployed in programs such as Medicaid
… and to some extent .. ~infrastructure jobs.
Extra spending and borrowing:
~contract to re-build infrastructures (in which I infer to mean The Stimulus Fund.
And, no… we do not pay back our debt. Have you not heard that our debt is MASSIVE!!! 17 Trillion, and some see that it could be couple of times larger than that.
It isn’t paying back our borrowing when we are borrowing to pay that. In real world, that is illegal or gets people in to lots of trouble.
When you borrow to pay interest and borrow to pay for borrowed debt, that is not helping the economy. WHen you indebt the grandkids of current tax payers, how is that freeing them up to grow the economy. 3 generations are trying to pay off the growing debt.
Decreasing taxes is the only way, along with some Fed wrangling, to help the economy to be in a position to grow. But, Obama is adding red tape, regulations, debt burden, high unemployment (double digits is not lower than bush), mandates by use of force, militarization of police, raids on milk and guitar producers, rising prices on EVERYTHING… do not help the economy to grow.
In fact… the economy has been stagnant since he took over. It is now standing at -0.1%.
Im not sure where I heard it, but it fits nicely in this discussion.
Debating Jeffery is like playing chess with a pigeon. Jeff struts around knocking over the pieces while shitting all over the board triumphantly declaring himself the winner because all your pieces are no longer standing.
ROFL
