Words and deeds

India's middle class must cut its hot air emissions

30-plus degree heat, 74 per cent humidity
Inside, their air-conditioners run 24/7
India's middle class must cut its hot air emissions

Just juggled those 3 sentences around a bit, whilst reflecting on how lucky we are here to have the ability to use almost no energy on adjusting our surrounding room temperatures for more than half the year.

And then considering how, if means and money are available, being told one must not use them will go down.

So the notion of our Ministers flying hither and thither in the attempt seems, at best, quaint.

In writing the above and posting it on the blog, I was of course pondering my own experiences in Singapore (32 degrees, 99% humidity, 24/7), and the odds of me not using a/c whenever possible (actually, we did only use fans in our home). And on our recent camping trip round Southern Europe (40 degrees, if low humidity) I was the first to concede that, without it, we'd have died in the car (plus reducing the mpg by having the windows open, he hopes, guilt-stricken).

But I have been moved to coin another descriptive phrase; that of the the Monotonous Meddlers. These guys seem not only to have an addiction to sticking their oars in everywhere and all the time, but also do it with little appreciation for actual realities, consequences or, most tellingingly, the rampant hypocrisies of their often selective and too often arrogantly stated positions.

And if they are p*ssing me off, when I agree with the basic premise they are promoting if not the manner, then lord knows how their pronouncements go down with their targets and/or those not quite so enamoured with the rightness of their causes as they are.

Wanted: One Napoleonic general.

Is successful innovation just dumb luck?

I am not sure who to credit this with, but I'll accord it to my old business partner who used it in my hearing first: 'Too many are content to be the first to be second. It's safer. The real excitement, and potential rewards, come from those who are determined only to be the first'.

Throw enough money, or people, at something, and it just might stick.

The real skill, and fun... and profit... is to come up with a great idea on a shoestring, and then get it to market on not much more.

I'm still working on the latter.

So I guess I'll accept whatever might help next. Even luck:)

But I'd also settle for a few less gatekeepers whose main function is to secure their positions by taking no risks, but also ensuring no one else around them might succeed where they dare not tread.

'No one got fired...' phoey. Think of what may have been if that attitude was stuck in a big blue hole.

Well, it's nice to know we were, are and will be in good hands

Prescott: cutting emissions by 80% will not be enough

Sadly, it would seem that some do not feel this messenger to be the best for such a message.

For my part, I seem to recall a person who engineered a trip, with full entourage, mainly to get a suntan, when in a position of real power and responsibility.

Which rather shapes my views on him, his government, and the media who still accord them any shred of credibility.