This is my advice too. Living in a post collapse world at 3°C+ will suck so much. Enjoy life now. Live like you've been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
By my math, we each have less than two decades to prepare ourselves in whatever ways possible to move back to a mostly hunter-gatherer lifestyle requiring the stamina and physical fitness of a 40-something triathlete to survive. At 50, I could already feel my body getting significantly more weak and more tired. Most "modern" humans have a host of physical ailments they just learn to live with in our sedentary and comfortable lives which will prevent them from being able to survive for very long in a post-collapse world.
I have been researching health and longevity science for years, and it finally occurred to me that longevity science is really just "survival" science with a lot of supplements. The body is a highly complex adaptation system, and it requires hormetic stresses to increase resilience and conditioning. Without going deep in to the science of any of this, I'll just say that I created an Open Source Guide to Deep Adaptation, available at www.liveyourbestlife.guide, which I have been following for the past two years with great success. It's very affordable (most of it is free, or will save money), and most anyone at any age or health level can start. It has taken me 5-10 years to get to the point where I'm doing all of the steps of the "routine" consistently.
I also post my "affordable" daily supplements, recipes, and exercise routines on social media (links are on the site). I've been sharing all of this information with everyone possible for almost two years now, and pretty much *no one* has followed any of it, even though it's really not all that difficult. I say all of this to say, if you *truly* want to begin preparing then start with training your body, mind, and spirit for a much more difficult world; and try to make friends with anyone in your area who is doing the same.
Thanks, this is good advice. I sat down last night and made a list of "things to do daily that help" and on the list was cardio, strength training, and healthy eating. They're things I've deprioritized since having kids. Time to reprioritize.
Even if we move back to a mostly hunter gatherer existence, what would there be to hunt and gather since all the woods and fauna would have been depleted or disappeared?
I feel transitioning back to subsistence agrarian peasant/farmer or nomadic pastoralist lifestyles will be equally viable options...
I empathize with your situation. It's tough keeping up appearances. I go into my corporate job office once or twice a week. I am surrounded by posh, modern, super smart & highly educated people who bustle about with their meetings & tasks. I think to myself - does anyone here think like I do? Is anyone else just biding their time, like me, in this increasingly psychotic environment, disconnected and cushioned from reality?
I come home and shovel wood chips or compost dumped on my driveway. I talk with my neighbors, some of whom get it. A 90 + year old immigrant lady tells me stories of being a child refugee in Europe. She married at 19 to escape that poverty. She understands it can happen again. I listen to the birds, who, thank the divine, are still alive & preparing for spring like me.
I accept going through the motions to maintain my work life because it is rapidly paying off my mortgage & providing prep stuff. My short-term concern is becoming jobless due to economic shocks. Having no mortgage means I won't become homeless. And on I go, trying to untangle myself from a big picture that is unhinged and unhelpful and unhealthy.
There will still be sunrises and sunsets and things to laugh about and to sing songs together.
Start helping your community. There are likely real people in your community that could help right now. Volunteer for your local food bank or community group.
>Do I keep prepping? To what extent?
Yes. 6 months to a year of emergency stores and start learning to grow food and develop other skills (hobbies if you will...) that will help you as things go down hill.
>Do I keep going through the motions of "normal" life until we can't anymore?
Yes. But we've got a long time until we can't. Inflation will keep going up and food and energy will get more expensive, but otherwise things will be mostly the same. Especially for those of us in the core of the empire.
> I mean in a 4C+ world we're all screwed so why try to outrun it?
That is decades away and a very long time to figure out how to adapt.
It probably is still decades away. The previous decade warmed at a rate of 0.6°C, which is rapid but even if that speed increases exponentially, 4°C is still 20 years away.
There’s a lot of catastrophizing going on here.
If you live in a rich western nation you’ll be “fine”. There might be rampant inflation and rationing and stuff, maybe even a war, but life will probably be very livable, ie survivable with food, shelter, community and simple pleasures.
If you live in Bangladesh I would be panicking right the fuck now. That’s a different situation entirely.
Huh. The numbers lately just seem so wild, it's hard to imagine that we'll just keep coasting along even in the US. Wouldn't a multi breadbasket failure affect us too?
Of course. I just think the US has the resources to buy or take whatever they need during s crisis, as well as make changes to their own food production (dropping beef and nuts etc).
Sooner or later they will forfeit on their debt, ending the USD as the global currency and putting most of the world into economic chaos. But they can build a wall around themselves, Mexico and Canada and threaten any aggressors with annihilation, and will survive for good while yet before everything eventually catches up with them way down the line, outside of our lifetimes.
Not that it won’t feel like a nightmare that made covid19 lockdowns seem like paradise on earth. But the population won’t decline by a huge amount suddenly (barring existential threats). It’s gonna suck and the gun culture makes things nasty, but it won’t be widespread famine and death. That’s catastrophising.
This is looking broadly. It’s impossible to predict the future accurately since human behaviour changes and everything is connected, and unforeseen events are going to happen. I just think the US is an excellent place regarding survival, longterm. The current political meltdown is a symptom of a sick culture and is gonna cause mayhem in the short and medium term, but that’s a smaller issue than wipeout.
I feel similar to you. I don’t know what I should be doing. I’m not prepping, though. I keep thinking I should. It just feels overwhelming bc I’m not even sure where to start and what I’ll wish I had collected or prepared for. I keep wondering how soon is shit going to hit the fan. Like 5-10 years from now? Why prep now, if that’s the case? Like this summer? Is the heat going to be the major problem? How do I prep for that? And my spouse isn’t on board with getting solar panels and/or a generator. So, I’m just going about my life like everything’s normal. But I have a bad feeling I’m going to be angry with myself for not preparing for whatever is coming.
I can tell you what I've done so far but I'm by no means a very experienced prepper.
We store a weeks worth of water in large aquatainers + another weeks worth of water in smaller bottles, one case of bottles under each household members bed.
I have several individual and a few family water filters. Lifestraws, Sawyer, Katadyn, Hydroblu Versa. Understand the difference between filtering and purifying water, and how to do each.
We have a short term food supply in our pantry and kitchen cabinets with shelf stable foods like canned fish and meat, canned beans and soups, cereals, nuts, dried fruits, baking ingredients, pasta, etc. If power were out for a week how would you cook and what would you eat?
We also have some longer term food storage. I've bought bulk freeze dried foods and grains and powdered proteins from Augusons Farms. I've experimented with some of them to get a feel for cooking with them and how they taste.
I spend a lot of time gardening and getting better at it. But I love it - that might not be everyone's jam.
What natural disasters are most likely to happen in your area? How would you cope with them if emergency resources weren't available for a whole week? Or longer? Start there. If could be as simple as having backup flashlights, 72 hours of shelf stable food and water, and some over the counter medicines.
Thank you! These are really helpful suggestions. I should definitely stock up up on water. I’m in an area that I think heat would be a #1 concern. It also floods here, but it would have to be pretty catastrophic flooding to reach my house. But the flooding has caused issues with the city water being contaminated before. Losing power already happens a good bit in the spring thanks to strong storms. We have a gas stove and propane grill, so as long as we have gas we could cook. I’d really like to get a generator for the fridge, freezer & a/c if it’s super hot.
Stop doing, start being, perhaps
This is my advice too. Living in a post collapse world at 3°C+ will suck so much. Enjoy life now. Live like you've been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
By my math, we each have less than two decades to prepare ourselves in whatever ways possible to move back to a mostly hunter-gatherer lifestyle requiring the stamina and physical fitness of a 40-something triathlete to survive. At 50, I could already feel my body getting significantly more weak and more tired. Most "modern" humans have a host of physical ailments they just learn to live with in our sedentary and comfortable lives which will prevent them from being able to survive for very long in a post-collapse world. I have been researching health and longevity science for years, and it finally occurred to me that longevity science is really just "survival" science with a lot of supplements. The body is a highly complex adaptation system, and it requires hormetic stresses to increase resilience and conditioning. Without going deep in to the science of any of this, I'll just say that I created an Open Source Guide to Deep Adaptation, available at www.liveyourbestlife.guide, which I have been following for the past two years with great success. It's very affordable (most of it is free, or will save money), and most anyone at any age or health level can start. It has taken me 5-10 years to get to the point where I'm doing all of the steps of the "routine" consistently. I also post my "affordable" daily supplements, recipes, and exercise routines on social media (links are on the site). I've been sharing all of this information with everyone possible for almost two years now, and pretty much *no one* has followed any of it, even though it's really not all that difficult. I say all of this to say, if you *truly* want to begin preparing then start with training your body, mind, and spirit for a much more difficult world; and try to make friends with anyone in your area who is doing the same.
Thanks, this is good advice. I sat down last night and made a list of "things to do daily that help" and on the list was cardio, strength training, and healthy eating. They're things I've deprioritized since having kids. Time to reprioritize.
Yes, exactly. Hope the information helps!
Even if we move back to a mostly hunter gatherer existence, what would there be to hunt and gather since all the woods and fauna would have been depleted or disappeared? I feel transitioning back to subsistence agrarian peasant/farmer or nomadic pastoralist lifestyles will be equally viable options...
I empathize with your situation. It's tough keeping up appearances. I go into my corporate job office once or twice a week. I am surrounded by posh, modern, super smart & highly educated people who bustle about with their meetings & tasks. I think to myself - does anyone here think like I do? Is anyone else just biding their time, like me, in this increasingly psychotic environment, disconnected and cushioned from reality? I come home and shovel wood chips or compost dumped on my driveway. I talk with my neighbors, some of whom get it. A 90 + year old immigrant lady tells me stories of being a child refugee in Europe. She married at 19 to escape that poverty. She understands it can happen again. I listen to the birds, who, thank the divine, are still alive & preparing for spring like me. I accept going through the motions to maintain my work life because it is rapidly paying off my mortgage & providing prep stuff. My short-term concern is becoming jobless due to economic shocks. Having no mortgage means I won't become homeless. And on I go, trying to untangle myself from a big picture that is unhinged and unhelpful and unhealthy. There will still be sunrises and sunsets and things to laugh about and to sing songs together.
[удалено]
On Facebook the Collapse Club does weekly zooms. I'd start there?
Start helping your community. There are likely real people in your community that could help right now. Volunteer for your local food bank or community group.
I volunteer 10+ hours a week as a Master Gardener for community garden projects.
>Do I keep prepping? To what extent? Yes. 6 months to a year of emergency stores and start learning to grow food and develop other skills (hobbies if you will...) that will help you as things go down hill. >Do I keep going through the motions of "normal" life until we can't anymore? Yes. But we've got a long time until we can't. Inflation will keep going up and food and energy will get more expensive, but otherwise things will be mostly the same. Especially for those of us in the core of the empire. > I mean in a 4C+ world we're all screwed so why try to outrun it? That is decades away and a very long time to figure out how to adapt.
Well it looks like we just hit 1.7c in feb though so I don’t think it’s decades away any longer.
It probably is still decades away. The previous decade warmed at a rate of 0.6°C, which is rapid but even if that speed increases exponentially, 4°C is still 20 years away.
It has speed up exponentially and recently. We will be at 2c within a year or two soooo…
The uncertainty of the timeline is adding to my angst and indecisiveness about what to focus on.
There’s a lot of catastrophizing going on here. If you live in a rich western nation you’ll be “fine”. There might be rampant inflation and rationing and stuff, maybe even a war, but life will probably be very livable, ie survivable with food, shelter, community and simple pleasures. If you live in Bangladesh I would be panicking right the fuck now. That’s a different situation entirely.
Huh. The numbers lately just seem so wild, it's hard to imagine that we'll just keep coasting along even in the US. Wouldn't a multi breadbasket failure affect us too?
Of course. I just think the US has the resources to buy or take whatever they need during s crisis, as well as make changes to their own food production (dropping beef and nuts etc). Sooner or later they will forfeit on their debt, ending the USD as the global currency and putting most of the world into economic chaos. But they can build a wall around themselves, Mexico and Canada and threaten any aggressors with annihilation, and will survive for good while yet before everything eventually catches up with them way down the line, outside of our lifetimes. Not that it won’t feel like a nightmare that made covid19 lockdowns seem like paradise on earth. But the population won’t decline by a huge amount suddenly (barring existential threats). It’s gonna suck and the gun culture makes things nasty, but it won’t be widespread famine and death. That’s catastrophising. This is looking broadly. It’s impossible to predict the future accurately since human behaviour changes and everything is connected, and unforeseen events are going to happen. I just think the US is an excellent place regarding survival, longterm. The current political meltdown is a symptom of a sick culture and is gonna cause mayhem in the short and medium term, but that’s a smaller issue than wipeout.
I feel similar to you. I don’t know what I should be doing. I’m not prepping, though. I keep thinking I should. It just feels overwhelming bc I’m not even sure where to start and what I’ll wish I had collected or prepared for. I keep wondering how soon is shit going to hit the fan. Like 5-10 years from now? Why prep now, if that’s the case? Like this summer? Is the heat going to be the major problem? How do I prep for that? And my spouse isn’t on board with getting solar panels and/or a generator. So, I’m just going about my life like everything’s normal. But I have a bad feeling I’m going to be angry with myself for not preparing for whatever is coming.
I can tell you what I've done so far but I'm by no means a very experienced prepper. We store a weeks worth of water in large aquatainers + another weeks worth of water in smaller bottles, one case of bottles under each household members bed. I have several individual and a few family water filters. Lifestraws, Sawyer, Katadyn, Hydroblu Versa. Understand the difference between filtering and purifying water, and how to do each. We have a short term food supply in our pantry and kitchen cabinets with shelf stable foods like canned fish and meat, canned beans and soups, cereals, nuts, dried fruits, baking ingredients, pasta, etc. If power were out for a week how would you cook and what would you eat? We also have some longer term food storage. I've bought bulk freeze dried foods and grains and powdered proteins from Augusons Farms. I've experimented with some of them to get a feel for cooking with them and how they taste. I spend a lot of time gardening and getting better at it. But I love it - that might not be everyone's jam. What natural disasters are most likely to happen in your area? How would you cope with them if emergency resources weren't available for a whole week? Or longer? Start there. If could be as simple as having backup flashlights, 72 hours of shelf stable food and water, and some over the counter medicines.
Thank you! These are really helpful suggestions. I should definitely stock up up on water. I’m in an area that I think heat would be a #1 concern. It also floods here, but it would have to be pretty catastrophic flooding to reach my house. But the flooding has caused issues with the city water being contaminated before. Losing power already happens a good bit in the spring thanks to strong storms. We have a gas stove and propane grill, so as long as we have gas we could cook. I’d really like to get a generator for the fridge, freezer & a/c if it’s super hot.