That’s not management-speak but a useful approach in a broken world. It’s a way to find optimism in pessimistic times, a consolation as the impact of Donald Trump’s reckless war with Iran beds in and as the Earth lurches towards unstoppable climate feedbacks.
The quote is commonly misattributed to Einstein, but the Quote Investigator website credits it to American theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler, who used the words in 1979 when discussing Einstein’s approach.
The government had pumped the brakes on electrification measures but now recognises their strategic importance. Hopefully, specific policies will follow.
An abrupt leap in fuel prices was always going to prompt a sharper response than a gradual climb. That’s better.
Electric car sales accelerated, people began to think twice about discretionary trips, and bus use rose.
Unfortunately, we quickly become accustomed to new normals. Prices settled a little, and most of us have returned to old habits.
The ‘‘difficulty’’ shows no sign of easing. Pressure will remain to seek “opportunity” and resist backsliding. We have a long way to go to escape immediate problems, let alone our massive dependency on fossil fuels.
Although New Zealand First’s finance policies hark to a past that cannot be recreated — buying back the Bank of New Zealand is unrealistic virtue signalling, for example — its proposal to split the “gentailers” will win sympathy.
These large electricity generators and retailers make larger profits when supply is tight, thanks to the pricing mechanism. It has been against their interest to build sufficient extra capacity, and New Zealand is paying the price.
They have also been able to squeeze smaller retail electricity companies unfairly.
The increasing popularity of solar energy, even in the coastal South, is encouraging. Get the regulations, infrastructure, incentives, tariff structures and battery storage right, and electricity production will increase.
The technology has been improving rapidly, even if the economics for many households are still marginal.
Crucially, the issue of dry-year back-up remains, as does handling peaks such as 6pm on a cold, calm winter’s night.
While ‘‘electrification’’ has entered the vocabulary, Civis hopes the sun will not rise on the awful term ‘‘solarising’’, used by Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick after speaking at the Queenstown conference.
Alan Petrie enjoyed reading about the origins of “whoops-a-daisy” in this column a fortnight ago. He noticed another beauty, uttered regularly by John Campbell on RNZ National. It was a favourite expression of Alan’s mother when she was surprised — “Oh, my giddy aunt”.
In some ways, it is a cousin of “whoops-a-daisy” — quaint, a touch archaic, light-hearted, English and with related meanings.
Gary Martin, a writer and researcher on the origin of phrases, said giddy has been used to mean mad or stupid for 1000 years. The Old English gidi derived from the Old Teutonic word for God, gudo. Those labelled giddy were “possessed of God”. There is also a link with dizzy.
Good old Shakespeare used it plenty of times.
The classic giddy aunt features in the 1892 play Charley’s Aunt, but the phrase itself doesn’t appear to have appeared until a 1919 book.
“My giddy aunt” or “Oh, my giddy aunt” can be seen as a “minced oath”, a milder version of “Oh my God”.
It’s a phrase worth preserving: cheerful and blessedly free of jargon – unlike, say, “solarising”.
Campbell, at least, is doing his bit to keep it in circulation. One hopes his aunts approve.
