Your taxpayer dollars at work
Add the words “climate change” or “global warming” into any proposal for research funding, and your chances of success are improved immeasurably. Government agencies are just desperate to throw away precious funds on anything which might help the alarmist “Cause”, and yet again puts the lie to the claim that sceptics are a tightly-knit well-funded team.
Put the words “climate sceptic” in your proposal, it will guarantee to fail, not least because climate sceptics are just one notch above pedophiles in the politically-correct social strata that we presently inhabit.
Wasting money on pointless “climate change” initiatives is standard procedure for this embarrassment of a government (see here), so it’s hardly surprising that millions of taxpayers money is literally flushed down the lavatory on tenuous climate-related research:
MILLIONS of dollars in government research funding is being ploughed into studies of emotion in climate change messages, ancient economic life in Italy and the history of the moon.
Studies of sleeping snails and determining if Australian birds are getting smaller because of climate change have also been allocated funding in the latest round of grants totalling $300 million by the Australian Research Council.
A study of “an ignored credit instrument in Florentine economic, social and religious life from 1570 to 1790” secured $578,792 for a researcher from the University of Western Australia.
The council insists the study was approved because it had modern day relevance to the global financial crisis as it shows how Florence in ancient times recovered from an economic downturn and because no one had studied that element of history before.
Another project titled “Sending and responding to messages about climate change: the role of emotion and morality” by a Queensland university secured $197,302. The council said it was an important psychology project.
The study to determine if birds are shrinking was awarded $314,000 and another of sleeping snails to determine “factors that aid life extension” was given $145,000. Studying the early history of the moon will cost taxpayers $210,000 and another study looking at “William Blake in the 21st century” comes with a $636,904 bill.
“At a time when every available dollar could be put to backing innovation and research and development to make us more competitive, we have seen a growth in support for some real eyebrow-raising activities,” opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb said. (source)
But who cares about nurses, teachers or policemen? It’s all in aid of “saving the planet”, right? So we don’t need to bother with all that cost/benefit rubbish.
Australian Climate Madness 
At least the DT chose to publish the story; most of the time the MSM ignores it. One can only hope it changes something.
Simon, if you had lived here in the 1970’s, you’d recognize this lunacy is a repeat of the stupidities ‘we’ experienced with Gough’s Trough of endless flowing borrowed money, which took 30 years to pay off in the last conservative government, on things so esoteric that not even the PhD nincompoop had not the slightest idea of what s/he was doing.
Yes it’s crazy to fund anything that has climate change in the title, at least until the historical studies examing the collective insanity, but I am disappointed that you select other, perfectly respectable studies, however obscure, for criticism.
In a civilised society academic research often goes into esoterica. That’s part of what makes it a civilised society.
And please, don’t ever quote Andrew Robb. He might have been suffering from depression at the time, but he has a lot of apologising to do before he is allowed to enter respectable discourse.
Yes, I take your point. There is nothing inherently wrong with, as you put it, obscure but respectable academic studies.
Very uncomfortable with your statements about Andrew Robb’s depression…. Please do not hold that horrible frightening illness against him, nor present it as a reason that he should not be able to be a valued part of our society
it is so all a load of crap
i mean climate change etc
Regardless of ones opinion on the climate change debate, Co2 emmissions are toxic and therefore should be reduced as much as possible. Anyone that says climate scientists are wrong therefore we should keep emmitting more & more toxic Co2 emmissions is an advocate for toxins. May as well take a dump in their their lounge room.
Not true, John. CO2 emissions at the levels they are today are NOT toxic to human life and are beneficial to plant life. CO2 only becomes toxic to humans at 8 – 10,000 ppm (25 times present levels).
Andrew Robb may say these things now but just wait ’til he’s in government and not watch anything change. They will do as the public service tells them and also throw money about with gay abandon for fear of alienating those who won’t vote for them anyway. The Lib have lost their way are too afraid of stating the bleeding obvious about what the majority of us want to hear, ie climate change is natural and we will be dismantling the entire laughing stock of government departments and funding devoted to the “cause”, for fear of upsetting anybody and losing the odd vote here and there. Who cares? They need to be brutally honest about what they are going to do.
here, here.. couldn’t agree more.
the NSW and Victorian Libs have proven themselves to be almost non-starters in the removal of the ALP’s agenda and cock-ups. A big pity indeed.
Mr O’Farrell should have stood firm on the removal or massive reduction of the solar feed-in tariffs.. very unhappy about that.
And in the education dept they desperately need to go through the curriculum’s with a fine tooth-comb and weed out all ALP and climate change mis-information and propaganda, but it is just not happening !
If truth be known trillions have probably been spent around the world for something that doesn’t really exist.
It’s the reason why these propaganda pushers still have their cosy research jobs – one hand washing the other.
I would say billions have been wasted on this scam. Climate Change has been since the planet began and humans cannot change it. We are like grains of sand on the beach. The UN could be spending that money on those who are starving throughout the world, esp Africa. Not giving it to the goverment but to agencies who are really struggling to look after these poor people. How much do the members of the UN contribute towards these people, not the wealthy heirarchy who wine and dine on caviar.
How about Australian taxpayers contributing $5 million to ‘Flanneryland’ or more precisely, the Flannery Centre.
“The Flannery Centre is due to open in early 2012, offering courses, services and reputable information around living and working sustainably. The mission of the Centre is to inspire, lead and learn our way to a positive future.”
If that ain’t a waste of taxpayer dollars, I don’t know what is!