President George H.W. Bush famously quipped, “Read my lips: No new taxes.” He went on to raise taxes and many believed this contributed to the reason he did not serve a second term.
Another famous saying, in 1971 an automobile engine oil filter manufacturer heavily advertised their product using the threat, “You can pay me now or pay me later.” While maintenance can be deferred and often is in economic challenging times, eventually the bill comes due.
Free Electricity?
We are repeatedly told that since electric automobiles do not use gasoline/diesel that our cost of that fuel will go to zero. YEAH, life is good with no gas lines!
But where does the electricity come from, who pays for it and how is it economically delivered to our vehicle? And then there is the time to charge and vehicle range. Finally, there is the cost of the required infrastructure and who pays for it. Moreover, such a dramatic change in our energy landscape will take decades, not the few years many promise.
According to one source, “A collaborative investigation by The Guardian and German newspaper Die Zeit, meanwhile, found that 90 percent of the projects ostensibly validated by American company Verra were in fact “worthless” and delivered nothing close to the carbon sequestration that companies.”
Hype or Hoax?
We are all used to hype–buy this automobile and you will be more successful. Additionally, the world is awash in scams, disinformation, lies in attempts to perpetrate a hoax.
Where does Net Zero and the demands we accomplish the impossible immediate and we can never do enough fall on this curve? We are told that policy and economics are following “The Science.” But are they?
Science can be defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.” This search for knowledge is ‘Never Settled.’ No less than Galileo showed that fallacy that as we sail spacecraft to Mars an other celestial ‘spherical and not flat’ worlds. More recently, the settled science of Covid-19 appears to be not quite so static.
The Scientific Method can be used by lay people as well as scientists Previously we presented a simple but logical approach to test technical suppositions as their applicability to a given problem. Use it to see where your organization sits on the Hype–Hoax continuum.
How is your organization making significant decisions in a world full of contradictions? After all, their are no free lunches. If it sounds too good to be true …
For More Information
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See our Economic Value Proposition Matrix® (EVPM) for additional information and a free version to build your own EVPM.
The author’s credentials in this field are available on his LinkedIn page. Moreover, Dr. Shemwell is a coauthor of the just published book, “Smart Manufacturing: Integrating Transformational Technologies for Competitiveness and Sustainability.” His focus is on Operational Technologies.
“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” (Martin Luther King speech at Cornell College, 1962). For more information on Cross Cultural Engagement, check out our Cross Cultural Serious Game. You can contact this author as well.
For more details regarding climate change models, check out Bjorn Lomborg ands his latest book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.
Regarding the economics of Climate Change, check out our recent blog, Crippling Green.
For those start-up firms addressing energy (including renewables) challenges, the author can put you in touch with Global Energy Mentors which provide no-cost mentoring services from energy experts. If interested, check it out and give me a shout.