Queen Elizabeth will today stalk through the corridors of the palace to the Trophy Room where hangs the Honours Board that lists the British Prime Ministers she has outlasted. There she will supervise the insertion of the date when Boris quit. And there will be some discussion with the with the “painter royal” about whose name might next appear as number 16, and whether to order more gilt lettering. Will she do a royal fist pump as she leaves, do you think?
In South Africa we have very many things to wonder about. Like the fact that our government has a National Planning Commission! Like many other government outfits and agencies, it skulks behind its initials, (NPC) and can surprise the unwary when it is revealed. For example, can we surmise that our current state of affairs was actually planned for and with deep satisfaction, bureaucrats are ticking off events and outcomes as they come true? Goodness! Surely not. In which case it would appear that their existence has been a very great misuse of public money and it is time we ask them to go and try to seek employment in the private sector.
The odd metallic noise you hear is the sound of dropping pennies. It seems that at last enough particularly smart and aware decision makers, have finally realised and accepted that right now, there is no alternative to burning coal, oil and gas for keeping the lights on. The calls for an immediate halt to the progress of civilisation that is the stock-in-trade of often near hysterical and deluded communities of activists is losing traction. Real people with real problems and important things to do are losing their patience with the doom pixies and their antics. Especially when they demand taxpayer’s money to fund their agendas – like regular conferences in salubrious surroundings. The worrying yet amusing displays on the planet in recent times have been the sight and sound of politicians trying to convince voters that their understanding of and hatred for carbon dioxide is deeper than anyone else’s and producing tons of the stuff in order to do so.
Hopefully there is growing awareness that the science is far from clear on all the physics and chemistry claimed by either side in their arguments about the scale and irreversibility of man’s influence on the planet. Collecting data on geophysical processes is tricky and unlike controlled experiments in a lab. In the field, so-called constants have a terrible habit of changing! Counting polar bears is so last year. Electric cars are a con (especially when your nation can’t reliably supply enough power even to boil a kettle). Wind farms need both wind and subsidies to operate. And they kill birds. And on average, without cease, the sun goes down for 12 hours a day and we don’t yet know how to make a battery that can effectively bridge that gap in the solar power model.
Even as the world becomes more complicated to understand and explain, its lovely to hear that this week, scientists gathered at the CERN particle-physics lab in Geneva to mark the 10th anniversary of the announcement of the Higgs Boson. This must surely have been the hottest ticket of the week. But also, the most select. Especially if it was restricted to only those who have any idea what these boson thingies are. But don’t underestimate us physicists. We’ll drink cheap sparkling wine out of plastic cups in a messy lab at any opportunity.
Last week, the rugby Test against the Welsh was a very messy, barely deserved win. The referee, who hailed from Georgia (the country not the state), must have gone for a long lie down afterwards. Never before would he have encountered such a lack of love! The selectors’ response has been to change the ‘bok squad for tomorrow’s contest so much, that the players will recognise each other only by the fact that they will be wearing jerseys of the same colour.
James Greener
Friday 8th July 2022
