Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare

[IDemo]

Too late to save the planet, they say, so they focus on saving themselves

AP -updated 4:06 p.m. MT, Sat., May. 24, 2008

BUSKIRK, N.Y. - A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald's, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.

That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world's oil supply. Now, she's preparing for the world as we know it to disappear.

Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds. She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.

"I was panic-stricken," the 50-year-old recalled, her voice shaking. "Devastated. Depressed. Afraid. Vulnerable. Weak. Alone. Just terrible."

Convinced the planet's oil supply is dwindling and the world's economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn't prepare.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24808083/

[wurzel]

1. They think they can save themselves and not the planet?

Where do they plan to live?

[Kutjara]

2. What these people fail to understand...

...is that it's their very "look after number one, fuck everyone else" thinking that's at the root of the world's problems. It's only by everyone working together for the common good that we stand a chance of surviving. This woman and her fellow travelers won't last a week with their bunkers, fences and popguns when starving mobs start roving the countryside. Humans together are strong. Humans alone are dinner.

[Indiana_Dem]

3. Okay, so I've been trying for 4 years to get my community

to understand what peak oil is, what its implications are, and what we need to do to prepare and how we should live. It aint happenin' so far! Nobody wants to change their lifestyle which would help the earth in the long run as a byproduct of the preparations and change in lifestyle! I've been trying for 4 years!!!! I am a peak oil survivalist but nobody is wanting to work together on this VERY important issue! I think you're getting the message wrong. Many PO believers are preparing themselves because nobody else wants to join them!!!

[bhikkhu]

5. Perhaps you will find things different this year.

There is nothing like a big hit to the wallet to wake people up to the need for conservation and real living skills. I don't think it makes me a survivalist, but I have been growing food for years, and this year I have my biggest garden in so far.

[Kutjara]

6. My point is that it won't matter.

Scattered and isolated "survivalists" stand pretty much the same chance of "making it" in a post-apocalyptic world as anyone else: little or none. If it really comes down to a fight for survival, it'll be those with the biggest guns and the best organizations who win (i.e. warlords), not lonely hoarders with cellars full of Spam.

We either fix what's broken now, or we all go to Hell together. There's really no third way.

[bhikkhu]

4. "starving mobs roving the countryside"...

Not that it hasn't ever happened, but the appeal to fear is not constructive. I think their effort is admirable - going low tech, gardening, learning the skills that we as a species need. Becoming self sufficient is actually a good thing, if only in that you are less likely to burden a burdened system in the event of emergencies. And self sufficiency tends to allow for generosity.

Stocking up on guns I would say is optional.

[Kutjara]

7. Self-sufficiency is great. "Survivalism" isn't.

Self-sufficiency is about using resources sustainably and responsibly, so that the environment as a whole benefits. Survivalism is about sitting pretty while everything goes to hell.

As for "appealing to fear," I was merely paraphrasing the article in the OP. These people intend to "defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn't prepare." Sounds like apocalyptic anxiety to me.

[bhikkhu]

9. Agreed. John Michael Greer wrote specifically about this image...

"Look through the last decade or so of discussion about Peak Oil, or for that matter any other manifestation of the predicament of industrial civilization, and you'll find the climactic scenes of both stories - the basement entrepreneur laboring away at the technological fix that will save us all, on the one hand, and the plucky band of survivors blasting away with assault rifles at savage, starving, mindless mobs, on the other - circling like broken records."

http://www.energybulletin.net/34015.html

Its a good read, as he always provides. And Greer is probably the most sensible and useful voices around on the topic. In general, he says that people need other people to survive, and always have.

[Kutjara]

10. I haven't read much by Greer, but I will now on your recommendation.

What makes the current situation much more dangerous is that we're playing for much higher stakes. In the past, when one empire or another collapsed and ushered-in a "dark age," the Earth itself was pretty unaffected. Aside from some trees, stone and metals, most of the precious, non-renewable resources of the planet remained untouched.

In our era, however, we have fully exploited just about every valuable resource to extinction. If civilization does collapse, and humanity enters another dark age where infrastructure and knowledge are lost, there simply won't be the raw materials available to rebuild again. Without available supplies of fossil fuels, for example, another industrial revolution is hard to imagine. Without an industrial revolution, Earth will be a planet of subsistence farmers until the sun goes out. Now that may not necessarily be a bad outcome in the grand scheme of things, but it will certainly be a waste of human potential.

If we can't solve our immediate problems in ways that are sustainable and equitable, we may never get another chance. And by never, I mean never.

[Mojorabbit]

11. I guess I am a little of both

then from your definintion.I am prepared for the worst while gearing down my lifestyle to a more sustainable level. I feel it is my responsibility to provide for my family with a little extra for the neighbors in a just in case situation and I have prepped for that.. just in case. Otherwise I live my life like anyone else and without a huge amt of anxiety. Unless there is a mass movement towards a sustainable lifestyle we all loose.

[lutherj]

12. I think of it as the Night of the Living Dead scenario. Even if you can

stomach the idea of shooting at the neighborhood kids for trying to steal a turnip out of your garden, how long can you stay awake? How long does your ammo last? The only solution is at the community level.

[Kutjara]

13. And, of course, the ravening mob...

...will be packing heat, too. In this movie, the zombies shoot back.

[DaLittle Kitty]

8. At 15 BUCKS A GALLON WE ARE ALL FUCKED... Blame is Held Exclusively By INCUMBENTS OF BOTH PARTIES!

DUMP ALL INCUMBENTS!!!!!