7 posts tagged “c”
For those who believe that your survival probabilities and living standards during and after our
Societal Collapse will be optimized through some type of preparation, you might consider one of
the following strategies.
target.
- Educate Yourself: learn where and how to secure, produce, obtain, and/or create sufficient
life sustaining necessities—clean water, food, energy, shelter, and clothing—to last for the
remainder of your life, in the complete absence of any output from our industrial mosaic. The
upside to survival awareness is that you will be self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be
competing for dwindling supplies of remaining resources with 300+ million desperate and
hungry Americans—at least for the short term.
-Store Provisions: stock sufficient life sustaining necessities to enable your survival for at
least several months. The upside to a resource storehouse is that it will provide a buffer
during the onset of difficult times; the downside is that some of the 300+ million desperate
and hungry Americans will almost certainly find you and your storehouse, and attempt to
remove its contents by force.
-Arm Yourself: stockpile guns and other weapons in order to protect yourself from the 300+
million desperate and hungry Americans. The upside to armaments is that you will be able to
defend yourself; the downside is that you will eventually run out of bullets, encounter
somebody with a bigger gun, or sleep.
- “Relocalize” into a Self-sufficient Community: this is the group living strategy employed
by those who expect a “fizz” type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you
and your self-sufficient companions will be capable of obtaining and producing your life
sustaining necessities for an indefinite period of time; the downside is that those lacking such
capabilities will find you, and your community will be an easy.
- Erect a Compound: this is the group living strategy employed by those who expect a “pop” type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you and your trustworthy companions will be temporarily self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be subject to attack both from the outside, by the 300+ million desperate and hungry Americans, and from the inside, by your trustworthy companions. -Stay Mobile: travel, scavenge, and maintain a low profile during the collapse until the initial major die-off from thirst and starvation, which should occur within the first month or so in a “pop” collapse scenario. The upside is that you will be a moving target, more difficult to hit than a stationary target; the downside is that you may still succumb to the initial die-off, due to a lack of sufficient remaining resources, or to the second major die-off resulting from disease epidemics spread by initial die-off victims. You would do well, in any event, to keep your survival strategy and its particulars to yourself— and remember that “human decency” is directly proportional to resource availability.
Cris Calston in On American Sustainability, Anatomy of a Societal Collapse, 2009
Yet great and grave though the problems that confront us are, mankind has a powerful armamentarium with which to engage them – its collective genius and its seemingly unquenchable spirit. That spirit and that genius, nonetheless, can wither and come to naught without both a feasible plan and the will to carry it out. And they can work at cross purposes where combined with arrogance in seeking the conquest of nature rather than a harmonious balance with it. Instead intellect and spirit must be joined with historical perspective, a keen awareness of limitations, and a clear perception of the relevance of all strands in the web of life in generating a formula for the bounteous, long-term continuance of our species on an uncrowded and ecologically wholesome earth. Better management of the planet and its resources at all levels is called for. That starts with a flexible, legislatively based agenda for action, arrived at by way of a searching and balanced discussion and assessment of alternatives and their consequences. I have sought in these last chapters to contribute to such a discussion. I also suggest some interim actions. But a public will to equal the task at hand is of the essence. And the tides of time are running low.
Preston Cloud: Cosmos, Earth and Man, 1978
In an ideal world, governments would properly study the resource base and understand the principles of depletion. They do not, and in democratic societies, they cannot, because they are elected for short terms and are therefore motivated to deliver short-term benefits to their electors.
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A permanent doubling or more of the price of oil, followed by growing physical shortages, must lead to a major economic and political discontinuity in the way the world lives. It heralds the end of rampant and mindless consumerism in the more developed countries, and will bring great suffering to the Third World.
Every effort will be made to find alternative and renewable sources of energy. Nuclear power will be increased, although not fast enough to deal with the crisis. It will itself later become resource constrained by finite quantities of uranium. Coal mining will be stepped up with adverse environmental consequences, especially in places like China where the power stations lack adequate smoke filters. The use of renewable energy will expand rapidly and successfully.
The greatest progress will however have to be made in the terms of using less. The World will become a very different place with a smaller population. The transition will be difficult, and for some catastrophic, but at the end of the day the world may be a better and more sustainable place.
That seems to be a logical interpretation, but is it the correct one? I don’t know, but I hope that the discussion which you have so patiently read will prompt you to think about it. I further hope that, having thought about it, you will make some provisions to protect yourselves as well as you can. I have discussed it with my broker, but I have to admit that we do not know what to do.
Colin J Campbell in The Coming Oil Crisis, 1998
Suggestions for ameliorating population problems fall into three main groups:
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those intended to amplify human productive capacities,..(the “bigger pie” school)
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those intended to reduce the number and expectations of people to be served (the “fewer forks” school), and
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those intended to change the terms under which people interact (the “better manner” school)……
Asking whether family-planning programs or desire for children are the primary determinants of fertility resembles asking whether airline passengers fly because airplanes exists or because passengers want to go somewhere. Aristotle, who distinguished efficient causes from final causes (or means from goals) more than two millennia ago, would have been amused. People can travel without airplanes, but the great convenience of airplanes promotes travel. People can reduce their fertility without family-planning programs, but the great convenience (relative to the alternatives) of modern contraception facilitates lowered fertility.
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In efforts to protect the physical, chemical and biological environments provided by this finite sphere, how will rapid population growth and economic development in poor countries be balanced against high consumption per person in the rich countries?
Joel E Cohen: How Many People Can the Earth Support? (Chapter 17), 1995
Let us assume that with a more equitable distribution and a more European” level of consumption per capita, we could support about twice the above estimate, or 170 million, at high-quality life-style on renewable energy alone. This is admittedly a very rough calculation, and it is not the most pessimistic one possible. But I think it is a good general benchmark. One hundred seventy million people might be supportable on a sustainable basis at somewhat approaching our current quality of life, but 240 probable cannot be unless some major technical breakthrough happen or we all reduces our standard of living significantly. Prudence requires that we target 170 million or fewer until the technical breakthroughs happen (if they happen). Otherwise our standard of living may go down to disastrous levels due to ecological deterioration from which we could never recover.
Our best bet is to act as if we believed we have already overshot, and do our best to ensure that the inevitable crash consists as little as possible of outright die-off of Homo sapiens. Instead it should consist as far as possible of the chosen abandonment of those seductive values characteristics of Homo colossus (with a colossal toolkit and the will to use it for its private wellbeing). Indeed, renunciation of such values may be the main alternative to renewed indulgence in cruel genocide. If crash should prove to be avoidable after all, a global strategy of trying to moderate expected crash is the strategy most likely to avert it.
History will record the period of global dominance by Homo colossus as a brief interlude. Our most urgent task is to develop policies designed not to prolong the dominance, but to ensure that the successor to Homo colossus will be after all, Homo sapiens. Developing such policies must be so enormous difficult that it is not easy even to accept the urgency of the task. But the longer we dealy the beginning, the more numerous and colossal we become – thereby trapping ourselves all the more irredeemably in the fatal practice of stealing from our future.
The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from the Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
Rachel Carson: Silent Spring 1962
