Monday mornings can be rough

Monday mornings can be rough, especially if they aren't Mondays. 

We began the day at 8 am with a meeting where someone was supposed to present his project - but he never showed up - probably because he didn't realize he was supposed to present his project. My boss was pretty accepting that these things happen. 

It is much easier to attend 8 am meetings when you can just leave the camera off and continue making and eating breakfast. I have no idea how I'll survive a return to in-person work. 

The day was really quite good. I'm going to work with a co-worker on an idea to create a fund. Right now the life cycle cost of solar with batteries is really close to the life cycle cost of electricity from natural gas. In some years, given current trends, the life cycle cost of solar plus battery will be cheaper. (I just wrote something shocking, be sure to gasp.) But in the meantime, if a country invests in natural gas, it will be committing itself, locking itself in to the emissions and costs for the life of the plant. Most of the African countries looking at investing in natural gas have natural gas, so there isn't a question of dependence on external sources of fuel, just a question of having invested in what will be a more expensive option. 

Decades ago there were funds that would pay the difference between a dirty project and a clean project to enable the clean project. My idea is a fund that would do the same thing but pay the difference between a solar plus battery project and a natural gas project. 

Part of the joy of this is that we have an outstanding employee who is bored and, if he stays bored, will eventually leave. This excites him and he is who I am working with on developing the idea. If it works, he will stay. 

I would do all this to retain one employee? That plus it would make the world better. 

We are continuing to plan as if we will have an in-person event in mid-March, in conjunction with a conference held by another organization, even though we all understand that there is no chance we will get permission to travel while we are having this spike in cases and that the odds of pulling this off are low. Why? My best explanation is that humans want, and when we want something really badly it is hard for us to accept reality. This is true of nearly all humans, including political leaders and conference company leaders. And oh the people I work with want. They want this over. They want the old normal. They want to gather and to travel. They want their children in school and to stay there. They want it like everyone wants it but they want the travel perhaps more than regular people. 

As I said in a meeting today, if we just wanted to help people we could have become social workers. We went into development because we want to help people and travel. 

That said, we've at least discussed that this is highly unlikely to happen and if it doesn't, that we will postpone our part and hold it in conjunction with another event rather than try to do it virtually. 

The surge is beginning to subside. The increase in cases was a startling straight-up spike and now the other side of the bell curve seems to be falling nearly as steeply. This was also the experience with Omicron in South Africa. If it holds, the spike in Washington DC and the area will be finished by mid-March. 

Even so, people don't make decisions to attend conferences the week before they are held. They have to do paperwork and get authorization to expend money. They have to make travel plans. I am astounded that the conference has not changed to virtual yet. One of our staff said that the planners are engaged in, "white knuckled optimism."

I don't think travel is dangerous. I think being inside a room with closed windows and doors and masks off is dangerous. At least we cancelled that part.