Here's how you make friends and influence people: say that politicians and industry experts have their "heads in the sand" when it comes to understanding how much oil is left in the world. That's what Britain's former chief scientist, Sir David King, said recently, adding that people with a "vested interest" in overstating how much easy-to-access crude is left in the ground do so, and that politicians simply accept their numbers. "That's what governments want to hear and that's what they do hear," King told the Guardian. King believes that the amount of conventional oil still in the ground is about 30% lower than is widely reported. King continued:

I can't overemphasise the importance of persuading governments to focus attention on what's going to be a very significant issue as we move into the next decade. It is down to government to steer us towards a defossilised economy using the regulatory and financial incentives available. The technologies do already exist to deliver low-carbon transport, but we need to incentivise the private sector to deliver these solutions to the marketplace.

Politicians – the vast majority anyway – aren't experts in the fields they make laws about, and they rely on people who supposedly know what they're talking about to get the facts. Of course, they should also be able to see through a person's motives and not rely on biased numbers. Still, whatever the truth is about the earth's reserves, there are a lot of reasons to get off oil that don't use the word "peak." Let's stop worrying and learn to love zero-emission vehicles.

[Source: Guardian]