Mike's Minute: A reality check for the zealots

There were two hardcore reality checks this week as a result of the arrival of the Trump sequel. 

BP summed up the climate dilemma very succinctly when he said they got it wrong on net zero. 

Net zero has become an unobtainable obsession. It's a business decision for many thousands of companies all over the world, driven not by clear-sighted intelligence, but woke nonsense and a desire not to stand out from the crowd. 

It's that mad, insecure feeling you have when you are 10 years old in the schoolyard not to look different, say anything unusual, or attract attention. As it turns out, it stays with you all the way up to the boardrooms, who got sucked into believing that spending billions, cutting jobs and forgoing growth would somehow lead to saving the planet. 

"We got it wrong on net zero". So, BP are back in the oil business because Trump said "drill, baby drill". 

That was a campaign slogan in an American election with a flow-on effect for the whole world. 

Then you come to aid. There's nothing wrong with aid, but a Labour Prime Minister in Britain cut the aid to pay for the defence. 

The polls say he did the right thing, as 66% of Britain think they spend too much on aid. When they hear a transportation system for refugees in Eastern Europe uses a Porsche dealer and they are paying for it, who can blame them? 

Our aid in the Pacific, until recently, remained largely unaudited. 

The idea of helping the helpless is worthy. But the reason it never ends is because aid becomes an industry and the helpless rarely get actual help. UNRWA is a UN aid agency. Have a look at their record and see how keen you are to keep giving. 

It is human nature. Most ideas start off well but blow out into a combination of madness, waste, expansion and slackness, until someone comes along and says enough is enough. 

The core principles of aid and a cleaner planet remain laudable goals and ideals. 

But until we can bring some discipline to the execution, some rigour to the containment, parameters of the targets and some realism around what's actually practically achievable, it will always be hijacked by tryhards, do-gooders and zealots. 

We will always make the same mistake. 

It will end up needing a German election-type result, or a Trump-type victory, to bring us back to our senses.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A couple of hard core reality checks this week as
a result of the arrival of the Trump sequel, BP
summed up the climate dilemma very succinctly. I thought we
got it wrong on net zero. We got it wrong
on net zero. Net zero has become an unobtainable obsession,
a business decision for many thousands of companies all over
the world, driven not by clear sighted intelligence but woke

(00:21):
nonsense and a desire not to stand out from the crowd.
That mad, insecure feeling you had when you were ten
in the schoolyard, not to look different, say anything unusual,
or attract attention, as it turns out, stays with you
all the way up to the boardrooms who get sucked
into believing that spending billions, cutting jobs, foregoing growth would
somehow lead to saving the planet. We got it wrong
on net zero. So BP are back in the oil

(00:43):
business because Trump said drill, Baby, Drill. That was a
campaign slogan in an American election with a flow on
clearly that affected the whole world. And then eight nothing
wrong with aid but a Labour prime minister in Britain
cut aid to pay for defense, and the pole said
he did the right thing. Y six percent of Britain
think there's been too much on AID, and when they
hear a transportation system for refugees in Eastern Europe uses

(01:07):
a Porsche dealer and they are paying for it, who
can blame them? Our aid in the Pacific, until recently
largely unaudited. The idea of helping the helpless is worthy,
but the reason it never ends is because AID becomes
an industry and the helpless really get actual help. UNRA,
as a UNAID agency, have a look at their record
and see how keen you are to keep giving. It
is human nature. Most ideas start off well but blow

(01:29):
out into a combination of madness, waste, expansion, slackness until
someone comes along and says enough. The core principles of
AID and a cleaner planet remain laudable goals and ideals,
But until we can bring some discipline to the execution,
some rigid to the containment and parameters of the targets,
and some realism around what's actually practically achievable, it will
always be hijacked by the tryhards, do good as and zealots.

(01:52):
We will always make the same mistake. It will end
up needing. A German election type result or a Trump
type victory to bring us back to our senses. For
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