Here’s a modest proposal for you…Try listening to less news for a change, and see if you can’t steer clear of those media outlets which habitually confuse shouting loudest with thinking clearest: a jumble of empty vessels, jostling and clanking in their daily struggle to make the most noise. Admittedly, you might then miss out on the earth-shattering news that Moya Crockett (whoever she is) has now “got her spending under control” (as The Guardian reported on Monday) or, indeed, that some fellow in Norway woke up last Thursday to find a container ship in his back garden (Sky News 23 May). Obviously, you wouldn’t want to miss either of those two news nuggets…but all the same, watching, reading and listening to less news might just help us reflect a little more on some of the bigger issues confronting us on a daily basis (without in any way to wishing to denigrate Ms Crockett’s budgetary skills or, come to that, the ability of Norwegian captains to keep their ships off the grass). But let’s develop this point a little to give you a better understanding of where I’m coming from….bear with me a moment.
Mythmaking
Like me, you may often have asked yourself why (and whether) we need to be told quite so often that Donald Trump doesn’t believe in climate change (describing it variously, in his inimitable way, as “mythical”, “non-existent” and “an expensive hoax”)…of course, the answer is that we don’t: we don’t need to be told on a minute by minute basis what’s exercising his febrile mind, any more than we need to know about the man in Croydon who doesn’t believe in the Moon (I’m not making that up), or, indeed, that one in six British citizens currently don’t believe man ever set foot on the moon at all (a startling 4% go the whole hog and dismiss the entire Apollo 11 mission as a “definite hoax”: https://yougov.co.uk/). These and people just like they make up the slack-jawed, gimlet-eyed constituency that is largely responsible for sucking the oxygen out of what passes these days for public debate.
To state the obvious: climate change is certainly not a hoax; there is a moon up there (I’ve seen it and expect you have too), and no matter how you dress it up, a good few of our fellow human beings have actually walked on the lunar surface. But there’s no need to get tangled up in all that…happily, you can still drill through to the hard facts in a less cumbersome, less bonkers way, and that’s what I want to tell you about in this Newswire (…in the unlikely event Donald Trump is still reading this, he may want to look away now).
It’s the Economy Stupid…But is it Really Worth it?
There’s no need to waste time weighing up the relative merits of allegations and counter allegations gathered up (as Donald might put it) from the rubble and trash of myths, expensive hoaxes, and things that don’t exist: still less any need to waste time actually reading the trash in question. No…the trick is to carefully catalogue core variables for any particular value proposition and then assess whether the overall proposition is, in general terms, “worth it” (in much the same way as a well-known brand of shampoo).
Take electric cars, for example Donald Trump would have us believe they’re a bad thing given his (admittedly mad) thesis that climate change is a myth, meaning sustainable transport simply has no future because there’s no social or policy-based imperative that makes it worthwhile. Simple as that…except of course it’s not that simple in the real world, as I shall now demonstrate…
Dig into the core variables for the Electric Vehicle (“EV”) proposition, for example, and you’ll find (on a day-to-day basis) that (a) electricity is significantly cheaper to supply to a car than petrol or diesel; (b) charging an EV at home is likely to be cheaper still on a retail tariff, and (c) EVs cost as little as 2p per mile to run (way less than a petrol engine). Add to this that (d) a battery-powered car has fewer moving parts (meaning reduced maintenance costs and less to go wrong generally); (e) EVs have more effective regenerative braking systems (so less to go wrong.. again); and there are also a range of other indirect benefits such as road tax exemptions, ULEZ qualification, and lower insurance costs.
Those are all hard facts…they’re not “non-existent”, and they’re not part of an “expensive hoax”,; and even if Donald Trump chose to dress them up instead as a “cheap hoax” (whatever that might be), they would still be facts, because that’s essentially what facts are.
As will be readily seen, and irrespective of issues of sustainability and environmental protection, all of these factors inevitably favour EVs over diesel or petrol-driven vehicles: so much so that among the handful of factors still capable of distinguishing an internal combustion engine from EV is its ability to generate forward motion through a process of small, contained explosions (no big deal in itself), as well a capacity to pump out copious amounts of noxious gases, smoke, noise and, just for good measure, clouds of greenhouse emissions (which is a big deal).
In short, the economic fact that EVs are better all round than petrol engines is also a social reality, so we can choose EVs with an easy conscience because the economic argument has made itself. It is, of course, an added bonus that EVs also perform so much better when it comes to protecting our precious planet, but we don’t even have to go there because (see above and to repeat the core point) the choice essentially makes itself…
…and because the choice makes itself, we don’t need to bother listening any longer to Donald Trump on climate change…waste any effort assessing the sanity of the Man from Croydon, or struggle any longer through the darker recesses of Elon Musk’s mind as he continues to give a platform for a whole sack load of conspiracy theories. The only problem now is what to do with all that extra time spent not reading Donald Trump and Elon Musk…I might take up tennis.
Red Ribbon Asset Management (www.redribbon.co) aims to harness the exponential power of fast evolving and emerging technologies so as to meet the needs of global communities as part of a circular economy, combining a profound understanding of key economic developments with an in depth appreciation of the cumulative demands of Planet, People and Profit.
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Red Ribbon Asset Management (www.redribbon.co) aims to harness the full potential of fast evolving and emerging technologies to meet the needs of global communities as part of a circular economy, fully recognising the compelling demands of planet people and profit.
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