There’s a school in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, that has halved the number of books in its library by removing all books published before 2008. Based on a ministerial directive, the intent is ensuring that all books are “equitable and inclusive” (link here to the CBC, no less).
I’m guessing that grades in history dropped rather quickly.
Gone, like magic, is Harry Potter. HG Wells’ time machine appears to have collected all evidence of its existence. Homer’s odyssey led to obscurity.
Joseph Conrad never made it out of the Heart of Darkness to livestream his tale (maybe that would have been a good thing. It’s a tough read). Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom – a book I read something like 25 years ago and whose passages still influence my thinking – is being recycled into The Activist’s Handbook (yes, that’s a real thing) without a hint of irony.
Quick sidebar. A few years ago, I was excited to meet Francois Pienaar, the South African 1995 rugby world-cup winning captain, who was presented the Webb-Ellis Cup by Nelson Mandela. They went on to become close, with Mandela being the godfather of Francois’ children. Francois said the most remarkable thing about Mandela was that he came out of prison “with forgiveness in his heart”. Let that sink in.
Back to the books.
One of the more rebellious things we can do in 2023 is to buy books, new books, old books – real ones made of paper and board – and keep them. They can’t be revised, updated, walked-back, “corrected” or cancelled. You could even read them.
Presumably, also gone from the library are the teachings of Aesop’s Fables, and all Greek mythology. Many lampoon the studying of the classics; anyone who has recognises that the stories are really lessons in human psychology (and anyone who has studied leadership will know that it’s actually all psychology).
I’m not sure that it’s really possible to study English without Shakespeare, but a generation in a certain Ontario school district may end up being the test case. Alongside the beauty they’ll never know, they’ll miss out on the complexities of the Merchant of Venice, which includes one of my favourite lines:
"Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but in the end truth will out."
In the end truth will out.
As an optimist, that has got to be a core belief. The alternative is too horrific to contemplate.
This came to mind while reading The Economist recently. Given where their reporting generally sits on the spectrum, I view my subscription as a token attempt to avoid living in an echo chamber. But once in a while, it surprises me.
Finally! A mainstream acknowledgement that the ‘wind and solar are the cheapest form of power generation’ narrative is, actually, false when the impact on the rest of the grid is considered.
“… solar panels and wind turbines are themselves less beneficial than they might seem. If they cannot reliably produce electricity when it is needed, then their generating capacity is not as valuable as that of a regular power plant.”
A good start, however it didn’t really go far enough – for example, it talks about how most markets are non-ideal, partly due to the distances between renewable generation and demand. But panic not! “Eventually, increasing the grid’s capacity to shift and store electricity will solve such problems.”
Righto then.
So, we just have to wait for the IEA’s prediction of constructing power lines to come true. 49.7 million miles (almost 2000 times around the equator) by 2040 at an annual cost of $600B, to be precise. That’s a lot of alumin(i)um to be mined and refined, and a lot of (mostly China-sourced) transformers.
It’s also a lot of land, a lot of nimby-ism, and a lot of pylons containing a lot of steel and a lot of concrete.
What transmutates this from one-eyed journalism into outright intellectual dishonesty is the unwillingness to apply the same standards to the assessment of alternatives, also known as politics. For example, Chris Bowen, Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, likes to sideline nuclear power on the basis of cost – but not include the cost of grid buildout and balancing when advocating renewables.
Setting aside Australia’s AA-member, liquor store owner relationship with uranium, how about we place nuclear facilities nearby existing thermal power plants, and use the existing grid?
That would also allow us to focus on building grids where they don’t exist, like developing countries, where they can help lift people out of poverty. Surely that’s a better alternative than pandering to the luxury beliefs of suburbanites who are more likely to board an aeroplane than pass through a countryside scarred by power lines?
If you care about carbon, it’s less. If you care about reliability, it’s better. If you care about safety, nuclear has the best record of any source. And if you care about cost… then we need to do some honest economics.
Now where’s that copy of Keynes?
Spot on, as usual Andrew.