Deepwater Horizon and Wheat: on faith in technology

A map of the spread of ug99 stem rust

I am struck in particular by two things about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The first is the absolute confidence in the technology to be used in drilling at technological limits, such that the operation was not required to lodge an environmental impact report with the federal Minerals Management Service. Second, to quote President Obama on 2nd April as he shifted ground in favour of deep water drilling,

“It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. ......they are technologically very advanced.”

Perhaps illogically, this attitude to technology and human certainty is lodged in my mind with the recent and growing concern about the spread of the ug99 wheat fungus, a stem rust that we thought we'd dealt to with our science, but has evolved into a virulent new form in Africa and has become a very serious global threat, in part as an effect of our standardisation of wheat types.

I'm not a Luddite, and am in general comfortable with many aspects of technological progress, but both these cases show the inadequacy of the risk assessments that we use when we tamper with fundamental forces. It is good to understand the margins of our knowledge and understanding; it is clearly very dangerous to act on that boundary when risks are not fully understood, or are treated with a staggeringly confident insouciance. The problem is that the commercial impetus for dangerous transitions across that boundary is willing to downplay such risks for profits, just as we are as societies willing to allow our President Obamas to sanction such
risks if they guarantee outcomes such as cheaper energy. It's always struck me that it will be one or more disastrous risks that fail, which will drive global governance on the environment and sustainability. I don't think such disasters are too far in the future.