Book review: Apocalypse How? Technology and the Threat of Disaster by Oliver Letwin

There have been many dystopian portrayals of what might happen if machines are used to control our lives. But this entertaining and insightful book by Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Tory MP whose long Commons career ended last year, focuses instead on the calamitous consequences we could face in the future if the technology we depend on goes wrong.

The picture he paints is bleak as he uses chapters that alternate between a fictional depiction of chaotic meltdown in the year 2037 and analysis of the real-life causes to show why such disaster could occur. The principal problem, he explains, is our increasing reliance on inter-connected technology and super-fast connectivity to provide essential services, from power supplies, phones and transport to hospitals, financial markets and even food and medicine.

Each is becoming part of one vast network that will get more complex in years ahead but could break down with a chain effect triggered by sabotage, natural disaster or other causes, including the unforeseen.

In Letwin’s fictional sections, which read like a thriller with an awful ending, he describes how thousands of deaths occur as the genuine phenomenon of a “space-weather event” shuts down the National Grid and with it, the phone and computer networks that rely on its power.

Gas heating won’t work because it’s run by smart meters that have gone offline, electric vehicles come to a halt, as do the internet-based communication systems of the emergency services. Social care collapses as data records telling carers where to go become unavailable, leaving huge numbers of old people stranded at home without food, warmth, medicine or help. Many die as a result, even though the grid breakdown lasts only days. Government, which relies on the same networks that have failed, is powerless to respond.

That’s fiction, of course, but the point of Letwin’s book is that our vulnerability is growing and not enough is being done to mitigate the risk. The reasons for this include doctrines such as “the more-pressing question” (there always something more immediately urgent to tackle), the “riper time” (it’s better to wait) and the “reality of certainty” (that we should focus on real, not hypothetical, problems).

What, then, are the solutions? The usual approach of hardening defences to protect networks won’t work, he argues, because there’ll always be a chance of penetration. Nor is the answer a Luddite shunning of technological advance. Letwin says the benefits of this are too great, even ecologically, for any nation to forego alone. International agreement to go backwards together is a fantasy, even if it were desirable, which it isn’t.

What’s needed, therefore, are “fallback” alternatives that can operate independently of the technology normally relied on and provide “make-do-and-mend” services when integrated networks fail. He details how this can be achieved and says a communication strategy will also be needed to convince the public that taking the necessary precautions is neither the act of a “crank” nor a waste of money.

He hopes his book can contribute to that end. It should. Inside its covers there’s a warning that ought to be heeded.

Apocalypse How? Technology and the Threat of Disaster by Oliver Letwin​ (Atlantic Books, £14.99), buy it here.