From the Post’s headline piece this morning on the possible repercussions of an American strike on Iran:

Asked whether the companies he worked with had contingency plans, he said, “The oil industry does not have contingency plans. We are not military people.”

Fair enough in this scenario, I suppose. Screwed up oil markets due to an attack on Iran is not something one should have had to plan for until earlier this year, when it became distinctly possible that the U.S. was keen on escalation.

But one gets the sense that this kind of mentality runs rampant at oil companies and governments alike. It makes articles such as this one in the Guardian (via Sullivan) far more unsettling.

Jeremy Leggett, one of Britain’s leading environmentalists and the author of *Half Gone*, a book about “peak oil” - defined as the moment when maximum production is reached, said that both the UK government and the energy industry were in “institutionalised denial” and that action should have been taken sooner.

Peak oil is a notoriously controversial subject mostly because it’s so opaque. Are the oil companies withholding information to soothe markets? Are they spreading panic to drive up prices? Or are they just asleep at the wheel?