She was referring to the financial crisis. But the question applies to so many other related problems as well: global warming, peak oil, etc.
During a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on the turmoil on the international markets the Queen asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"...
...Professor Luis Garicano, director of research at the London School of Economics...said: "She was asking me if these things were so large how come everyone missed it." He told the Queen: "At every stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing."
This is a clear question. Simple. We must ask ourselves why we could not have posed the same question.
He is asleep and she looks royally annoyed. Have we learned anything from this?
Now another British publication is asking about peak oil. The oil industry knew about this in 1956. No one doubted the science - and experts only quibbled about the date of the beginning of the decline. They placed it somewhere between 1973 and oh, say, roughly - now. And they continue to argue about the steepness and severity of the decline. It is deeply linked to our economy.
The fear is that panicky markets can cause enormous damage - panic-buying that prompts fights over resources, which in turn could lead to power cuts in some places and other such mayhem. But so far in facing this huge challenge, our political/economic system seems unable to cope with reality. We are forced to carry on living in an illusion that we have so much time to adapt to post-oil that we don't even need to be talking or thinking much about what a world without plentiful oil would look like. Reality has become too dangerous. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/10/peak-oil-fear-economic-establishment
One job of royalty is to lead and demonstrate. Yet the peasants have chosen to remain ignorant. And our leaders refuse to act decisively. Perhaps this is the kind of problem best dealt with by a ruthless royalty.
This ignorance of our own ignorance labels us as either an unworthy class or a doomed species. Our very civilization is broken because "everyone was relying on someone else" and when a few organizations and political movements actively cultivated stupidity enough people "thought they were doing the right thing"Time to face the questions that connect peak oil, the economy and anthropogenic global warming.