This is why Individual preparedness is key to community preparedness
Oxfordshire ambulance service ‘critical incident’ declared
Extreme heat triggers critical incidents at UK hospitals. At least three UK hospitals, including Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals and University Hospital Southampton, declared critical incidents this week. Queen Alexandra Hospital cited the failure of several chiller units supporting critical infrastructure, leading to the standing down of some planned care and appointments. Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals declared an incident due to cooling system failures in MRI scanners, resulting in 362 cancelled outpatient appointments.
‘Outdated’ NHS buildings causing problems for staff and patients during heatwave, warns BMA
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/outdated-nhs-buildings-challenging-heatwave-5HjdcBZ_2/
Heatwave: Trusts declare critical incidents as soaring temperatures leave NHS buckling
https://www.bmj.com/content/393/bmj-2026-100088
“Fossil fuel emissions have rapidly worsened European heatwaves in just a few decades”
The NHS is in crisis, driven by a heatwave. Agriculture is in crisis, driven by the same driver as the heatwave
Community preparedness requires individual preparedness. Stockpiling food if you can afford it, and working in a small street-level mutual aid group. Organisations like XR already have the organisational structure to organise communities, which is a strength of the environmental movement. The weakness of XR has been not to take the initiative of adaptation seriously and instead sideline and dismiss as Doomers those who did, are and are now ahead of the game. There is no enjoyment in this statement, as Kevin Hester says WE WANT TO BE WRONG!
Solidarity Prepping Is Preparedness For A Looming Food Crisis
Preparedness is for Everyone: There seems to be an assumption among many Greens that stocking up on a few months to a year’s worth of dry or preserved food is hoarding, and that’s what the far-right preppers are doing. Yet food preservation and storage are ancient skills. A can of baked beans doesn’t feel like preserved food, but canning, in the 1790s, is possibly the youngest form of preservation.
Since the beginning of time, humans have had to get creative to survive in nature. Ancient cultures around the world had to harness nature for local food sources. Whether hunting or harvesting, food preservation allowed humans to plan ahead and form a food supply. This was not only crucial for survival, but also for putting down roots and establishing communities. Climate and ecological collapse survival, as much as is possible, requires the same response:
“As ancient cultures were adapting, they discovered techniques that have now become basic methods of food preservation.
- Drying
The earliest form of curing meat was dehydration using the sun or wind. Dehydration dates back to the Middle East and oriental cultures that dried foods in the hot sun as early as 12,000 B.C. In regions without enough sunlight or wind, “still houses” were built and heated using fire to dry fruits, vegetables, and herbs. - Curing
As a form of dehydration, early cultures used salt to help dry out foods. The curing of meats and seafood not only preserves the taste and texture but also prevents the growth of harmful pathogens that need moisture to survive. - Freezing
In climates that experience freezing temperatures, freezing was an obvious method of preservation. Food was buried underground or in the snow for preservation throughout the winter. This method led to the construction of “icehouses” or “iceboxes” for storage until the 1800’s when artificial refrigeration was invented. - Fermenting
A valuable method of preservation, fermentation prevents food from spoiling by using microorganisms to destroy harmful pathogens. The production of acid or alcohol during fermentation creates vitamins making fermented foods more nutritious and flavorful. - Pickling
A form of fermentation, pickling preserves foods in vinegar produced by starches or sugars. Pickling may have originated when food was placed in soured wine or beer to preserve it. It’s believed Indians were the first people in Asia to make cucumber pickles more than 3,000 years ago. - Sugaring
Known to the earliest cultures, sugaring preserves food in honey or sugar. The sugar not only sweetens but draws out water from harmful pathogens, which dehydrates and destroys them. The ancient Greeks and Romans mastered the technique of using heated sugar and fruit pectin, which we have come to know as jams, jellies, and preserves. - Canning
Dating back to the 1790s, canning is the newest method of food preservation, which involves the heating and cooling of food in jars or cans. Heating destroys harmful pathogens, while cooling creates a vacuum seal to prevent contamination and deterioration.” 7 Ancient Preservation Methods
Many of us make jams from gardening surplus and foraged foods: this is preservation for the future according to the above definition.
Some of us revere the spirituality of the indigenous human; we desperately want to grasp the Nature worship of the Indigenous Shaman; we imitate their dress, we play their drums; we take their Ayahuasca, but reject the basic survival skills of indigenous shaman as somehow dystopian survivalism because we base it on a black-and-white assumption that primal skills are primitive skills, and in the tradition of the Victorian white supremacist the savagary of primalism has no relavence even in 21st century collapse. Especially among those who think everyone is indigenous from somewhere, but indigenous knowledge and skills are going backwards. The English Fascists think they are indigenous English, but that’s not what you mean, or is it?
That looming food crisis is already upon us, and I am NOT writing dystopian fiction by saying this: “Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops. Farmers are already facing heavy financial pressure as the costs of fertilisers and other inputs have risen faster than prices.” The Guardian
I have no interest in writing fiction, let alone dystopian fiction. We already live in a dystopia. We are going extinct, and the slide downwards is likely to be increasingly hotter, drought-ridden, cascading ecological collapses and increasingly fascist. In deciding not to write fiction. I also choose not to write fiction which is described as thrutopian. Thrutopia is magical thinking which we in the Doomer space describe as Hopium. “Human flourishing” is easy to say when you live in Britain, where the maximum temperature this June was 40C. “3,400 deaths in a day: India’s extreme heat days are deadlier than we imagined” India Today Science Desk. Thrutopian imaginings of human flourishing are not the scientific consensus: Climate change judged more harmful for future generations than for oneself: Cross-cultural evidence from 110 countries and regions Journal of Environmental Psychology. This conflicts with the idea that we are leaving a world we can be proud of to future generations, an idea which has no foundation in scientific reality but is definitely more addictive than heroin.
This Blog, my old blogs and my YouTube channels are being described as “Dystopian Survivalism“, lazy and assume that I promote “post-collapse hunting and gathering”, yet I have never suggested that humans could hunt and gather post-collapse. Now THAT is a lazy assumption. The latest rant suggests you continue to grow foods for the historic old Goldilocks climate niche for agriculture, whereas I have been looking at climate-resilient plants like Typha as an alternative source of carbohydrate which can also withstand temperatures in excess of 55C and survive as far north as the Arctic Circle Typha has been the staple of pre-agrarian societies for 1000s of years, a traditionally trained shaman would know this though. As for future food for those who live in flats with minimal access to land, the Spider plant is prolific, vigorous, edible and easy to grow and propagate. Spider plants are important house plants; they clean the air and improve air quality in the home. In fact NASA went further: “Perhaps you remember the news from more than a decade ago that spider plants seemed to do a spectacular job of cleaning the air. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which tested the abilities of three common houseplants to remove formaldehyde from the air, found in preliminary tests that spider plants were the champs, removing 95% of the toxic substance from a sealed Plexiglas chamber in 24 hours.” NASA
We rarely think of Spider Plants as edible: “Leaves are known to be edible in small quantities. In some parts of Africa, this is known as a potherb. According to the University of Florida, Chlorophytum comosum (Vittatum) contains phosporus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Micronutrients include copper, iron, manganese and zinc. Chlorophytum comosum root tubers are a good source of sodium and potassium. They also contain fat and protein.” https://www.ediblewildfood.com/spider-plant.aspx
I add the sliced root to stir-fry. Its not remarkable in any way.
Preparing Typha for food takes a little extra work, but a perfectly usable flour can be extracted from the rhizomes, mixed with the pollen, which makes an agreeable, highly nutritious bread. Almost every part of the Typha plant is edible raw or cooked.
Assumptions about Survivalism often demonstrate prime examples of the Dunning- Kruger effect:
The Low-Skill Overestimation: Individuals who know very little about a topic lack the baseline knowledge required to see their own errors. As a result, they confidently assume they are doing great. A person with zero understanding of survivalism whose primary interest is in writing fiction will have very little understanding of what survivalism is so they make up for their ignorance with assumptions as opposed to actually finding out what it entails and whether it is relevant to the subject at hand, which is civilisation collapse.
In survivalism, the Dunning-Kruger effect is exceptionally dangerous. Because novices often lack foundational knowledge, they dramatically overestimate their ability. This false confidence—sometimes called reaching the “peak of Mount Stupid”—often leads them to assume advanced skills are simple: Critics of survivalism and novice practitioners alike make the same assumptions and mistakes about the practice.
Dr Stephanie Rost, How we could survive in a post-collapse world, “The prospect of a post-collapse world is daunting and fraught with unprecedented challenges. Unlike past eras of societal decline, today we are facing a climate crisis of a scale and speed that humanity has never before encountered. This reality demands a new approach to survival-one that acknowledges the enormity of the crisis while seeking to adapt in innovative ways.”
“Adaptability has always been a crucial survival skill, but in an era where climate patterns are increasingly volatile, the ability to adapt must now include embracing uncertainty. This involves flexible approaches to resource management, such as shifting from traditional crop cycles to more diverse and climate-resilient agricultural practices.”
Cultural adaptability will be as important as physical adaptation. Rethinking societal values-moving from consumerism to sufficiency and stewardship-is crucial for long-term survival given its impact on the environment. This involves shifting away from individualistic survivalism toward collective resilience and embracing simpler, more sustainable ways of living. Communities that can redefine well-being to focus on relational and environmental health rather than material wealth will be better prepared for a world where abundance can no longer be taken for granted. Cultural flexibility will also require a willingness to change long-standing traditions around food, housing, and social structures to fit new environmental realities. For instance, adopting climate-adaptive architecture—such as earthbag homes or structures that utilise passive heating and cooling -has potential to help communities survive in new climates.”
People with no exposure to a complex concept often dismiss its validity because their mental shortcuts lead them to believe it simply isn’t a “thing”. The survival skills of the survivalist are not about wanting to live in a cave and hunt and gather; they are about the resilience skills of the people who are capable of, as Dr Gail Bradbrook says, building things. The guys who build stuff, like at the Big Green Gathering. I stopped going there over 2 decades ago. But I imagine the same conversations happen around the fire as back in
There is a culture of downward punching among some members of the environmental, spiritual, white, privileged, land-owning, middle-class Green influencers. There’s plenty of room for us all in this space; the fact that the Doomers have been promoting food growing, genuine coppicing (as opposed to coppice last cut in the time of our grandfathers) and learning skills for collapse like survivalism. These downward punchers don’t for a moment imagine that large numbers of the deep green resistance own no land, let alone their own home, and they choose to learn survival skills as a response to collapse. We have been doing #talkcollapse since Tristan Sykes and Just Collapse promoted the concept when Twitter was still Twitter.
“Now, with more and more people talking collapse, we are collectively changing the shape, character, and direction of the spirit of our times. Doing so ensures a basis upon which we will achieve as much socio-ecological justice as possible within the complex realities and horrors that collapse entails – working together for a Just Collapse” Before Tristan’s death earlier this year, we talked extensively about life, activism, the Newbury Bypass and other anti-roads protests in the 1990s. We talked extensively about doomers and collapse-acceptance, a concept few people are able to grasp and embrace. Tristan observed the downward punching among some academics; he too observed that it was the privileged white, wealthy who were passively violent towards anyone who didn’t agree with them while talking about Non-Violent Direct Action.
Doomers are here to help you with the downward slide of the slow collapse. Be real, be brutally honest. I have talked with my now-adult children about this; I have been on the frontline of environmental action; I have been on the NHS frontline during the SARS-COVID-19 pandemic. The science does not support the idea of a flourishing future for anything. It does not support the idea of leaving a world we would be proud to leave to future generations. The science indicates a 10C planet that will probably look like Venus or Mars.
Solidarity Prepping: Preparing For Climate Change 