The Power of Words

There is wisdom in words, even in foolish and dangerous words. There is beauty in words; the sounds that we hear from speech and the sounds that we form in our minds when we read can be as beautiful and as moving as the best music that we can hear. There is truth in words, even in words which do not speak the truth, because through lies we can better understand the truth. There is rare simplicity and great complexity in words. There is grace in words. Words are powerful; they can shape movements and bring ideas into reality.

We owe it to ourselves not to abuse words and not to use them badly. So many these days are so good at picking a selection of words that trigger emotions to make us buy something we do not need or sell something we should keep, or fight a war when we should be at peace or justify that which cannot be justified. Yet we cannot pay this debt to ourselves, for so many do not care beyond their selfish desires and greed.

Small Observations of an Insightful Kind

I am reading a book that was published over a hundred years ago by a little known writer who did not, as far as I know, have more than a handful of books published. Some say that everyone has a book inside them, but I am not sure that is true. Everyone has a real and unique story inside them, which can, if plotted, become a book that will keep us amused or entertained and be a pleasant way in which to pass time. The book that I am now reading is not one which has such a story, but is full of small observations of an insightful kind.

Casually, the author exposes these insights, which explain our behaviour when it seems irrational. If you were to extract the observations from the plot and put all the insights together you would have an anthropological study of humanity in London at the turn of the last century. If you simply read the book without attempting to synthesise its wisdom you will absorb the wisdom (or some of it) through the entertainment. The book is called “The City of Beautiful Nonsense” by E. Temple Thurston and you can read or download it for free at the Gutenberg website.

There are more famous books which are a collection of small observations of an insightful kind, and many of them, too. I think that this shows us the processes that our ideas go through and how they often end up. We live, as in a story, through a series of events and from those events we select pieces of what we think is wisdom. That wisdom is a belief, tempered by experience, which may or may not be profoundly true, but to us its truth is paramount and obvious, because we have lived and loved it.

We then recite the idea as a truth, or as a story, or as advice or as belief. That seems the process of living until we reach a condition when we want no more ideas, no more insights and no more trouble. That of course is the dangerous time as we take the small slice of history through which we have lived so far as containing all the wisdom and insights that the world will ever need. That may be so, but is unlikely to be so and it is even less unlikely that we will have been able to have the wisdom the select the important insights or the insights that will mend a broken world or even a broken heart.

Great minds can synthesise these insights; small minds live with them as prejudices. We ought to try to honour these insights, not as dogma or as hard wisdom, but as soft malleable wisdom (all real wisdom is malleable) whose truth lies in the strength of the ideas and whose wisdom lies in the beauty of truth.

 

The Science of Criticism

Art and science thrive on criticism, science particularly so, because the scientific process is usually a progress from an idea to a fact, from a possibility through probability to truth. You cannot make that journey and reach your destination – truth – unless there is a great deal of criticism and peer review along the route. Even when you have reached what is universally accepted as the truth, you may still be wrong and so the criticism must continue.

Odd Things -wisdom and truth

The pursuit of truth is excellence, truth is the basis of excellence and truth requires sincerity which is the foundation of all communication. Like sincerity truth is simple. Wisdom is simple too, and that is why it is so hard to be wise. Truth and wisdom, like excellence are rare. Simplicity is rare.

Climate Change and what we do – Truth and Lies

I wrote this for H&V News, and lots of people wrote to me saying that they agreed with my sentiments. It will be an interesting start to my weblog.

Some truths are virtually self evident; one is that climate change is the greatest challenge facing the world today which we can only really mitigate by emitting less carbon dioxide.

Lies are not self evident. The late and unlamented Josef Goebbels said that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it.  When you couple a big lie with a self evident truth, you cause the greatest harm.

The truth about climate change is being coupled with the big lie that the government is doing something about it and leading the world in the fight against climate change. DEFRA on its climate change web page claims “The UK is acting now to adapt to climate change and to reduce the risk by reducing our contribution to the causes”. I do not believe that. It is a lie. 

The truth is that the United Kingdom government does less about climate change than any virtually of its EU partners, and less than most countries in the world. For example, due entirely to lack of government encouragement the solar thermal industry in the UK is around 5% of that of Germany and we see a very modest growth rate in its take up here.

Countries, like France, Portugal, Italy and Spain which traditionally had only slight more solar thermal than the UK are now experiencing double digit growth as a result of the policies of their own government. Our government it seems need to be convinced that this is a viable technology, or do they? 

We see articles in the Guardian in August that government officials from DBERR have secretly briefed that the UK has no hope of meeting its climate change targets and have suggested ways of fiddling the figures or wriggling out of its commitments.

The Guardian also reported that the Department of Communities and Local Government will now abolish the Merton Rule, requiring all new buildings to generate 10% of their energy needs on site, less than a year after the housing minister urged all Councils to adopt it. 

Whenever I have met officials involved in climate change work, I have been usually surprised at their lack of ability to understand the benefits of renewable technologies; I always put this down to lack of intellectual quality. I thought that they were genuinely attempting to achieve a greater uptake of renewables but were simply incompetent in understanding how to do this. 

Now, with the latest revelations and coupled with the government intention to regulate the solar thermal industry in a way that even a massive market, like Germany would baulk at, I need to change my mind. I think that the government is simply repeating the big lie in the hope that people will believe it while actually by their policies making no real effort to mitigate climate change.

The truth is that the Government is indifferent to climate change.  They are talking a lot but doing very little.

If they had spent the £2 million that the Stern report cost on microgeneration measures I believe it would have boosted the renewable industry tremendously and in the long run saved far more carbon than a report which no one now reads and whose recommendations are parked on a shelf gathering dust. 

I cannot understand the need to regulate closely the heating and plumbing industry in relation to solar thermal. Genersys is the largest supplier in the UK of solar thermal panels and last year we have had no complaints about installers and none so far this year.

Every time I get my electricity bill, and see that they have again taken out too much money or find that they have failed to earth the supply properly, I know who really needs regulation. 

In November last year the Government introduced Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Building Programme, after a virtually secret bidding process which led to the vast majority of solar thermal manufacturers (many of whom have far better products than those chosen by the process) and virtually all of the selling and installation companies being excluded from this significant market for no possible reason; fossil fuel energy companies, are for the government, the best way to deliver renewable micro-generated energy, notwithstanding the lack of experience, expertise and the conflict of interests inherent in the big suppliers of gas and electricity. 

Of course, a big lie can only be maintained if the government can shield its people from the consequences of that lie. You might be able to repress dissent in some cases but the big lie that the government tells about its climate change policy will ultimately be exposed because you cannot shield people from the laws of physics and from nature. I take no pleasure in that thought, because by the time the lie is commonly understood to be a lie, it will be too late.