(I was in a hurry so excuse the conciseness.)
Bumpy slide, or cliff? Everywhere at once, or patchy? So far it's already (for a billion or two humans) bumpy and patchy, and conceivably a big one (severe influenza pandemic, severe sun storm, etc) could turn it into a sudden cliff, or of course cheap solar & permaculture could go big if several things click together.
It's all scenarios, with no certain probabilities (imho). It's our first time as a species, as far as I know. :-?
What to do? 7 years ago, at a flu conference, I heard a World Health Organisation official say he wasn't in the prediction department but in the preparedness department. I was glad to hear it. One less worry! :-)
Any bad enough scenario (BES) will be felt locally. In a BES, your food or your "property" (I hear that word a lot in some places, and I feel it wouldn't mean much in a BES) won't "save" you. If not "save", then what will "help"? (The following is numbered for reference, not for prioritisation.)
1) Skills, knowledge, friends, having something to give to others that they will value so they will keep you alive.
2) Having ways to speed up recovery for all (or at least as many as possible) in a certain area. Think "emergency permaculture": quick and dirty, using climate analogs and helpful databases + applications some are envisioning, maybe allowing for calorie crops in a few months (while you eat what's there), then something better later.
3) Scarcity governability. (I wrote tinyurl.com/fluscim specifically for a BES-flu-pandemic, but could be applied to SG more generally, fwiw.)
4) Luck.
Anything else?
I'm working towards 1 and 2.
3 is still maturing - maybe there's a lot missing and I'd appreciate comments.
2 and 3 could conceivably be combined.
"Explosive" (in a good way) seeds need slow work!
Bumpy slide, or cliff? Everywhere at once, or patchy? So far it's already (for a billion or two humans) bumpy and patchy, and conceivably a big one (severe influenza pandemic, severe sun storm, etc) could turn it into a sudden cliff, or of course cheap solar & permaculture could go big if several things click together.
It's all scenarios, with no certain probabilities (imho). It's our first time as a species, as far as I know. :-?
What to do? 7 years ago, at a flu conference, I heard a World Health Organisation official say he wasn't in the prediction department but in the preparedness department. I was glad to hear it. One less worry! :-)
Any bad enough scenario (BES) will be felt locally. In a BES, your food or your "property" (I hear that word a lot in some places, and I feel it wouldn't mean much in a BES) won't "save" you. If not "save", then what will "help"? (The following is numbered for reference, not for prioritisation.)
1) Skills, knowledge, friends, having something to give to others that they will value so they will keep you alive.
2) Having ways to speed up recovery for all (or at least as many as possible) in a certain area. Think "emergency permaculture": quick and dirty, using climate analogs and helpful databases + applications some are envisioning, maybe allowing for calorie crops in a few months (while you eat what's there), then something better later.
3) Scarcity governability. (I wrote tinyurl.com/fluscim specifically for a BES-flu-pandemic, but could be applied to SG more generally, fwiw.)
4) Luck.
Anything else?
I'm working towards 1 and 2.
3 is still maturing - maybe there's a lot missing and I'd appreciate comments.
2 and 3 could conceivably be combined.
"Explosive" (in a good way) seeds need slow work!
On behalf of Shannon:
ResponderEliminarI agree with all the points of preparedness that you mention. What has been pulling at me lately is the question of the spirit in surviving a BES -- and that is a broad consideration that I am ruminating on, from the importance of communing with the divine (whatever one's faith may be), to the ability to enter into a state of "flow" that enables one to experience total engagement in the tasks at hand (even if they are gritty getting-by sorts of activities), to the ability to create pleasure in the simplest of ways -- that nurtures the spirit and makes life fun, even in a BES. I'm just feeling that a lot of us in this movement need to open ourselves up to including this in our dialogue, as I suspect it has a lot to do with the ability to make a good life, no matter what...and that's what I am interested in: A good life, with love, happiness, and pleasure, no matter what. Some of that is luck, but some of that is cultivated skill. I'm curious about your thoughts on this -- it is the basis of my current research.