Dr. Jem Bendell: You have set up a classic ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ argument where any response given is labeled as defensive, even by your adoring fans

Is there any response I could give you right now that you or your acolytes wouldn’t label as ‘defensive’?

It’s sad when academics don’t do the research and resort to manipulating their critics. It’s even sadder when their acolytes, who seem intelligent, fall for the manipulation and use it against their hero’s critics. Suggesting, “We are all in this together,” is not what Bendell is suggesting at all. He suggests that mutual aid-based preparedness discussions are dominated by “grim defensiveness” and that whatever he is putting forward is superior, even though it is clearly not.

It appears that the gimmicky mnemonic is more important than the substance of the article

True solidarity prepping and insurgent planning aren’t born out of grim paranoia; they are practical, community-driven frameworks built on mutual aid, shared resource management, tangible survival skills, and real-world experience. By focusing on a psychological caricature of “defensiveness,” the author betrays a deep lack of practical experience in how communities actually organize and survive during real-world crises. Setting up a rhetorical trap to dismiss critics doesn’t mask a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject matter.

The primary flaw of armchair disaster commentary is the tendency to treat physical preparedness as a psychological condition. Rainbow Prepping attempts to pre-emptively label any critique of their analysis as “grim defensiveness.” Ironically, this setup illustrates the Dunning-Kruger effect: an attempt to mask a fundamental lack of practical survival knowledge with clever rhetorical framing.

True solidarity prepping and insurgent planning do not stem from a “grim” or paranoid mindset. They are active, community-driven frameworks engineered to solve complex logistical problems when formal state infrastructure fails.

What solidarity prepping actually looks like in practice during a crisis:

• Off-Grid Communications Systems: Community communication networks can rapidly establish localized mesh networks and alternative comms to coordinate medical checks and supply lines when cell towers go dark. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, individuals established Meshtastic networks, and Skylink enabled people to inform relatives that they had survived and EMTs to communicate needs for airdrops and evacuation.
• Mutual Aid Infrastructure: During extreme weather events—like the catastrophic fallout from Hurricane Helene—prepared communities relied on heavy physical labor, collective chainsaw operation to clear blocked roads, and immediate community-led water purification and food distribution networks. People with survival and outdoor skills became the support structure, providing specialized skills to the community. People whose homes had survived helped people who were stranded or lost their homes.
• Community-Led Evacuation and Shelter Management: Insurgent planning manifests as grassroots-managed “voluntary shelters.” Rather than waiting for government directives, local groups organize community halls, source off-grid heating or cooling, and map out vulnerable neighbors—particularly marginalized or disabled individuals—who require targeted, priority protection. During Hurricane Katrina, sport Fishermen used their boats to rescue people stranded on the roofs of their homes. The Cajun Navy has grown into a large mutual-aid disaster-preparedness NGO.
• Tool and Resource Sharing Guilds: Solidarity networks pool/community map specialized tools (e.g., generators, timber-processing equipment, mechanical tools) and establish shared training workshops to enhance the group’s survival skills, reducing reliance on global commercial supply chains.
• Specialized Survivalists: Provide training sessions to community groups in water purification at scale, rainwater harvesting, and other off-grid skills.

By reducing these practical, highly skilled, and collaborative frameworks to a caricature of “defensiveness,” the author betrays a profound unfamiliarity with the ground reality of climate crisis and disaster response. Setting up a binary rhetorical trap to dismiss critics does not compensate for a lack of understanding of what skills are required.

• Climate Change Adaptation vs. Intellectual Debates: While an untrained observer focuses on online tone, community networks are busy addressing the tangible impacts of accelerating global heating. Solidarity prepping means building localized resilience—implementing off-grid solar arrays, establishing non-cellular communication networks when regional grids fail, and mapping out community heat refuges during extreme weather events. It is a logistical response to a physical threat.
• Mitigating Local Agricultural Collapse: We are no longer discussing hypothetical futures; we are witnessing the early stages of a climate-driven agricultural collapse. “Climateflation” and “shrinkflation” are actively driving up food costs as extreme heat, unpredictable droughts, and crop failures destabilize traditional farming regions. Insurgent planning steps into this void by organizing grassroots food sovereignty initiatives, establishing local seed-saving banks, and building community-led distribution networks to bypass vulnerable, just-in-time commercial supply chains.
• Skills or Stockpiling: The framing of Stockpiling as undesirable and an either /or: “from stockpiling to capabilities”, “someone who trains ten people may contribute more than someone who stores ten months of food.” is unhelpful; communities planning for collapse need to do both: train in skills and store food.
• The Material Reality of the Small Food Stockpile: The author dismisses the culture of stockpiling as paranoia, ignoring that even mainstream civil institutions are now urging citizens to maintain basic emergency reserves. A small, decentralized food stockpile—oats, rice, beans, and non-perishable items that don’t require grid energy to cook—is not an apocalyptic fetish. It is a buffer. In a solidarity model, these family and neighborhood reserves prevent panic buying at supermarkets during a sudden supply chain shock, ensuring that regional resources aren’t exhausted.
• Off-Grid Cooking Solutions: Gas & alcohol camping stoves are an excellent stopgap for when the electric grid or gas infrastructure is damaged.

Setting up a binary rhetorical trap to dismiss critics does not compensate for a lack of understanding of what it takes to survive. True resilience is built with calories, community networks, and structural foresight—not armchair psychoanalysis.

What’s missing from Rainbow Prepping:

• Grid-down sewage management (Essential Skill)
• Rainwater harvesting and water purification (Survival Skill)
• Connection to nature is not explicitly identified: “right living” is when we seek wellness by cooperating with nature rather than fighting it, and “time in nature”
• Repurposing
• Off-Grid Communication