Monbiot: We spend millions on smallpox, but nothing on this far greater threat

Our leaders’ approach to risk is unbalanced: huge resources to guard against an extinct disease, and nothing on oil running out

Here’s how the British government describes the risk of a smallpox outbreak. “We are currently at alert level O. Smallpox remains eradicated. No credible threat of a smallpox release.”

So, in response to this non-existent threat, it has published 122 pages of central plans. Each of the nine English regions maintains a Smallpox Diagnosis and Response Group, which in turn supports five Smallpox Management and Response Teams, one of which is on duty at all times. There are smallpox centres all over the country and lists of doctors, nurses and support staff prepared to run them, laboratories ready to multiply vaccines, and planning committees involving scores of different agencies.

…There is nothing certain about the hypothesis that global supplies of conventional petroleum might soon stop growing and then go into decline. There is a large body of expert opinion, marshalling impressive statistics, which is convinced that peak oil is imminent. There is also a large body of expert opinion, marshalling impressive statistics, which insists that it’s a long way off. I don’t know who to believe. The key data – the true extent of reserves in the Opec nations – is a state secret. Anyone who tells you that oil supplies will definitely peak by a certain date or definitely won’t peak ever is a fraud: the information required to make these assessments does not exist.

In February 2008 I sent a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Business, asking what contingency plans the government has made for the eventuality that global supplies of crude oil might peak between now and 2020. The answer I received astonished me. “The government does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude oil supplies peaking between now and 2020.”

As it revealed in a parliamentary answer, the government relies primarily on the International Energy Agency for its assessment. When I made my first request, its cavalier attitude chimed with the IEA’s. But at the end of last year the agency suddenly changed tack. Its World Energy Outlook report upgraded the annual rate of decline in output from the world’s existing oilfields from 3.7% to 6.7%. Previously it had relied on guesswork. This time it had conducted the world’s first comprehensive study of decline rates, covering the 800 largest fields.

Guardian