Or those who lament an obsolete, decaying national infrastructure but insist on the wage laws and absurd permitting requirements that make rebuilding impossibly slow and expensive. Or those bemoaning the massive, truly dangerous state of the government’s debt but are unwilling to advocate the far- reaching entitlement reforms without which no combination of policies can make much difference. Sincere, but not serious.

The global energy crisis is a wake-up call for our elites. Only last year, world leaders gathered in Glasgow for COP26 to celebrate their plans to rid the world of fossil-fuel energy. Yet now, as energy prices soar to unprecedented heights, these same leaders are scrambling to issue new drilling licences for oil, to tap new gas and to bring coal power stations back online. Is the penny starting to drop that humanity still needs fossil fuels? And will our green elites finally start to prioritise our energy needs over their climate goals?

On the one hand, they want to continue this anti-fossil-fuel and anti-human agenda. And on the other hand, they want to be popular, in part because they need to be popular in order to impose that agenda. But the problem is, in practice, nobody likes the results of the agenda.

Countless times during the girls’ adolescence, usually around music preferences or sartorial choices, I got the sardonic question, “Dad, seriously?” Often these days one has that same reaction, listening to a number of national debates over topics that stir strong passions but weak prescriptions. It leads one to worry that the vaunted Indian practicality — the do-what-it-takes instinct that has served the nation so well — is being superseded by an impulse that values winning an argument more than actually improving the world or solving a problem.

It isn’t necessary to dispute the sincerity of an opponent’s viewpoint to be exasperated by its indifference to plain facts, or to any credible ideas about how to improve the outcome at issue. It’s distressingly easy to find examples of the syndrome on both sides of our partisan and cultural crevasse.

Consider the essential goal of feeding a growing world population a far better diet than has been within its reach historically, and doing so in ways that protect the planet and its resources. Modern bioscience and agricultural technologies can enable huge improvements in pesticide reduction, insecticide reduction and water conservation, all while producing more and better food on less land, food with more nutritional value and even therapeutic benefit. Yet, many of those proclaiming their commitment to feeding the world take every opportunity to deprecate and obstruct the use of these proven safe technologies. Let’s postulate their sincerity; the problem is they aren’t serious.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.

It won’t be a bigger problem to find one video game lover in your neighbor. Since the introduction of Virtual Game.