Mike's Minute: A reality check for the zealots

There were two hardcore reality checks this week as a result of the arrival of the Trump sequel. 

BP summed up the climate dilemma very succinctly when he said they got it wrong on net zero. 

Net zero has become an unobtainable obsession. It's a business decision for many thousands of companies all over the world, driven not by clear-sighted intelligence, but woke nonsense and a desire not to stand out from the crowd. 

It's that mad, insecure feeling you have when you are 10 years old in the schoolyard not to look different, say anything unusual, or attract attention. As it turns out, it stays with you all the way up to the boardrooms, who got sucked into believing that spending billions, cutting jobs and forgoing growth would somehow lead to saving the planet. 

"We got it wrong on net zero". So, BP are back in the oil business because Trump said "drill, baby drill". 

That was a campaign slogan in an American election with a flow-on effect for the whole world. 

Then you come to aid. There's nothing wrong with aid, but a Labour Prime Minister in Britain cut the aid to pay for the defence. 

The polls say he did the right thing, as 66% of Britain think they spend too much on aid. When they hear a transportation system for refugees in Eastern Europe uses a Porsche dealer and they are paying for it, who can blame them? 

Our aid in the Pacific, until recently, remained largely unaudited. 

The idea of helping the helpless is worthy. But the reason it never ends is because aid becomes an industry and the helpless rarely get actual help. UNRWA is a UN aid agency. Have a look at their record and see how keen you are to keep giving. 

It is human nature. Most ideas start off well but blow out into a combination of madness, waste, expansion and slackness, until someone comes along and says enough is enough. 

The core principles of aid and a cleaner planet remain laudable goals and ideals. 

But until we can bring some discipline to the execution, some rigour to the containment, parameters of the targets and some realism around what's actually practically achievable, it will always be hijacked by tryhards, do-gooders and zealots. 

We will always make the same mistake. 

It will end up needing a German election-type result, or a Trump-type victory, to bring us back to our senses.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.