Planning for the Worst
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How ready are we for the next pandemic, cyber attack, volcanic eruption, or solar storm?
Our world, ever more interconnected and dependent on technology, is vulnerable to a head-spinning array of disasters. Emergency preparedness is supposed to help protect us and the UK has been pioneering in its approach. But does it actually work? In this edition of Analysis, Simon Maybin interrogates official predictions past and present, hearing from the advisers and the advised. Are we any good at anticipating catastrophic events? Should we have been better prepared for the one we’ve been living through? And - now that coronavirus has shown us the worst really can happen - what else should we be worrying about?
Presenter/producer: Simon Maybin Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:41.0 | You're listening to the Analysis Podcast and I'm Simon Mabin. |
| 0:45.0 | This edition is called Planning for the Worst. |
| 0:51.0 | It's New Year's Eve, 2037. |
| 0:57.6 | At a traffic control centre in Swindon, a man arriving for his shift notices something isn't right. His computer won't turn on. He |
| 1:05.8 | tries to report it to IT, but his mobile phone suddenly has no signal. Then, when he looks |
| 1:11.6 | out of the window, he sees a pile up of crashed cars and lorries strewn across the motorway. |
| 1:17.0 | It quickly becomes apparent that satellite navigation systems have failed. |
| 1:27.0 | No mobile phone or internet connections are working and the national grid is out. |
| 1:31.0 | No lights, no central heating, all dependent on smart meters, |
| 1:36.0 | no way of anyone finding out what on earth is going on. |
| 1:40.0 | The story from a book published early this year isn't the work of a science fiction writer. |
| 1:48.0 | It was written by Sir Oliver Letwin who for six years was the UK's Minister for National Resilience. |
| 1:54.0 | It's called Apocalypse how each other chapter is in the form of a parable. |
| 1:58.4 | It's not intended as a work of literature, but it's a parable that tells the story of what happens when everything depends |
... |
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