It is true and, whether deliberately or not, many policy and political statements nowadays sometimes contain elements of supposition masquerading as fact.
As an undergraduate I was taught to parse statements for those elements that were factually true and those that were either incorrect or purely supposition. It was one of my favourite exercises and I think it is time we brought it back into all curricula and into our daily thinking.
The following is an excellent example. It heads up Chapter 3 of The Preliminary Report of the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market | Department of the Environment and Energy, a chapter that deals with the transition to a lower emissions economy.
“The transition to a lower emissions economy is underway and cannot be reversed. Ensuring that the transition is smooth will require major investments in assets with long life spans.”
Innocuous? Not so. This is a case where we have three statements that we can probably accept trying to force our acceptance of a fourth, that we really shouldn’t.
Try parsing it for yourself – and come back Tuesday for my take on this.
Have fun!
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