I watched this episode Sunday night, and was laughing by the end of it, because while the writers threw out the ‘Climate Change Is ‘Existential Threat of Our Time’ they also clearly showed that green tech wasn’t up to the task. From Newsbusters, video and transcript follows.
‘Madam Secretary:’ Climate Change Is ‘Existential Threat of Our Time’
Climate change has not been a new topic for CBS’s Madam Secretary, but it has provided some unintentionally hilarious results.
The latest take sadly is not as amusing as it buries natural gas in the State Department’s crusade to save the planet from the “existential threat” of global warming.
The April 29 episode “Thin Ice” revolves around a potential international disagreement over territory in the Arctic.
In the meantime, however, the department must also prepare for an upcoming World Expo where they plan to promote American ideas for renewable energy.
Unfortunately for the staff, Congress has cut their budget so their funding for the expo is being provided by “Big Oil and Gas,” represented by the quintessential greedy and ignorant oil tycoon (is there any other kind?) Chip Harding (Kevin O’Rourke.)
He is, of course, pushing for natural gas and wants to get a piece of the action in the Arctic.
Harding: But your pitch has a fundamental problem.
Kat: The nuclear power section?
Harding: It’s taking up a lot of real estate here, and you’ve neglected good old natural gas.
Blake: Well, nuclear power produces carbon-free electricity, while natural gas does not.
Kat: And most climate scientists see nuclear as the key transition technology until renewables become more efficient.
Harding: The bridge to renewables is not nuclear, my dear. It’s gas. It’s cheap, has half the emissions of coal, and most importantly, it won’t melt down and make the neighborhood children glow in the dark.
Blake: Uh, due respect, Mr. Harding, no child or anyone has ever glowed in the dark from any…
Harding: Ma’am.
Elizabeth: Mr. Harding. So good to see you again. I’m on my way to Montreal, but I couldn’t leave without stopping in to say hi.
Harding: I’m happy to hear that the Arctic is a top priority of the Dalton administration. It’s a brave new world. Everybody wants a piece, myself included.
Elizabeth: Well, I am eager to negotiate a contract that will be fair to all of us. And I wanted to thank you again for your generous pledge to our World Expo pavilion. Wow. Yeah.
Harding: It is being held in my home state of Texas.
Elizabeth: Wouldn’t want to fumble the ball on the home field, right?
Harding: Not at all, which is why I’m so concerned there’s no section on natural gas. If we’re talking future energy, we need to tell folks that gas is cheap, has half the emissions of coal, and most importantly, folks won’t glow in the dark.
To the show’s credit, they acknowledge that alternative energy sources are not quite up to standards as Elizabeth’s assistant Blake (Erich Bergen) remarks, “You need, like 12 billion solar roofs just to match the projected growth in energy consumption by 2050.”
Still, the show relies on the usual talking points such as “16 of the 17 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 2000,” despite actual evidence being recorded only since 1880 and clear cherry-picking.
And they refuse to consider natural gas, despite the things Harding says being true even to hardcore climate change alarmists.
After the State Department helps an environmentalist group get out of jail and the leader publicly denounces companies that “suppress the truth” about global warming and wish to “poison the planet,” Harding calls up Madam Secretary Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) and demands the administration publicly support drilling in the Arctic Circle, threatening to pull back his funding.
Full story at Newsbusters
Ive noticed quite a few of the CBS show line spouts this same agenda. I had to stop watching Scorpion when I found myself ripping their science apart every show. I watch shows to be entertained, not brainwashed.
Scorpion is not about science, and even high school kids (albeit from the 60’s) should be laughing their heads off at their scientific conundrums and solutions.
We watch it… because my wife wants to. Her punishment was me stopping the show so I could recover from a laughing/coughing fit, interjected with explanations of the errors in logic and science. But she likes the show for the character interactions. It’s Star Trek, with the Vulcan in command. And absolutely no connection to science.
I agree. Scorpion is a good show for characters, even tho they butcher science and physics. It gets crazy at times. Unfortunately many people will believe some of the crap they try to pull off. Big Band has the characters and tries to keep the science right!
Try Timeless for revisionist history. If it where not so funny it would be scary what they are doing to the post 1990 public school graduates perception of history and the evil white men who brought it to us.
“Timeless” has gone even further left this season Re-writing history isn’t what the time travelers do, but what the show’s script writers do. JFK is an unquestioned hero and irresistible to women (but too stupid to warn older brother Joe not to go on any secret missions). American men of the 1910s treat all women as chattel. On and on. All that said, I really want a Richard Nixon half dollar coin.
As for Madame Secretary, they paint eco-terrorists as good guys and gas company businessmen as unrepentant evil schemers. The left are effective cultural gate keepers. Never expect to see a reasonable presentation of a climate change skeptic on any fictional show.
It’s like Numb3rs, where they managed to implement theories in an afternoon that usually take a bevy of grad student a decade or more.
Scorpion isn’t even a good show for characters, according to my wife and daughter. They belong in Mensa, the characters do not, which is supposed to be the whole point, so they were really pissed off.
“I watch shows to be entertained, not brainwashed.”
How many folks out there think they are being entertained while they are learning? I’d rather watch reruns of Carol Burnett or Johnny Carson if I want good entertainment. Today’s TV is all about numbing the public to violence, killing, and malfeasance, just like a visit to the coliseum of ancient Rome.
I wish that the hijacking of print, video, and entertainment media was “hilarious.” It isn’t, and thankfully my hilarity wish was denied, but alas, the hijacking was not.
The left is in control of programming at the alphabet networks and their clear yet unstated mission is indoctrination. Brainwashing describes practically every show on the commercial networks agenda driven programming. They blame the decline in viewership, where 2 decades ago twice as many people tuned in, but rather blame it on cable and streaming video. What they fail to factor in is that most people went in search of programming that entertained rather than proselytized.
Leftwing propaganda is everywhere. The Left owns the entertainment industry and uses it to push their political agenda including CAGW. It’s tough to compete with them when they own all the megaphones of society.
Who needs urban legends, UFOs, and paranormal activity when you have CBS and today’s global warming cabal.
Ancient Astronaut Theorists would disagree.
The networks are mouthpieces for left wing positions? Who would have ever guessed.
CBS show in particular are slanted Progressive.
Lack of Global Warming is an Existential Threat for the Democrats. They can’t win but don’t seem to know it, instead choosing to push their bluff harder via the media. The good guys have just flopped the nuts. The Democrats are all-in with no way out and will lose and that will be the end of them.
https://youtu.be/KC_BETBgWxk
I am not that optimistic.
Deep state indoctrination on all media platforms, in nearly all story lines, themes, and plots since about ‘1984’.
I would date that as about the time the federal government mandated digital TV versus analog.
Not much physical resemblance between their Madame Secretary and Hillary that I can see. Not on Hillary’s best day did she ever look like the actress supposedly playing her. They’re both women, as far as I can tell but that’s about it. Refused to ever watch that propaganda so I’m not very versed in its goings on.
They both have blond hair?
Le couleur du jour.
One of the problems with this show, which I admittedly have only seen in briefly, is that Tea Leoni is actually a very good comedic actress and should remain in those roles. Not to mention the political nature of the show which came out prior to the 2016 elections and was trying to show a female Secretary of State as honest and competent unlike the real female Secretary of State. Funny how the comparison probably did more harm than good for Hillary.
One of the funniest things ever on TV was Tea in her series Naked Truth when she accidentally hit herself with a taser.
“Madame Secretary” was supposed to be what the left wanted Hillary to be. If reality sucks then rewrite it the way you wanted it to be. Maybe people will be fooled into having a better opinion of Hillary’s term at State because she looked so good in this show.
If CBS wants to be more realistic, they should borrow the old wardrobe from “Star Trek”(TOS) for Madame Secretary. And a fat suit from the knees down.
Why is it always and only the Arctic that gets attention? I demand equal time for the Antarctic!
Jerry Brown claims the Antarctic is melting too…..at least as a prelude to getting more federal funding for a few more miles of high speed rail to no where and selling carbon tax extensions.
Gerry directing his “moonbeam” science to the Antarctic eh? (cue
Star Trek theme)
“carbon-free electricity” is the goal?
Imagine a carbon-free world.
Imagine death.
Sure, there’d be no carbon based life forms, nor carbon cycle, but think of the ideal temperatures!
Global Warming and Climate Change are not the same thing. Climate Change could simply mean that we have hotter hots and colder colds, which can wreak havoc for growing food. The hotter hots and colder colds can create more violent storms as well even if the overall temperature of the planet is not going up.
As was stated above, perhaps people are cherry picking their analysis that the earth is warming up, but if they can find data that shows hotter hots while others find colder colds, that’s still not a good thing.
The other point that seems to be lost on some is Progressives supporting nuclear energy? Are you kidding me?
Wonderful! Public policy directed by a sitcom with lousy acting. What could possibly go wrong?
P.S. At least it seems like a sitcom.
They already have elected a independent/third party President … so it is a sitcom
Tom…P.S. At least it seems like a sitcom….
Is Roseanne Barr scheduled for a guest role and sets out to undermine the secretary as a climate alarmist when Roseanne’s character takes over as Director of The EPA?
Now that I would like to tune in to!
Hey, they are making an argument that 99% of warmunists abominate. Go nuclear. There are few like Shellenberger and Hansen who would go that way, but they are a tiny minority of the Woke.
If the greens would commit to making 80% of US base load nuclear, and forgetting solar Frisbees and bat chomping eco-crucifixes, I could live with them.
How any of you could sit through this excrement or any prime-time tv is beyond me.
especially with the NHL playoffs going on.
That’s why the cable companies and big networks are finally starting to worry about cord-cutting. (Cancelling cable/satellite services, or reducing to a minimal package.)
Scandal had an episode where global warming was the key element to proving an image of a mass grave was faked. Apparently global warming has so changed the climate the photo could not have been taken when it was said to have been taken.
We haven’t watched TV series and news casts for 30 years, but it’s fun to find out what we haven’t missed.
It was high comedy disguised as a serious statement on “climate change.” The good news was, the producers took it seriously. The better news is it missed the intent by miles and probably started the inevitable demise of the show much sooner than the producers would want.
Also, The Good Fight. Disgusting.
Vlad’s petro-oligarch Ruskies are busy putting a floating nuclear reactor up in the Arctic to power the cities and industries in Siberia for their fossil fuel production.
(Photo above: ) The Akademik Lomonosov, which the Russian energy company Rosatom calls “the world’s only floating nuclear power unit,” left port on Saturday.
Photo from Rosatom.
More at:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/30/607088530/russia-launches-floating-nuclear-power-plant-its-headed-to-the-arctic
The Russians need to not want use their own oil for domestic production, since they need to export it for hard currency. They do however have uranium for abundant fission-produced electircal power and hot water. It is of course with a partial thanks to Crooked Hillary and the criminal syndicate she ran while Secretary of State, that the Russians have plenty of uranium..
Errata. Should read:
“The Russians need to not
wantwaste use …”And fortunately for the US, the US Navy as a few “floating” nuclear power plants._performs_a_high_speed_run_during_operations_in_the_Pacific_Ocean.jpg)
Some interesting links on Navy ship-to-shore power:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/russias-floating-nuclear-power-plant-follows-in-the-footsteps-of-an-army-barge/
http://www.navyhistory.org/2014/03/going-ashore-naval-ship-to-shore-power-for-humanitarian-services/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-691-seminar-in-electric-power-systems-spring-2006/projects/ship_to_shore.pdf
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=52136
Another story on the Russian floating power plant: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/russia-launched-a-floating-nuclear-power-plant-this-weekend/
Impressive vessels……..Meanwhile, in Australia our moronic politicians are about to spend $50Bn on twelve diesel (yes, DIESEL !!) powered submarines.
And in the ultimate pork barrelling exercise, they will be built in South Australia, where useless wind and solar generation abounds. Luckily they have Elon Musk’s “big battery” as backup.
“the world’s only floating nuclear power unit,” – outside of the hundreds of aircraft carriers, submarines, and cruisers in service.
I made it as far as the “16 of the 17 of the hottest years on record” line and turned it off. I am a great believer in watching fiction and suspend my scientific background and belief, especially when watching movies, but this was a step too far, flat out lies still penetrate the illusion.
How can you even watch that crap!?
” outside of the hundreds of aircraft carriers, submarines, and cruisers in service.”
The USN hasn’t operated nuclear powered cruisers since the South Calinky paid off in July ’99
Don’t some other nations have NBC’s? (Nuclear Battle Cruiser)
Concidering how many Nuclear Icebreakers there are, an NBC wouldn’t be hard to design.
~¿~
The Kirov’s are laid up at the moment and are likely to be scrapped… complete list here:
http://www.radiationworks.com/nuclearships.htm#ushakov
You people still watch television?
One of the worst left wing shows on TV. Right behind Donald Sutherland’s joke.