I Need To Think About My Future (Part 8)

Read previous post in this series here.

Or start at the beginning here.

Note:

Two things.  

• I started writing this post on 14 June so the 'News' I speak of in the first section is probably no longer 'newsy' since most news today simply fades into the background little over a day after it occurs. C'est la vie!
• The main reason for delay in completing this post is because I have been agonising over just what to include here.  I realised that the sort of detail that I intended to include actually best resides in another blog that I started but have left untouched for some time because I found that I couldn't spend the amount of time on it that it demanded and deserved.  That blog is here if you wish to take a look.  I have now decided to write just a little about water, food and shelter in this post and provide links to the relevant sections in my Preparations blog where I will find time to at least do these subjects some justice as soon as I can.  It seems silly to record this stuff in two separate places.  Another reason that I have delayed is because I feel a little daunted by the task.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and faint heart never won fair lady, or something like that.  This series of posts may be just the impetus I need to get me going again on that project and will assist me to get through this one a little quicker.

Continue... 

Not News To Me

Here is another little aside that I thought worthwhile to slip in at this point.  I just saw this on the news (14 June), well actually behind the news.  Important as it is, it is not the sort of thing that tends to feature on mainstream news.  They tend to concentrate on more mundane things like some low-life admitting to the murder of her 6 year old daughter or foreign troops being sent to aid the Syrian regime to continue murdering its civilian population.

What I saw and read was also not even news to me or I suspect to many other people who follow important world events like climate change.  It was a new report issued by Australia's Climate Commissioners entitled The Critical Decade, the main findings of which are that 80% of known fossil fuels must be left in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.  

Welcome as it is to hear such things from officialdom, that news has been known for quite some time already in enlightened circles.

Is that important news or not?  Damn right it is.

Is it going to happen (the abandoning of known fossil energy reserves, I mean)?  Not a chance.  None at all.

What does that mean then?  Well, whether we do or whether we don't, we're stuffed.  Either way it will lead to the sort of collapse scenario that I am talking about in these posts.  

On the one hand, very bad climate precipitated destabilisation of world communities leading to untold suffering and billions of deaths.  Bad not only for humans but also for the environment.  

On the other hand, an almost unthinkable cut to all aspects of economic growth and return to pretty much pre-industrial living conditions (don't let those dreams of a green utopia cloud your thinking on this for one second), pre-empting a relatively fast and unmanageable collapse of civilisation world-wide, leading to untold suffering and billions of deaths, but only to humans and numbers of domesticated animals.  The sort of thing that is going to occur anyway for different reasons fairly soon.

I thought it quite appropriate to mention that here. Now, back to the business at hand.

The 'On-Tap' Expectation

People, at least those accustomed to developed world life-styles, have largely grown used to their everyday needs being 'on-tap', in the sense that they are always available at any time whenever needed.

You get water by turning on a tap or buying a plastic bottle full of the stuff.

You get food by opening the refrigerator or visiting a conveniently located retail food outlet.

You take shelter in your own/rented dwelling place or, while away from home, in a hotel/motel.

Even now in many parts of the world and also increasingly, as society disintegrates in developed nations, none of these things can be taken for granted.  We don't have to go back very many generations to find a time when, other than for the few wealthy or privileged persons, none of these things were available to the vast majority of ordinary folk unless the individual or family laboured to produce, build, or in some other way obtain them personally for themselves.  Much of their time and lives were spent in the process of doing that and pretty much only that.  Though time spent in procuring and maintaining sources of one's own basic necessities would have been considered to be not arduous but enjoyable, fulfilling and community building.

Since the time of industrialisation onwards until today, people have given away their time doing things that are rather pointless and in no way beneficial to themselves or anyone else, in exchange for tokens that allow them to receive their basic necessities, water, food, shelter, and enough other stuff to keep them 'happy' and the economy growing, without any personal connection to the process of procuring any of them.  That total disconnection from process is a very dangerous thing.

I Did It My Way

It was a recognition of that disconnection I spoke about earlier, in my own life, and a deep fear of just what hazards I may find myself up against in the future, that lead me to take steps to alter the parameters a little or as much as I reasonably could in my favour over time.

This is a continuing process and one that no matter how much thought, time, resources and effort I put into it, comes with no guarantee or assurance that all will be well in all circumstances wherever I find myself at any point in the future.  There is however, having taken at least some steps to prepare as best I can, a certain degree of comfort that I will be better placed to obtain a good outcome than if I had stuck my head in the sand and done nothing.

So, what have I done, that I could recommend to others?  I am going to list some of them now but you should, as I have already stressed a number of times, think out your own solutions, build on these suggestions or research (definitely research) to find your own methods as best suit your personal requirements, abilities, energy levels and resources.

Water

Clean, potent, uncontaminated drinking water is the most basic human need, assuming that a ready supply of clean breathable air is a given.  A person can live without eating for many days but only for a few days without ingesting water.  Dehydration is an unforgiving killer and will quickly deplete your ability to function autonomously.  In a time of upheaval when medical care of any sort may be in just as short supply as law and order, any and all illness or preventable physical weakness, from any source, is something to be strenuously avoided at all costs.

You should know that a power-down of any sort will quickly result in loss of your supply of tap water.  Shop shelves will also very quickly empty of bottled water, assuming that you have either of those luxuries in the first place.  This is one item that you would be well advised to keep an emergency supply of at all times.

So where would you get your water from if these normal supply sources were suddenly not available to you?

There are a number of things to consider.  Are you in an established location where you may be able to secure a fixed water supply or are you en-route to somewhere such that your daily water supply has to be searched for in a different place every day?  In either case, are you sure of the potency of any water that you have access to ie. is it fit to drink?

There is much more to say about this but I have, and will continue to do so, written on the subject elsewhere and we can utilise the power of the internet, while it is still available, to pull in and refer to that information. Further details about water as a resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable procurement of supplies of this valuable commodity, can be found here at my Preparations blog site.

Food

Food is, whether you agree or not and irrespective of the fact that I have listed it here, not the next most important basic resource for humans.  We can live for many days without food, although not for too many without becoming weak, impaired and eventually incapacitated. No, shelter holds that 'next' position.  No matter, we will talk about food anyway because it is pretty much always on most people's mind.

Both food and water are heavy and cumbersome to tote around much, especially if you are on foot.  Even in most wheeled transport it would be difficult to transport a sufficient quantity of either to last for more than a few days for a family.  There is little point therefore in storing up huge quantities, especially of food, unless you are in a secure place where you intend on staying, to defend it come hell or high water.

This is not to say that you shouldn't keep an emergency store of both food and water.  In fact, many government bodies at all levels are saying that it makes good sense to do so.  Relying on normal sources of nutrition, supermarkets etc., you are only 9 meals (3 days) away from starvation at all times.  Even the best of times.

Again, I have, and will continue to do so, written on the subject elsewhere on this for your reference.  Further details about food as a resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable procurement of supplies of this valuable commodity, can be found here at my Preparations blog site.

Shelter

Have you ever slept rough?  Outside, without shelter?  I don't mean like in those CEO sleep-outs in support of the homeless.

I have, once.  Well actually, twice but the first time was when I was fourteen and arrived home late one night.  I didn't want to wake my parents so I slept on the porch which was open to the night but at least I had a roof above me.  My recollection is that it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience and as soon as I heard someone stirring next morning I was banging on the door to be let in.

My other experience was when as part of my Air Force training, living for a week under canvas in Sherwood Forest (Robin Hood's hang out) along with other trainees, we were taken deep into the forest on a 'night exercise'.  When we got there we were told to individually find somewhere to sleep for the night by building a lean-to next to a friendly tree somewhere in the vicinity and not so far away that they would need to come looking for us next day.  We had only the clothes we were standing up in. No tools. No food/water. No packs. No torch/flashlights.  I was personally very pleased that it was only for one night I can tell you.

Imagine, if you will, being caught unprepared for a situation where to escape with your life, you had to flee everything that you were familiar with and try to make your way to a safe place.  Imagine if that happened tomorrow or in the middle of the night tonight.  How prepared would you be.

I personally have two plans for such events.  One involves being able to escape in a vehicle which can be quickly loaded with the temporary necessities for survival.  But I also recognise that even if an escape by such means is possible, I might have to complete that trip on foot from some point in the journey. Part of my plans therefore are to make my way on foot with a much reduced load, always assuming that I am physically capable of achieving such an effort at the time.  Both plans include some form of shelter but, even if they didn't, I know how to build myself shelter in the woods if no better safe options are available.

Any time that you go away from your normal place of residence, even in low risk times like a local shopping trip, common sense (at least to me) says that you should go 'prepared' as well as you are able, to at least be equipped to make it back home or to some other place of safety if something unexpected should occur.  Again, many government sources are warning on these things and many advocate taking a Go-Bag with you that contains all your needs for at least 24 hours any time you are away from home such as a work day trip to a city complex. Makes perfect sense to me and part of that is having the assurance that whatever happens you can keep yourself sheltered for a while.  Your life may depend on it.

Further details about shelter as a valuable resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable adequate shelter to be found or constructed, can be found here.

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 7)

Read previous post in this series here.
Or start at the beginning here.

A Restatement of Purpose

This is perhaps an opportune moment for me to restate what I am doing here in this series of posts.  

The title says I need to think about my future. To what purpose? Well, we all live in a world of vapid uncertainty. Nothing is clear, sharply focussed, or undeniably true.  This is partly I think due to the complexity of society that we have woven about us.  We don't know where we are going.  No one seems to be in charge or at least holds a steady hand on the wheel.  Lists of problems are growing and pressing all around us. 

This is no way to live. This is no way to plan and Know, with a capital 'K', that your plans will, with any degree of assurance, take you further towards achieving your goals. 

What we need, more importantly, what I need, is to establish a level of certainty in a world that is anything but certain.  Is that achievable?  Can I do that?  Or is this just part of the human condition?  Is this part and parcel of what has become known as the Uncertainty Principle, where, simply stated, 'You can never be sure of everything'?

In the complexity of the Quantum world we can never know precisely where something is, because the very act of measuring its speed and position has a direct effect on one or both of those things?

I have used the word 'complexity' twice now in this section and it may be that this is somehow the answer, or rather somehow the problem.  Does it not stand to reason that reducing complexity may somehow reduce uncertainty, that a move towards simplicity may somehow provide more clarity?

I cannot state with any assurance that this is true, but it would not hurt to in some measure explore the possibility.  So, what do I recommend? What solutions do I have to offer?

A Compendium of Solutions?

Ah, if only I could conjure one of those up.  No, this is not going to actually be a 'kit' to solve all problems for all situations in a dystopian world. 

In such a world, your survival will largely depend on your ability to think independently, yet, wherever possible, co-operatively with others.  It is my intention therefore to encourage you to start or to expand your thinking along those lines.  I will of course be providing what I consider to be some helpful guidance on matters that may or may not have had occasion to cross your mind previously, and this will hopefully help to focus and direct your thoughts.

Let's start by stating a basic premise.

A Basic Premise

I cannot be sure that what I have already said or am about to say, is how events will actually transpire and it would be foolish of you to take my word for it without having given some thought to the possibilities yourself, but I believe what we are going to see occur on this planet at some stage not too far in the future will be something along these lines.

At some future point in time there will be a period of intense disruption on this planet. It may be that the initial impact of the disruption will primarily impinge on only one or maybe a few specific regions of the globe, depending on the nature of the troubles but it will quickly, if not initially, envelop the entire globe in its effect and it will result in the displacement of millions, perhaps billions of people from their normal place of domicile.  The cause of this disruption may or may not be due to prior actions of human society but the odds are in favour of us having at least something to do with it.  We can only hope that the worst effects are relatively short lived and that it will be followed by a period of renewed life for at least a remnant of our species and a majority of our coexistent creatures. That is not guaranteed in all cases that I can imagine but what follows is premised on the non-extinguishing of all life globally. Something that has almost occurred several times in Earth's history.

There is a good chance that you and/or your family or community may be among the multitude of persons displaced by the event.  If you normally live close to national borders, including and perhaps especially coastal areas, areas bordering on extreme climate conditions, or in proximity to or part of a large metropolis, that risk of needing to migrate elsewhere is significantly increased.

If you cannot foresee this ever happening to you or you believe that even if it does occur, you will somehow not be affected by it, then I suggest that you will be wasting your time in reading further.  Otherwise, please continue.

Generally speaking, people will only uproot themselves when driven by absolute necessity. The majority in that situation will be ill-prepared for what faces them.  If such things are occurring worldwide then little or no assistance can be expected to be forthcoming and many people will perish in the process of extracting themselves from the most affected areas and endeavouring to hold life and limb together through the worst of the conditions.  Those who make it through to the end will face a very different world than anything that they have ever imagined or experienced.  Normal civilisation will have ended. The normal rules of life will no longer apply.

Basic Needs

A person's basic needs are not dependent on the circumstances in which that person finds themselves.  Basic needs, those necessary to sustain life, remain static.

Again, depending on the cause of the collapse, the fabric of prior civilisation may be:

• Visibly intact, though unworkable because no-one remains who knows how to restart or organise it or where/how to get the energy to power all or even part of it.  Some of it may be usable or salvageable for other less energy intensive purposes. 
• Visible but in a state of destruction such that little of it could ever be usable or salvageable.
• No longer available due to being buried, submerged or by other means completely scattered across the face of the Earth.

The first point to note is that in none of the above situations can you depend on, nor should you even expect, there being any form of government or law enforcement in effect, now, or quite possibly even in the long term.  You are largely now dependant on your own resources, devices, aptitude and attitude.  Trust among survivors, few if any of whom you will likely know from previous life experiences, will have to be proven and earned.

In the first of the above listed possibilities, it is likely that you, as a survivor, will be able to scavenge food and water supplies from the remains of society; vacant homes, retail food outlets, bulk storage facilities etc., to cover your short or even perhaps your medium term needs, providing that you get there first and have the means to hold on to whatever you find.

You may well find that it is fairly easy to find shelter for a while or even for extended periods as some or much of the structural property remains intact.  There will be a lot of vacant property.  However, making shelter into a safe haven and finding sufficient food and water to sustain you for more than a short period is very unlikely and does not come without additional risk as those survivors who may not have been so fortunate as yourself come looking to take whatever they think you may have to meet their own needs.

You will then have the identical problems to overcome in the medium and long term as mentioned below in the remaining scenarios.  And the same terminal risk of failure.

In the second and third of these circumstances, because of the increased devastation, there will be no opportunity to go down to the nearest take-away or supermarket for food and water, also little to no prospect of taking shelter, even temporarily, in a normal home, your own or anyone else's.

In all of these cases, as a survivor, you will make your own arrangements covering the short, medium and long term, to find continuing supplies of food and water from natural sources and to make or construct adequate shelter for yourself.  Or you will die.

Through pre-planning, you may have the means and comfort to buy yourself a little time to organise yourself properly, by subsisting on the small amount although temporary nature of such supplies as you were able to carry with you through the first stage of the disruption.  Your adequate pre-planning for such events may be just the difference between making it through to the next stage or going under right here.

~  :  ~

I have mentioned three basic needs so far.  Water, food and shelter.  There are others of course but these three are absolute necessities of life.  Let's look at these things in finer detail in the next post.

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 6)

Read previous post in this series here.
Or start at the beginning here.

Start Point

We have to start somewhere and if you are following this with a genuine wish to begin some sort of preparations for dealing with unknown future events then this, I recall, with numerous new and frightening thought streams buzzing around in your head, is very difficult to establish.

Where did I begin?

When you know little or nothing about a subject you can either run around like a headless chook for a while, likely getting disillusioned or discouraged, or you can start by picking other peoples brains through reading what their approach was when they began the process. This can be a double edged sword and there are likely to be fewer tears and regrets if a little caution is exercised in using cool and clear-headed discrimination about the quality of advice that you may come across or indeed be given by otherwise well-meaning folk.

I tend to not get involved in online forums (though they have occasionally proved useful when thrown up by an internet search for something specific), being suspicious of the control freaks and know-alls that abound in such places.  I would also not recommend relying on local libraries or random book purchases as the basis of your research endeavours, although you may well come across good book recommendations along the way. Research before spend, is my advice.  You will have more than enough necessities to spend your hard-earned on after you have gained some reasonable picture of what is most needed.

Talking to friends about this is also not wise until after you have grounded and established yourself as an active and knowledgeable preparer, unless you are fortunate enough to be close to someone who is already somewhere along the path of readiness preparation and who doesn't mind being pestered by a (was going to say 'Noob' but that is disparaging forum talk, best avoided) newcomer to the process. You are, after all, endeavouring to become a self-reliant individual who knows their own mind, has made a decision to stand on their own feet together with like minded folk or alone if necessary, and you are exercising your own powers of judgment about what matters and what does not, what you take on board and what you consign to the trash bin.  Majority views and attitudes are not what you are seeking. What you are doing now, will never become mainstream.

By the way, having done much research and reading the hard way in times past, I think that we are currently sublimely fortunate to have the excellent facility and research power of the internet at our disposal and I can think of no better purpose to put that resource to use than this. Keep in mind, it may not be there for ever.

My approach when I come across a new online link is to get some feel of the tone of the individual writing it and their purpose in doing so.  Unless the feeling is right or I am looking for specific information which I believe may be referenced there, I move on elsewhere.

In my own country of Australia there is not a great deal of good advice available as this subject is still in its infancy, not yet being taken too seriously by the majority of folk, if indeed it ever will.

I am not going to insert specific search words or links as general reference points here but I may well do so later or in a separate post for that specific purpose.  Those things take time to set up and while I am in the writing mood, I will get as much general information laid out here as I can. It does not, in any case, take much imagination to start searching for something relevant but again I warn that you will need to exercise a good personal discrimination filter if you are not to be sidetracked or led astray from your current purpose.

You will find (at least I did) that you are inevitably led towards information from US sources, where this type of thing is big-ish business, especially among those who like playing with guns out in the woods.  But this is the land of cowboys after all. Americans seem to have a deep seated suspicion of the motives of their government (perhaps not unwarranted), conspiracy theories, erosion of their freedoms (again, perhaps not unwarranted) and a god given desire and right to shoot just about anything that moves if they perceive it as a threat. That country holds a great many wackos, but then so does Australia, of a slightly different variety.  Thank goodness that gun ownership is not a right of citizenship here.

Contrasting that picture, American 'prepper' sites do contain a wealth of valid ideas for the scenarios I am talking about and that country is also the source of some very good outdoors equipment not available elsewhere.

Another important warning that I should give is to not jump into spending huge sums of money based on other people's recommendations until you have formulated some sort of plan of your own and have prioritised your anticipated spending.

Thinking...

Ok, so you have done some research of your own.  You have seen others' varied views of the sort of situations that we may expect to experience at some stage. Be aware though that not all possibilities are widely canvassed in the available literature and folklore surrounding collapse, and those that do receive the most airplay are not necessarily the most likely to occur. For example, you can almost, almost but not quite, forget about the possibility of EMP attacks. This is a purely American preoccupation.

The next step is to start thinking, by asking yourself questions about various likely collapse trigger events.

Think about what you would wish to do to preserve a reasonable way of life in the new set of circumstances that might be expected during and after such events.

Think about what equipment and supplies you should gather to realistically allow you to achieve those aims and also about what new skills or training would be necessary to enhance your current knowledge.

A short section, but that is a lot of thinking to do.  Take your time.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Here are some possible pointers to get your thinking started.

You need to answer these questions for every eventuality that you consider may be appropriate to your particular circumstances. For example, if you had cause to believe that above rooftop flooding would ensue, you would not elect to remain in your dwelling but if you believed the property to be defensible against marauding attackers, you might stay there, at least for a while (though I would advise against it). 

DO NOT, whatever you do, print out these questions and show the answers to others or leave them laying around where they may be seen or found. The same goes for any other documentation or plans that you may put together as part of your preparations.

Is there some sort of danger, whether anticipated, present or growing, in your country, region, city or general area?

How imminent is that danger?

What level of threat would you assign or have been advised that this danger presents to your household?

Is your concern for others close to you or just for yourself?

Do you have a plan covering such an event? (Now is not the time to make one)

Do you need to evacuate:

• immediately?
• at some stage?
• when advised?
• not at all?

If you need to evacuate at all, are you ready to do so?

Does your evacuation plan include a vehicle?

Is the vehicle packed for evacuation?  Fuel tanks full?

Will you be heading for some specific place, perhaps to meet up with others?

Is the destination within range of your fuel load?

Do you have an escape route from the immediate area planned?  Plan B?  Plan C?

If you are staying where you are for now, are you able to fortify the building entrance points?

Do you have a safe room? Is it a potential death trap?

Do you have a hidden underground shelter?  Is there an emergency exit?

How many days/weeks supply of food/water do you have stored?  Is that enough?

What are the intentions of neighbours around you as to staying/leaving? Does this affect your decision?  (only ask around about this if there is general awareness of the problem and you are in regular neighbourhood communication.)

Do you have a pre-planned point of escalation of the danger being faced at which you will retire from open neighbourhood participation to your own personal strong point for safety?

Do you have personal packs, 'go-bags' set up for everyone in your party, in case your evacuation vehicle is unavailable or you need to make an emergency exit on foot from your stronghold?

Do you have an emergency on foot escape route?  Plan B?  Plan C?

~  :  ~

Ok, that should give some idea of the sort of thinking that people ought to be making well before an emergency starts.  when the wheels of disaster start to roll, is not the time to be formulating plans to deal with the situation.  There will likely be no time available to plan, alter, gather resources or otherwise act cogently and cohesively unless you already know what your intended actions will be beforehand.

You will no doubt be able to add to and flesh out this list of queries to your own preferences and satisfaction. I hope you do. It is only a guide.

So, we have got you either safely ensconced within your castle, hopefully providing and receiving support from your neighbours for as long as it is practicable, motoring to your pre-agreed evacuation point or, in emergency, escaping on foot to some place with only what you can carry on your back(s).   

There is one further situation that may be vitally important to consider for a great many people in this modern age. What arrangements have been made if one or more of your immediate party/family is away from home, perhaps for work reasons, at the commencement of such a scenario as we are contemplating? How will you make the trip home if the whole country/region is under disruption? Do you have the on-hand resources for the possibility of such a journey under your own steam?  Do the rest of your party/family know what to do, what the plan is in such an event?  Do they possess the capacity to work the plan in your absence?  What if you are all away from your normal base of operations at the time eg. holiday travel?

I will leave you to ponder those things. Until next time.   

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 5)

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3 here.
Read Part 4 here.

Authenticity and Disclaimer

I find it intriguing that I am writing this series of posts as if I knew what I am talking about with some sort of authority. Looking back I see that I generally do that with all of my writings. I of course am not an expert on the subject but, generally speaking, anything that self-proclaimed experts have to say should be taken with a grain of salt.  I can legitimately claim that I am able to bring a lifetime of experience to my writings on most subjects and I have spent a considerable amount of time and research through reading, actively pursuing and thinking about the issues raised here. This must give my writings a certain amount of validity. They certainly make sense to me but you must be the final judge and arbiter of what you take from them.

I suppose I should issue some sort of disclaimer and warning that I am not responsible for any possible outcome arising from any person following advice given in these pages and that all persons who do so, act entirely at their own risk.  

Expanding the Envelope

Just a brief word on collapse.  If you have been giving serious thought to the future of our society/civilisation whether from what you have read here or elsewhere, you may be asking yourself the question as to why I have only really attributed the primary reasons for collapse so far to mainly the frailty of financial systems.  There is a reason for this and it is mainly to do with keeping it simple as the excesses and activities of the banking and finance industries is something that I think most people can recognise as being a problem.  There are of course many other potential sources of collapse.  Notice that I have not so far mentioned much about catastrophic climate change, food shortage, unavailability of drinking water, shortages of other resources, loss or restriction of basic freedoms and human rights by world government or mega corporations, global pandemics or nuclear war.  Note also that this list of potential triggers is by no means exhaustive.

I do not wish to further expand on these things in these pages other than to raise them as and when they affect my own preparations and decisions, so as not to complicate the message too much.

Making it Personal Again

Perhaps the best way that I can make this real is to return to my original theme of working out pathways to solve my own problems with regard to future events and the steps I have taken or am thinking of taking.

I have already made what I consider to be the best first step in gaining some confidence that I have the greatest possible opportunity to enjoy a continued existence should bad things happen in the world. I have relocated my home to the country, almost an hour drive from the metropolis and at least 30 kilometres from any small town.

That most people would not see my actions as a priority for themselves due to being tied to a property through ownership, I can readily see. I would also say that in these cases it is even more imperative for property owners to be aware of trends that would indicate a collapsing society and to be well prepared to exit stage left at a moment's notice when personal judgement indicates the time is right. Delay may well be fatal, life is far more valuable than property and pebbles on a beach get bowled over and generally knocked about by tidal waves.

There is no doubt in my mind that desperate people will be capable of trekking further out from urbania than I currently dwell in search of food but hopefully not in the hoards that will be pouring out from outer metropolitan suburbs towards surrounding areas in order to escape the carnage of inner cities in the worst of cases.  Even if the military and police forces are able to retain some form of cohesion within their organisations for a time, and that is unlikely because many of these people also have families of their own, they will be so vastly outnumbered by the hoards of starving populace that any hope of maintaining civil order will quickly be dashed.

I am not saying that such chaos is likely to occur overnight, but it could. At that point it is too late to start preparing. Many home owners or apartment dwellers will initially be reluctant to abandon their homes, preferring to stay to protect their investment or to wait for a government response and a restoring of order which may never come. There may well be cases of disorder from time to time where some sort of normality will be restored by authorities and this may set a dangerous precedent in people's mind that law and order will always prevail.

However, I believe there will come a time of total systemic failure where there will be no possibility of retaining public order or recovering it for periods of months or years afterwards, if ever, and this dramatic situation may arise very suddenly, perhaps even over a single night.  The wait and see approach will in such cases most likely prove fatal for many as their homes and gardens are overrun by floods of evacuees desperately searching for food or evading terror and destruction.  Even so, there will likely be a delay of a few days, certainly not weeks, where the signs become obvious that remaining in your property, as if your home is your castle, will not be a healthy choice.

Folk who make the right decision to abandon their homes in time will simply add to the migratory spread of pilgrims emanating from the city boundaries to survive.  Few of these people will have made any realistic effort to prepare for such eventualities.

Where the cause of a mass migration from a city is due to total destruction (eg. permanent inundation by flooding, nuclear detonation or other WMD), the area will already have been cleared of human activity by the event.  In other cases, I can see gang warfare, rape, torture, cannibalism and a very short life expectation among those who elect to remain.  This is where those baser animal instincts will come to the fore. Those who come out on top of this orgy of terror, after all other resources have been consumed, will then go looking elsewhere for their pleasures and needs to be met.

When Did I start Thinking Like This?

Way back in 1972 when I was introduced to the newly published book 'Limits To Growth', a report of the Club of Rome, as part of a Technology Foundation Course I was taking towards an Open University batchelors degree which I never completed (the degree, not the course or the book), I was made aware that shortly after the turn of the century ie. round about now, as I write this, unless the world's people did something about curtailing usage of Earth resources, economic growth and population growth, civilisation would come up against finite limits to what they were doing and their way of life would enter a serious decline in all three of these parameters.  In other words, the world (at least, the world of human society) would enter a period of irreversible collapse.

Over time, with the pressing foci of bringing up families, career changes, divorce, emigration and all of the other vagaries of life, I let the memories of what I had learned lapse to the back of my mind.  Around 25 years later, towards the end of the century, these things came back into focus as a result of further reading and study.  I realised that during that intervening period, absolutely nothing  had been done anywhere around the world to address the issues raised by the authors of this report. That realisation re-ignited my interest in the subject and set me off on a new learning spree that continues to this day.

I have to admit that Limits to Growth was such dreadfully boring stuff that only a research scientist could have taken pleasure in and fully understood and to this day I have not completed reading the 30 year sequel published in 2004, and probably never will.  

It is the not the content but the conclusions that are essential to understand.  

Even now, more than forty years on from the initial findings, these premises (they were not meant to be predictions) have not proven false or inaccurate in any way. Our way of life is at the crossroads, or cliff edge if you like, because we have stupidly and blindly followed disastrous economic, population and resource usage pathways as if we were living on an infinitely large planet where we could do whatever we liked without any sort of consequences.   

I am aware that much of this sounds very dramatic, perhaps even forced.  I wish that I could make it sound even more dramatic, and necessary, and urgent, because I see people who have no idea that this sort of event is about to rock their world and are totally unprepared or in any way concerned about the prospect. But if 'Limits to Growth' and the myriad of other warning voices that have been raised over this period have not done the trick, then what hope do I have of altering the outcome. My only wish is that someone somewhere will read this, in time, and experience a light bulb moment.  

Read, Research, Plan

Even before I retired in 2010, I had become acutely aware of the imminent possibility of collapse (the 2008/9 GFC had something to do with that) and started to make preparations for survival while living alone and renting a small unit in an outer suburb.  I realised that if I had to move anywhere under circumstances that I was anticipating to arise as I have attempted to describe, it was obvious that until I could find some safe long-term shelter and provide for an adequate regular food supply and other basic necessities of life, I was likely going to have to live rough for at least some time and perhaps for lengthy periods.  I spent a lot of time considering this, researching around it and planning for it.

The prospect was quite worrying.  I had spent most of my waking hours over the last 30 some years in air-conditioned offices, cars or home buildings.  I was not, by any definition, an outdoors person. However, I knew that I was capable of hard work as while living in my last owned home in the early '90s I had constructed gardens and retaining walls built from Nullarbor sourced genuine old Jarrah railway sleepers, manhandled by myself alone over a virgin suburban block with a 7.5m fall from back to front of the land. I had become quite fit while doing that but over intervening years my life became more sedentary although I knew I could rebuild myself again if necessary.

I did return to a level of fitness while living alone.  From the first day I made the decision to be vegetarian and have not included meat of any kind in my diet for over ten years now.  I studied Reiki (Level III practitioner), medical Qi Gong and also Touch for Health Kinesiology.  All of which I practised for personal health.

In all of that time I had not needed to consult medical aid of any sort.  Even after turning 60 I had full expectation of living in a healthy body for another forty years at least.  It was a great disappointment to me therefore when I fell ill for a while as I described in an earlier post, but I haven't let that stop me from pursuing a healthy lifestyle or preparing for whatever type of collapse scenario might lay ahead.

I am now (next post) going provide details, as specifically as I can, or feel that it is safe for me to divulge, about what I have learned, the type of preparations I have made and the benefits and reasons for doing so.

My intention is then to record my thinking on the paths forward that I might reasonably take in my own best interests for a safe future.

So, I expect to still be making quite a few posts in this series.  They may not come quite as thick and fast as up to this point.

    

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 4)

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3 here.

Without Civilisation

The veneer of civilisation surrounding human beings is exceedingly thin. Beneath that veneer we are still basically animals, though animals with a conscience and an innate knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Yet it never ceases to amaze me the depth of cruelty we are capable of inflicting on fellow humans and other living things around us, given the appropriate circumstances.

I think of myself as a sensitive person, never seeking conflict with others.  In fact I will normally go out of my way to avoid conflict of any sort, even verbal conflict, if it is at all possible. Yet I know that I am capable of killing, given sufficient reason.  Self preservation or the protection of loved ones or other defenceless people would be sufficient reason.  While I don't like to think about it, so would extreme hunger or thirst or the need for shelter.  I hope never to be put to the test over those things but I fear such days will come.

Behind me I have 9 years of military service and I was proud to qualify as a marksman on the FN rifle, known as the SLR Self Loading Rifle when it was the standard infantry weapon of the British armed forces throughout the 1970s.  A fine weapon, capable of removing arms and legs or taking out multiple hostiles with a single 7.62mm NATO round if lined up correctly.  At the time I was capable of putting 20 out of 20 rounds inside a 2 inch grouping in the middle of a man shaped and sized target at 50 metres even though disadvantaged by being left-handed and left-eyed with a weapon that was made only for right handed use. While my focal capabilities may be diminished today, my eyesight is still healthy and given a modern rifle I am positive that I could cause havoc on any group of hostiles at medium to long range even though I have not handled a firearm in the intervening years. I have never been involved in close combat and at my age I guess I would last no more than a few seconds if that became necessary though I have now equipped myself with certain survival gear and I am confident that I am capable of slitting a throat or two given the element of surprise, if the need arose.

If I have those capabilities and a recognition, as a rational person, that I would be willing to use them in need, then I know that other folk are at least equally as capable of doing so as myself, given the right conditions.  In a crumbling, decaying society at the point of collapse, with most normal services of civilisation gone, perhaps for ever, and a driving need to survive, eat, drink and obtain shelter, those conditions would be rife.

The lack of respect for, and the apparent lack of fear of law enforcement these days, particularly among the younger generation, is I think a sure sign of a decaying society.

I could provide esoteric reasons for why I believe this is happening at this particular juncture in our history but this is not the time or place for that.

I struggled with these thoughts running through my head during what turned out to be a difficult and restless night's sleep and rose early to get them written down before they dissipated as many of my night-time thoughts do. This was not an  easy thing for me to do and I am aware that I may regret doing so at a later time. I do however attach a great deal of importance to these thoughts because I think that most people living relatively comfortable lives in the modern world would give little thought to how thin the line is between the human and animal sides of our nature and how easily what may be relatively minor changes in our material circumstances may cause us communally or individually to flick from one to the other, from normal life to survival mode with little warning.

Many of us may well have have cause to live out this experience in days to come as many of our predecessors have done in times past. We, in the developed nations have enjoyed decades of relative peace and prosperity, lulling us into a false sense of security that it will always be thus.  History teaches us, if we care to examine it, that for almost all of mankind's sojourn on this planet, we have lived through times of turmoil and peril, threatened by invasion, barbarism and terror with relatively short periods of calm and peaceful existence. Empires and civilisations have risen and fallen, rarely (if ever) peacefully. Our own civilisation, be assured, is not immune from the same process.

While I speak of civilisation, let me make it clear that I speak not of individual nations, countries or regions as the term might have indicated in past centuries or millennia. No, I am referring to the global community of mankind, united as at no other time in our history prior to the last few decades or so.  Yes, we still recognise individual nations, continental groupings, even tribal boundaries still. There are however, no communities on Earth that are now unaffected by what transpires in other communities, anywhere on the globe. One global civilisation, no part of which is not affected in some way by the successes or failures of some other part. Of course this unification is not in any way set in concrete and when the global collapse is in full swing, as it inevitably must be at some point, national and regional boundaries will again fracture and close ranks for what they see as reasons of self-protection.  But none will ever again achieve the prosperity (so called, but tragically based on unsupported mountains of debt) that they enjoyed for such a little while in this current period of globalisation.

~ : ~    

I thought of finishing this post here and perhaps I should, but I keep promising to get on to something a little more immediate and so I will keep on going for a little while, changing the subject matter.

The need for vigilance

Our major concern now should be how to place ourselves to give the best prospect of getting through any ensuing period of turmoil that might arise.

To my mind there are two basic principles for retaining personal safety during a collapse of modern society which are corollaries to each other.

1. The further away from living and/or working in an urban environment and even more so for a metropolitan environment, the better chance you have to survive a societal collapse situation.
2. The closer in to a metropolitan environment and to a lesser extent an urban environment that you live and/or work, the lower the chance you have to survive a societal collapse situation.

I should not need to state the following as it is quite obvious, but I will.  By far, most of the world's population now live in cities. Cities mostly consist of densely saturated urban areas grouped around even more densely saturated metropolitan centres where people are literally sitting or standing on top of one another in high rise buildings. Every day there is a mass migration from the perimeters of such conglomerations to the centre and back again at the end of the day.  Even so, the centres more and more tend to retain a more dense population that the urban extremities, even overnight. 

Imagine, if you will, the following sample situations that may one day confront you.

You work in a city hub within a large metropolis.  You take public transport to work in the morning and return in the evening to your home in an outer suburb. A journey of perhaps 40-50 minutes.

What would you do if you hear on the evening news or even the morning news before your walk or ride to the commuter station that there are planned demonstrations in the city for around mid-day against job losses at a major industry.  There may be severe delays on the commuter lines during the day. This, amid a period of growing community tension over wide ranging government cutbacks.  The share markets have been rising faster than at any time previously but this is of little concern to you as you have no share portfolio.

Do you shrug your shoulders and set off for work as normal? Risking enduring an extended working day as a result of transport delays?  Or do you say 'This looks bad, and could get worse. I will ride it out at home just in case.'

You decide to go to work anyway since you have a season ticket (and a very important job which you can't afford to lose).  Can't be as bad as it sounds.  You buy your normal coffee-to-go before starting work but the outlet is not accepting plastic cards for some reason.  No problem, you have just enough cash to pay for it.  Lunch time you go down to the bank because you now don't have cash to buy lunch, but get caught up in the crowds attending the demonstration.  This merely delays you, wasting your precious lunch period but you see and hear things that indicate this could get ugly later on.  At the ATM you notice it is out of order for some reason and a lot of people are milling around outside the bank, which has armed guards allowing only a few people inside at a time.

Your lunch time almost gone, do you:

• Go back to work hungry, to see if anyone will lend you cash for the snack bar?
• Take stock of the situation, realise this is going downhill fast and leave for home while transport is still running?

You return to work.  On the grapevine, sometime later you learn that the demonstration has turned into a riot and the city is in gridlock.  Do you immediately leave for home hoping to catch transport?  Or, do you wait until normal end of work, chancing it to luck?

You have important stuff to finish and stay on even later than normal knowing that the public transport timetable has regular scheduled times well into the evening. You pack up and head out to the station to find that all services have ceased until further notice. On the street you hear that the share market has crashed and to prevent further runs all banks have closed until further notice.

You have no cash and no alternative but to walk home, tired and hungry, a journey prospect of some some 9-10 hours making your way through darkened streets that you may never have travelled before, lit by many fires from the rioting which is sporadically still going on in some areas and while most shops are closed, there are already signs of looting and muggings.

Luck being on your side, you eventually make it home to a frantic and worried family in the early hours of the morning. That is when your problems really start. What do you do next?

If you have been following this story, at what point would you have pulled the plug and said 'Enough, I'm outta here'?  

Let's change the scenario a little. Your job is the same but now you live in an inner-city apartment. Do you still go to work as normal?  If so, do you still work a full day?  I suggest that a lot of people would be more prepared to do so than our commuter friend, because you do not face a 10 hour walk home. But are you any safer? You are now stuck in the centre of a riot torn, traffic disrupted metropolis. You still face at least a 10 hour walk to get out of the city and away from the dangers that it holds, but you would be more likely to delay your departure, feeling relatively safe in your apartment. Every day, every hour that you delay, decreases your opportunities to make a safe exit from the turmoil.  Within two days there would be widespread looting.  Within three days there would be no more food left in the centre. By the fourth day, one week at the outside, the desperate people from the centre would start fanning out in an ever increasing circle to the city limits over time, taking what ever they could find to try to meet their needs.  Of course, it wouldn't end there.

What would you do?

This may all sound a bit extreme and contrived. Something out of a zombie movie. But there are many ways that something like this could start, not just the few triggering events that I mentioned.  Think about it for a while. Such scenarios are possible and they may arise quickly like this case, perhaps even faster than that. They may also play out over extended periods and that perhaps is more dangerous because the changes may not be as perceptible.

Many of us are so caught up in the minutiae of life that we also would fail to notice the signs of trouble brewing into situations similar to what I have described. The first important lesson to learn from this I think is vigilance. Develop the habit, if you do not do so already, of noticing what is going on around you, in your city or region and in the world in general. Read widely, not just here, about events that could trigger periods of trouble, for your own sake and for those you love.

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 3)

Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.

Is this where I want to go?

Looking back, I see that I have already strayed somewhat from what my original intentions were for this series of posts but that is precisely why I named this blogspot 'Meanderings'. Because that is what I tend to do.  Hopefully my writings will circuitously return to where I want to be.  Restating my intention, to assist that process, will I hope provide a guide and direction. 

I see ahead a whole range of probable futures.  I see my present state and readiness/ unreadiness to face those situations.  I am looking for paths to progress from my current state to successfully meet whatever the future may bring.  

How do I define success?  Well, by survival, managing to keep body and soul together in working order, in the short term.  In the medium term by being able to live in a state of harmless wellbeing, harmoniously prospering (not in terms of wealth or power but in sufficiency in all necessary things) and integrating peacefully with other people and the natural world and perhaps, though not necessarily (I would be happy to achieve even the medium term goal) leading in the long term to some form of Shangri-La or possibly even a Shambala.  Though not associated with any particular faith other than an awe and reverance for nature. 

I suspect some of the above may attract criticism but we all have our own personal dreams and I am entitled to mine.

Why am I doing this publicly on a blog?  A thought came to me this morning and at the risk of being thought a pompous fool (if that is not already the case), I will relate my journey to that of Everyman, that non-gender specific person with whom we can all identify.  Ridiculous thought really since I have already admitted that I think of myself as being different to most people. But then, we all probably do that to some extent. 

However on a more generic level, the sort of things that I have, and will continue to  talk about, are the very things that I believe 'Everyman' will need to take into account in their own journey into the future.  With that in mind I will press ahead.

Aside

Before continuing, I want to mention some news I heard this morning.

Firstly it appears that all children born from this year, 2013, will be known as Generation Alpha.  They are expected to be smarter, richer and healthier than previous generations and there are so far, 300,000 of them in Australia alone, surpassing even the baby boom of 1947.  Who decides how to name these things?  And what happened to Gen-Z?  Or did that sound too final and apocalyptic?  Who says these children are going to be superior to all others in many ways? What evidence do they have to say those things?  The recent evidence would indicate that future generations are more likely to be dummed down, subject to more and worse diseases, and have to scramble for a smaller and smaller share of the ever shrinking wealth pie.  I have on several occasions urged young women to carefully consider not bearing children at this time because of the dangers they will face.  It seems the world's womenfolk are not listening. Over population is already one of the highest rated problems that we face as a species. Sad, sad, sad.  But makes my work all the more urgent.

Secondly, I watched on the TV news, demonstrations and riots in four major cities in as many different countries this morning.  If this is not indicative of a society in collapse then I do not know what is.  These are almost daily occurrences that I believe are set to worsen as time progresses.  A society turning on itself is not a society that is likely to grow and as soon as growth stops or falters, the whole crumbling edifice of corruption and greed will fall.  This is not the society that I was born into.  It would be quite unrecogniseable to my mother if she were in a state where she could take an active interest in such things.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are on the edge of a period of revolution, anarchy and mayhem the like of which has never been seen before and the western nations, despite their military strength and growing police state tactics, being in a largely already bankrupt state, will be powerless to stop it from tearing our cosy world apart. I can only hope that once the floodgates open, it will be quickly over.  Otherwise there will be very few of us left to pick up the pieces and start again.

These things are timely reminders to me as to why I am doing this blog and taking the actions that I do.

I think I will leave it there for today and start from where I said I would in the previous post in the next one.

  

I Need To Think About My Future (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

Recap

I began this line of reasoning in the first post of this series by outlining something of my personal situation and by beginning to detail certain reasons for me to take serious thought about my future.

The fragility of the global financial system and the possible impacts of another failure following on from the Global Financial Crisis on my personal income through consequent government and commercial collapses, were discussed.  The need for preparations to endure and overcome such events was raised.

I posed the question 'What Else?' then closed off the post and went to bed.

This morning marked the start of a wet weekend and also, being 1 June, the first day of Winter in the southern hemisphere cultural calendar (though this seems to be just an arbitrary date chosen for convenience and bears no relationship to nature's solsticial calendar). There being nothing worthwhile or demanding of my presence to do outside, I had to choose whether to continue with this writing or play Company of Heroes or Borderlands 2 as a form of escapism from these disturbing issues.

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself under this form of pressure but I resolved to continue the work while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind and made myself a freshly ground cup of real organic coffee as a reward.  I can always 'escape' a little later.

Continuing where we left off...

What Else?

Well, there are any number of different aspects of life that can be affected by various possible futures.  Have I thought of all of them?  I doubt it.  There are also many of these situations that are basically outside of the sphere of things that I/we can control.  In those cases we either relocate if that is possible and there is somewhere that we can relocate to, we bunker down to ride out the worst effects, if we have the means, and consider that a safe thing to do, or, if there is no alternative or we don't care or we do not attach sufficient weight to the possibility of such events arising in our neck of the woods, we get steamrollered by overtaking events.  

I find that it is most beneficial to concentrate on stuff that we have the capacity to exercise some form of control over.  Let's think of some of those things.

Just for a while imagine that some of the possible events I spoke about in the previous post were taking place now.  That's not hard to do and it is not a case of 'if' but more of 'when' they might occur.  This may seem to be remote thinking here in Australia but if you were a European or even an American citizen, your focus on the imminence or even the reality of such things may be quite different.  Don't take the view that 'Hey, the equity markets are higher than they have ever been, so things are looking up'.  Wasn't it just that way before the last crash?  Aren't we just setting ourselves up for another?  Do you think the unemployed of Europe and the US, many of whom used to be relatively well off professional middle class people, are thinking of equity markets right now?  No, they are struggling to survive on government handouts on a daily basis.  Collapse and poverty are real.  Equity markets are Fairy Floss.  

Perhaps these circumstances would become more real to more people if there were to be a sudden change, like all of this were to happen tomorrow.  Then what would we do? Could that happen?  I can see, and have read, of many ways that could occur.  However, history tells us that societies and civilisations do not generally crumble overnight. Occasionally they do, but more often it takes an average of 150 years as John Michael Greer explains in his book  The Long Descent: A User's Guide To The End Of The Industrial Age.

It could be argued that this civilisation started to disintegrate after the end of the Second World War and there are enough signs that we are on the path of collapse today that might indicate that we are approaching the halfway point towards total societal collapse, the good half or the least worst half of that path having already been experienced. It would be a mistake I think to expect anything to improve over the next 75 years and conditions are very likely to get considerably more uncomfortable the further we progress down that path, other factors not yet mentioned notwithstanding.

Imagine this...

So, you find yourself at some point (doesn't matter if this happens quickly or over some considerable period) with no job, and most other people, your neighbours, your friends, your extended family, are in the same boat.  The shops are empty because transport businesses have shut down (for any number of reasons).  Most of the police have gone home to protect their families (and because they are no longer being paid).  The army is largely overseas fighting some (now) meaningless war and there is no early prospect of getting most of them back home.  Doctors and nurses have almost all walked off the job for the same reasons as the police.  Banks and their ATMs have closed doors because too many people are trying to withdraw their savings and there is not enough real money to allow that to happen (I have written about that elsewhere).  There is no electricity because the diesel fuel to run the trains that bring the coal to the power stations has run out and the coal mines also can't operate their machinery to mine more coal and the refineries or fuel storage facilities cannot produce/receive more stocks or are shut down for use only by military or essential services by the government. You have run out of petrol and the service station pumps don't work (no electricity) or are empty due to no delivery of fuel.  Your domestic taps stop channelling water because the pumping stations have no power.  Streets and major intersections are gridlocked because traffic lights stopped working and cars are left where they ran out of fuel. Public transport has ceased to exist.  The children are wailing because they are hungry (and/or bored - no TV or electronic games). You can't flush your toilets and even if you could you finished your last roll of toilet paper yesterday.  Grandma needs more heart medication. Your partner needs a new asthma puffer.  You can't get any news about what is happening. Even if you have some form of food left you have no way to cook it now.

What the fuck do you do?

Ah, don't worry.  The government will sort it all out soon.  Don't bet on it.  They are probably most of the reason it happened in the first place.  Of course they are simply a reflection of society so it is all your fault too.

I repeat, without expletive this time and in all seriousness, what do you do?

I will tell you what most people would do.  They would panic.  They would go out and steal what they needed if they could find it and in not too short a time, when they have become desperate enough, they would be prepared to injure and/or kill to get it. Public safety would devolve into how well you could protect yourself or how prepared you are to beat the shit out of someone else.

This is not a pretty picture.

Of course, those who had the foresight to prepare for such eventualities or those who had been told about such things and had listened and also taken some action to make ready just in case, would be in a much better position to get through (survive) the initial holocaust that would ensue if even just some of these conditions prevailed.  Please don't think that I have listed all of the possibilities for systemic failure above.  I am sure you are capable of adding your own items to the scenario given some thought. This I urge you to do.

I have personally, by and large, taken steps to prepare for just this type of mayhem. Steps that you can also take will be discussed next.