Originally published on Blogger in 2023
Flooding and Drought
Between 2023 and July 2026, the climate has changed, noticeably and probably irreversibly. In 1995, I noted that the seasons were changing, and this change has been gradual up until now. Between 2019 and 2026, the prospect of ecological collapse has been increasingly evident across the globe. The era of Global Boiling (coined in July 2023 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres). Evident by 20,000 deaths in a week in France in a heatwave in June 2026. From 2023 to the present is the era of climate crisis acceleration and phase change from the anthropocene to the post-anthropocene, a new climate which, from observation, consists of a near-unsurvivable dry season and a wet season characterised by annual winter floods unlike anything we have seen in the past.
During the dry periods between April and October now, the soil dries to a depth of 12 inches, and the ground ceases to absorb water. Pluvial flooding leads to fluvial flooding. The bridges, embankments and other road infrastructures at the moment keep this water out of the City of Oxford. The above video is from 2 years ago. The video below was filmed last winter. Last winter’s flooding was the worst in at least 10 years. The water level was higher, and the quantity of rain was greater. I was able to collect the full 2,200 litres of water off the roof of my home.
Floodwater should be the last water you look at to drink, even in a crisis. Water preparedness and water purification preparedness beyond a couple of water filters, even one that can do 1,000s of litres, is not enough. What happens when the whole community looks to you to help them process their drinking water?
I have a storage capacity of 2,300 litres and currently have about 800 litres in storage, collected last winter. Using small submersible pumps, I can transfer water from collection to longer-term storage. The pump is also used to water the garden and can maintain a good pressure to power some of the irrigation sprinklers. Systems like mine cost under £150. Don’t require planning permission. Or any special knowledge to establish. The Barrels are old olive import MDPE food-grade airtight barrels; they are opaque and have lids. Unprocessed rainwater stays in perfect condition for over a year in these barrels.
Why Some Climate Activists See Preparing For Climate Collapse As A Priority
“A growing part of the climate movement is turning to “solidarity prepping.” At a camp in Brandenburg, activists prepared themselves for the inevitable collapse with workshops, first aid courses and discussions.” https://table.media/climate/analyse/climate-movement-why-activists-are-preparing-for-climate-collapse
“Preparedness, especially when it’s called ‘prepping’, has a bad name, and for good reason. The prevalent image of the prepper is a right-wing, white, middle-class cis man in his 40s or 50s who stockpiles guns, food and ammunition, prioritised in roughly that order. You can watch reality TV shows about this guy, or YouTube channels made by him that might as well be titled How to Survive the Apocalypse Alone in the Woods with a Hatchet Eating Squirrels You Hunt With the Aforementioned Hatchet.”
It makes great entertainment. But in reality, the lone survivor hero is a myth. “More to the point, it doesn’t present a particularly accurate picture of what preparedness actually looks like for most humans on the planet.. Because most people, in most places and most times in history, have concerned themselves with preparedness whenever they can. The right-wing doomsday prepper isn’t even representative of the vast majority of preppers, even under that name.
I would be a hypocrite and a fool to make fun of rural people in the US who dry their own food, keep their pantry as stocked as they can afford to, keep an extra five gallons of gas in a can in the garage, catch their rainwater for their garden, own and train with and maintain firearms, and pay attention to potential disruptions in infrastructure. I’m one of those people. I do all of those things. Most people who do those things aren’t living in some right-wing fantasy world – they’re applying values passed down through the generations.” Red Pepper
I would be a hypocrite and a fool to make fun of rural people.. .. who dry their own food, keep their pantry as stocked as they can afford to.. .. catch their rainwater for their garden.. ..and pay attention to potential disruptions in infrastructure. I’m one of those people. I do all of those things. Most people who do those things aren’t living in some right-wing fantasy world. Apart from the gasoline, I don’t have a car or any need for one. I live frugally, and when systems fail, my life won’t change much.
The anarchist, or leftist, approach, or, I would argue, just the rational approach to preparing for crisis, is to include other people – friends, family, neighbours, and strangers alike – in your primary plan and your contingency plans.
Imagine two cities in the apocalypse. One builds walls to keep people out and hoard and defend its resources, while the other lets in refugees. The walled city would have the short-term benefit of fewer mouths to feed with limited supplies. The open city, however, would have a far more valuable resource – people. People, when organised (especially horizontally), are capable of, well, basically anything. More people means more farmers, more engineers, more organisers, more medics, even more military might if it comes to that. Red Pepper
In Solidarity Prepping: There’s no expectation of any stereotypes like “Plucky humans roaming the post-collapse countryside” (Manda Scott). Tropes like this are invented by plastic white shamanic practitioners who reject the life skills of indigenous people while pilfering their ceremonies and ceremonial paraphernalia. To solidarity preppers, this is a deeply flawed ideology of colonial domination and misrepresentation.
Solidarity Prepping is an inclusive, decentralised activist movement focused on antifascist preparedness, driven by mutual aid. Knowledge and skills-based, and science-led, with a no-nonsense approach.
Survival Skills Learned in Nature Is How We Connect Deeply with the Intelligence That is Nature, or The Web Of Life
Skills-based survivalism learned in nature is how Solidarity Preppers identify how we connect to nature, or what some people call the web of life. We communicate with plants at a fundamental level. Plants not only communicate their medicinal properties to us, but they also communicate a variety of other properties to us. I have been in a several-year communication with Nettles, Willow trees, Hazel coppice, Elder, Burdock, Mullein, Typha, Skirrets, Silverweed, Dandelion and birch to name but a few.
These skills teach calmness and patience and a relaxed attitude about spending long periods of time in nature experiencing the intelligence of a being made up of many. Sitting under a tree doesn’t do it for me. If Nature is the beloved, I want to know it intimately and be the lover.
My relationship with Hazels started in 1989, on the edge of a Kentish Coppice woodland near Scarlet’s Cowden, a Coppice Woodland reputed to have a history predating the Domesday Book. In fact, most ancient woodlands predate the Norman Conquest and their inclusion in the Domesday Book was always measured in their output. England’s ancient coppices were established when European Neolithic farmers brought coppicing skills from Southern Europe to Southern Britain. It’s possible (though difficult to prove) they may also have brought the Early Purple Orchid to Britain. This elusive plant and I have had many encounters and interactions. Sahleb, or the old English Salop, is a thickened, nutritious drink made from the root. It remains popular in Turkey, and sadly, this popularity drives an illegal trade in foraged Orchids, stolen from Europe’s protected woodlands. I haven’t seen an Early Purple Orchid in its usual places for at least a decade.
The New Climate Reality 1.5-3C: Can Modern Shamanic Practitioners Bring Us Into Deep Connection With Nature? I Doubt It.
From what I hear and see on social media- Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok advertising- modern industrial capitalism Shamanism is a synch: “You have done a Shamanic Journey by lunchtime and met a power animal”- The Therapeutic Shaman, Interviewed by Natalie Nahai. On the one hand, Paul Francis is realistic about the Ecological Crisis. But then when it comes to regulation, he suggests that it’s just another power grift.
“There’s a tree, go and sit under it, ask it what it wants.” Manda Scott, Sacred Earth Activism Interview. That’s about as close as you will get to nature from someone with a big podcast and following who calls herself a Celtic Shamanic practitioner. “We are not being shaman, we are using their tools”. Western industrial capitalism’s shamanism is mostly culturally misappropriated indigenous rites, rituals, and practices, the meaning of which is often lost on those doing the crime. Nature has minimal participation; it gets a nod, but little more. “We don’t know what our ancestors did; why would we even try? There’s a tree over there” She sounds increasingly angry, as though someone has asked a stupid question and it’s irritating her.
“We don’t need to know what our ancestors did”; there are contemporary shamans in the Amazon, China, Russia, Africa, North America, Canada and Satmi, and they all start their training practice with deep nature connection. They will even tell you that themselves.
From 2017- 2019, I established an award-winning pilot outdoor therapy project at the Warneford Hospital in Oxford, taking patients detained under the Mental Health Act out on therapeutic activities. This project is now vastly expanded and hugely popular among the patients. I have seen patients almost catatonic with anxiety change after an hour’s digging and slowly regain their lives through daily digging and growing plants, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter whether they grow weeds, flowers or vegetables. https://royalcitynursery.com/why-digging-in-the-dirt-is-scientifically-good-for-you/
