The one "prepper" stockpiling step I'm taking
totally not whack; worth discussing and sharing now...
This is something of a Community Thread for the subscriber community to chime in on. I’m asked almost daily if I’m prepping in anticipation of the guaranteed wobbly times ahead-slash-that-we’re-already-in. I wrote a few months back that every European is being advised to put together a survival kit, which really shook Australians when I spoke about it in the media back home.
Such measures are deemed OTT rather than plain smart in a nation that seemingly prefers the mad, heroic stories of flood victims surviving in a dingy with their three horses for a week (especially when they do comically laidback crosses in North Queensland accents on morning TV) over actual serious news stories about what we’re in.
Me, I’ve not taken concrete steps yet. I have theoretical evacuation plans ready to go, but I’m currently living out of a backpack and will be until the end of August (maybe the rest of my life) - I’ve nowhere to evacuate from. I also have a survival kit on me - my backpack contains a tent, torch, water sanitisation tablets etc.
But I am starting to think about more concrete measures for a little down the track. Including assembling a simple, entirely sensible handful of items that would put me in good stead, no matter what plays out and where.
I was prompted by a comment last week from @NicolaPhilp asking if I might start providing information and resources for people wanting to start to build and strengthen their local communities now. She has put a resources kit together to this effect for community in the Otways and has invited you to draw on it for your own “collapse co-ops”. At The Realisation Festival the other week a whip-smart subscriber called Samantha (Samantha raise your hand if you’re here today!) suggested I provide a companion resource like the one Sheryl Sandberg created as a companion to her Lean In book. This resource might be a more formal version of the Islands of Sanity meet-up post.
I’m reflecting on these suggestions. And will launch some more conversations with you guys to this effect. And when my nervous system and I regroup in coming weeks (after I get the book edits through to Penguin)…I’ll deep-dive some more.
But to start today, let’s talk books.
Again, I was prompted by one of you - @madeleineurion - who replied to Nicola,
I think that books are a great idea. I've started collecting books on canning, preserving, etc.
The luddite Corsican lover I reference in The Collapse Book made a great point to this effect, too. I had been fretting about the implications of mass power outages across Europe (like the one in Spain a few months back). They are likely to happen (around the world) more frequently going forward and to last longer. I often joke about Elon Musk having a particularly volatile Ketamine bender one night and deciding to turn off StarLink for a lark. It’s not an entirely inconceivable possibility. Neither is a rapid and sustained collapse of our energy and technology systems in the not too distant future.
In all such cases, we’d be royally stuffed; all our resources are online now - our music, identity, contacts, maps and the tools we use to find out how to do things. Generations worth of skills and knowledge - the skills and knowledge required for our survival - are now sitting in the vulnerable, amorphous Cloud. If the ‘net goes down, so could we.
The Corsican, who has nothing in the Cloud, grunted and told me it was simple:
Ah, Sarah, just buy some books about the things you’re worried about losing.
He added this: You don’t have to panic and read them all now. Just have them on hand. “In collapse we will have lots of time for reading.”
It’s a very good point. And I will start to collate a few texts. Not in a mad panic; probably second-hand.
What if we created something of a bibliography for each other.
Would you be open to sharing books you recommend, perhaps on preserving different food, per Madeleine, regenerative gardening, how to collect seeds, how to find water etc. Perhaps you could put the title in bold and then provide a line or two on why you recommend it?