“There are so, so, so, so many scenarios for the apocalypse. Natural disasters: fires, floods, tornadoes. And man-made: biochemical accidents, wars, mass shootings. The stereotype of a prepper—born of the Cold War paranoia of the ’50s and ’60s—is a rifle-clutching, far-right Deliverance type, wild-eyed and making for the exit, mapping the quickest route to the closest bunker. And the boomer preppers are still out there. But a younger generation of preppers is growing, with and among us all.”
“… and their questions about firearms stockpiling and storage only serve to reinforce the individualistic, politically conservative stereotype of survival prep. In fact, “preppers” is a bit of a misnomer: many of the posts lean more toward survivalism, the more militaristic goal of living off the land indefinitely, while the related term “prepper” refers to those who aim to equip themselves to make it to the other side. There’s often an every-man-for-himself, grizzled undertone to the survivalist community, and in fact, Kurt Saxon, who is widely credited with coining the term “survivalist,” claimed to be a member of the American Nazi Party.” Vanity Fair
It’s a tired old trope being wheeled out every time anyone tries to talk about preparedness in Green circles. It’s tired and old because the Left and Anarchists reinvented preparedness (prepping) and called it “solidarity prepping”, “prepping together”, “Soliprepping” and “prosocial prepping”. It’s a radical alternative to the grifting far-right prepper who declares they are voting Reform
It’s The Prosociality of Solidarity Prepping That Matters
Vanity Fair’s article, however, is about Preppers like us: prosocial leftist/anarchist, antifascist preppers. Just remember, there are Green “thought leaders” who share platforms but disagree on the fundamentals of preparedness, such as whether storing supplies is helpful. Fortunately, the evidence outweighs the opinion:
“What carried me through this is that we did not have to bring back a single bottle of water for ourselves, because our home was safe and not flooded, and we were prepped,” Higgins says. And I realised there’s a connection between what I’ve read about these pro-social disaster behaviours and the importance of talking about preparedness, because when I prepare, because I have the resources and privilege to do so, I am better able to serve those in my community who don’t have that access.” Vanity Fair
It’s a fair article: “In the private consults, “I get every single walk of life, every single age, religion, race, it doesn’t matter. We’re all part of the two-legged nation. And I think that’s what people are now gravitating towards: They have to realise that they can’t do this on their own, that they need tribal [mindsets]. You need friends, you need community. Neighbours argue; community gets together and has a block party.” It addresses the reality that preparedness has to be prosocial.
The mainstream media are starting to realise that people are talking about preparedness, and it has been taken out of the hands of the Reform Voting Far-Right. Everyone can give it a go without THAT stigma that many Greens are so determined to push onto preparedness, and those of us who practice it.
“Higgins sees her personal preparation for things like storms and power outages, along with political disaster, as the first step toward freeing herself to help others. “Frankly, prepping for fascism is much, much, much more complicated than prepping for a hurricane,” she says.
Even the Preppi founders, whose livelihoods are based on helping people stock their physical emergency supplies, know that human connection is an essential resource that cannot be overlooked.
“Worst-case scenario, you got to know your neighbours, which we all should be doing anyway,” Kuhlman says. “Best-case scenario is, in the emergency, you know that Cindy down the street knows CPR, or this person’s a doctor. So it’s a win-win for community building in general, and community building in a sense of resilience and getting through the sorts of weird stuff that we never thought that we were going to face in our lifetime, but seems to be happening more frequently.” Vanity Fair
These people are not talking about 72-hour preparation: Prepping for a hurricane requires 2-4 weeks of food and water, plus a hurricane-proof garden full of food.
Climate Change is carefully avoided in the Vanity Fair article. This is a common theme in Centre Left Politics: Climate change has not yet been accepted as part of the mainstream labour ideology because safe working temperatures are the next war with the billionaires. I mean, look at Bezos: he bans staff from taking toilet breaks, yet he’s an old man who can’t walk past a toilet without using it.
“In rapidly changing situations where we don’t have a standard answer or routine to follow, we will benefit from people around us being able to decide what is the best thing to do in a particular situation, and then do it with capacity and determination.”
Rainbow Prepping
I hate the presumption that we are here to help when we are also grimly defensive. Because at the same time, we are all crew during the collapse, just as we were all crew during Extinction Rebellion. So the people with gumption want you to learn skills and pay us in the food you stockpiled, because in a food crisis, precious metals are irrelevant, and while mainstream preppers prep for solvable crises, Lefty and Solidarity Preppers have their eye on terminality and worst-case scenario and the fash. I have no interest in people who want to build an argument about food based on false equivalence: “the impact is obvious: someone who trains ten people may contribute more than someone who stores ten months of food.” (Rainbow Prepping) “rests on a false equivalence and ignores the context-dependent utility of each action. While training people builds long-term capability, storing food addresses immediate survival needs. One is not universally “more” valuable than the other.” Arguments like this just show how important the outdated prepper cliché is in the more influential areas of the Green Movement.
Preparedness isn’t just about food:
- FOODS: Dry Foods: Beans; Rice; Grain Berries; Oat Groats; Porridge; Beans & Letils; Flour
- FOODS: Canned Foods: What You Like. Plus: Tinned Whole Tomatoes, tomato paste
- FOODS: Salt, pepper and other flavourings
- FOODS: Treats
- FOODS: Dry Fruits
- FOODS: Your own preserves and pickles
- FOODS: Sugar, vinegar (learn to make it) and alcohol for preserving
- CHEMICALS: Flocculants
- CHEMICALS: Disinfectants like Milton and water purification tabs
- CHEMICALS: Battery / soldering/ glues/ adhesives/ paints
- CHEMICALS: methanol alcohol, oils, petrol, diesel
- CHEMICALS: Bottle of Iodine; Bottle of pharmaceutical hydrogen peroxide
- FIRST AID: BLS CPR, defibrillator and First Aid Training
- FIRST AID: Mental Health First Aid: Nature Therapy
- FIRST AID: Eyewash station
- FIRST AID: 1st aid kit up to 6 people.
- FIRST AID: Wide variety of MEPORE dressings, Iodine dressings, Jellonet dressings
- FIRST AID: Wound closures; Steri-strips
- FIRST AID: Essential medication and scripts
- FIRST AID: Analgesics, Manuka Honey
- FIRST AID: Herbal Medicine: Self only
- RESOURCES: Foraged non-food items
- RESOURCES: Recycling, Repurposing, Reusing and fixing
- RESOURCES: Memorised or coded book of local resources
- SKILLS: Listening and talking to your neighbours and community
- SKILLS: DIY -General Repair
- SKILLS: Plumbing & Heating engineering
- SKILLS: Making Bleach (long-term water purification)
- SKILLS: Wood Butchery
- SKILLS: Bike fixing and Backwoods engineering
- SKILLS: Wilderness Survival Skills
- SKILLS: Chainsaw use (trained)
- SKILLS: Building stuff from Rubbish just for the fun of it.
- SKILLS: Foraging while listening to the world all around us
- SKILLS: Art and survival
- SKILLS: Water purification using Xylem
- SKILLS: Low Energy Cooking
- SKILLS: Gardening and producing food.
- SKILLS: Survival Skills
- SKILLS: Cognitive flexibility
Some foraged non-food items (clockwise: Iron Age tinder box with fungi tinder; Birch bark and pine glue tinder box; Reed Hermitage; Birch tinder box made for my son.)
Prepping and Radicalisation: There is no link between the 2. Radicalisation doesn’t come from concern about the future. It comes from believing your own propaganda, which just goes round and round in an echo chamber. COVID confirmed the beginning of the end: 5G, LEDs and the crazy people who make money off this stuff and the billionaires who sponsor those who want to divide the country and justify their existence with stupid statements about why they vote Reform.
Everything went online, and the distance between us, as well as the number of wellness and spirituality grifters, quadrupled. This is no accusation of extremism. But the online learning push into VR, coupled with AI, is concerning as we offload cognition, connection to nature, and spiritual mentoring to the cloud. This phygital invasion disconnects us from reality.
The notion that survival skills can be learned from YouTube is ludicrous; it assumes you don’t need an experienced mentor. AI cannot replace such a mentor. Skills need to be tested safely under increasingly extreme conditions; AI can’t simulate nature. Ancestral skills learned prosocially mitigate the Negative Effects of Stress in Everyday Life https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4974016/
The thing about Solidarity Prepping is that I know prosocial activity is good for mental health. It relieves anxiety and decolonises cognition and the nervous system. Learning ancestral skills in nature in a co-operative group learning environment. Learning together, followed by individual practice, builds confidence for each member of the group. Learning for a donation or for free is a completely different experience, breaking the bond with capitalism; radical, I know. Who would have thought it could be that simple?
The prosocial aspect of cooperative foraging is that we forage for tinder, food, firewood, and kindling all at once in a group. Each person is carrying an item, but everyone is looking for everything and working together on the task; everyone maintains their awareness and practices mindfulness; the party stops, looks, listens, and moves on. “Polychronic time, by contrast, is characterised by several events happening simultaneously. In addition, according to Hall’s theory, interpersonal relationships are highly valued in polychronic cultures. Time is less tangible, and emphasis is placed on the involvement of people and the completion of transactions rather than on schedules.” Solidarityprepping.co.uk
I would speculate that a combination of the time change and prosocial activity serves as a decompression activity, reducing stress through mutual aid, contact, friendship, support, and activities like gardening.https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/everything-time-monochronism-polychronism-orientation-6902 There are occasions where, without realising, we fall into a process closer to polychronic time, and it heals the mind in ways similar to contact with nature does. You can’t fake this stuff.
Prosocial preparedness is something else entirely. When Trystan Sykes was alive, we talked a lot about how near it all was, as I know Jordan was. Here we are: it’s getting hotter in the summer, and we need to figure out how to survive it and then teach it. How long we last is anyone’s guess.
Reducing preparedness to food storage is a very narrow view of what preparedness. The combination of wilderness skills adds layers of practised skills to the urban preparedness approach. The old system isn’t going down without a fight. Their weapon is the hydrocarbon economy, our extinction and the belief that their bunkers will keep them alive until they are evacuated to Mars, when the colony is ready. As our world unravels, we only have each other
Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
In addition to the obvious good that prosocial actions do for their recipients, these behaviours can have a range of beneficial effects for the “helper”:
- Mood-boosting effects: Research has also shown that people who engage in prosocial behaviours are more likely to experience better moods. Not only that, people who help others tend to experience negative moods less frequently.
- Social support benefits: Having social support can be crucial for getting through difficult times. Research has shown that social support can have a powerful impact on many aspects of wellness, including reducing the risk of loneliness, alcohol use, and depression.
- Stress-reducing effects: Research has also found that engaging in prosocial behaviours helps mitigate the negative emotional effects of stress. Helping others may actually be a great way to reduce the impact of stress on your life.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-prosocial-behavior-2795479
Nature and gardening are good for your mental health too, and it’s clinically proven.
Beyond the Stereotype: What Defines a Lefty Prepper?
So, who exactly are lefty preppers? Obviously it’s going to manifest differently from person to person, but there are some overarching themes.
Lefty preppers are individuals and groups who believe in being prepared for various disruptions—from natural disasters and economic instability to social unrest—but their approach is less about individualistic survival and more about collective well-being.
Key characteristics often include:
- Community-Oriented: Rather than hoarding resources for individual use, lefty preppers emphasise building strong local networks, sharing skills, and creating systems of mutual support.
https://www.realitystudies.co/p/lefty-preppers-sustainable-community-preparedness
The Disconnect between Solidarity Prepping and stocking up, or regenerative agriculture, is that I think any meaningful connection to nature requires building relationships with plants, which means understanding natural processes; then the skills you learn mean you can replace the stuff industrial capitalism has taught us to rely on. I know it seems like such a waste of time, but future children could have those complex relationships with plants that some podcasters constantly talk about.
Solidarity Prepping shares the same ethos as Edward Abbey’s philosophy. Lefty Prepping has been deep underground since the counterculture. Today, Lefty Prepping and the counterculture have “woke-up”; it no longer pilfers from indigenous peoples’ religion and culture. It’s an attitude of mutual respect and rediscovery of the wild skills of this land and any land where you are.
The Author of Solidarity Prepping grows food in Soil made from wood chips and clover, planted in the no-dig parts of the bed. By combining slow-growing native plants in the garden and building a bog garden that processes water from the greenhouse plants. This, coupled with experience coppicing woodland and the trees in the garden to get ramiel wood for soil fertility. These soils are erratic and require rotation. Fallow periods and the addition of worm compost. Stored food is for fallow periods; it’s that simple.
Ask yourself why we have been building granaries for 1000s of years. Long before modern grocery stores. Our ancestors’ survival depended entirely on their ability to preserve food through winters, droughts, and lean seasons. This obsession actually drove some of humanity’s most brilliant early innovations.
- Freezing: In sub-zero regions, indigenous communities froze fish and meat in ice or permafrost, thereby stopping bacterial growth.
- Drying: In hot, arid climates, solar dehydration removed moisture from fruits, grains, and meats, preventing mould and rot.
The Ancient Tech Boom
As agriculture took root, civilisations invented sophisticated preservation methods that we still enjoy today:
- Salting & Curing: The ancient Egyptians and Romans used salt to draw moisture out of meat and fish, making them less hospitable to bacteria.
- Fermentation: Instead of fighting microbes, humans learned to use “good” bacteria and yeast. This gave us beer, wine, cheese, yoghurt, and kimchi, which lasted far longer than raw milk or grapes.
- Pickling: Submerging foods in vinegar or fermenting them in brine created an acidic environment where dangerous pathogens couldn’t survive.
- Smoking: as part of a curing/drying process
- Freeze Drying: In some high-altitude areas, extremely arid subzero air can freeze-dry food, giving it an extremely long shelf life.
Solidarity Prepping is a disruptive philosophy, not attached to an individual guru or group. Because Prepping has been demonised by thought leaders in the Green /Climate and Environmental movement, Greens wanting to adapt have been forced to look to mainstream prepping, and the far-right ideology and prejudice and culture of abuse found there. This disconnect has led Solidarity Prepping to disrupt the Green preparedness space by shifting the focus from individual survivalism to collective, community-level resilience. Green “thought leaders”—who often focus on land ownership, homesteading, off-grid technologies, and personal sustainability—do not control this movement because it is decentralised, grassroots, and driven by mutual aid networks rather than commercial brands or singular influencers.
Individual Prepping vs. Solidarity Prepping
| Green “Thought Leader” Response Vs Solidarity Prepping Response | |||||
| Green “Thought Leader” Response | Solidarity Prepping Response | ||||
| Core Goal | Unrealistic expectations from a post-collapse world using language like: Flourishing & phrases like “A world we can be proud to leave the next generation” | Building Community interdependence to build resilience and teach skills: Survival is not guaranteed. | |||
| Key Resource | Wealth, Private land, Ambitious food growing for the wider community. Low skill levels—reliance on Skilled Individuals to lead in some areas. (“We will benefit from people who”…) | Social trust, High Skills Levels, Community gardens/Allotments/ public land/commons, community kitchens, Shared, Federated Skills (everyone is crew), with some specialists. Everyone stores food. | |||
| Leadership Centralised | Thought Leaders, Authors, Influencers, and Gurus: Unclear, amorphous structure. Decisions may not make sense or be based on “visions” | Anarchists: decentralised, grassroots-led; everyone is crew; a commonly agreed ethos for the good of all. Leaderless: decisions cannot be made for the group without group involvement. | |||
| Primary Focus and ethos | Top-down: the leaders’ ethos is the “Plan”: We are going to: (Grow food for the village). Leaders: Stored Food is seen as undesirable | Community-wide mutual aid and self-defence: Community decides the plan within achievable parameters | |||
Top-down preparedness from Thought Leaders:
“Someone who trains ten people may contribute more than someone who stores ten months of food.” (Rainbow Prepping) “rests on a false equivalence and ignores the context-dependent utility of each action. These pointless arguments muddy the waters; they are futile and simply demonstrate the author’s lack of skill. Who would rather be right than survive another Day?
Solidarity Prepping was probably an ambition that hadn’t fully formed as an idea because of a lack of skills beyond going out and buying extra food and making friends with your local regenerative farm, and maybe your neighbours. The Climate Majority Project has consistently failed to identify agricultural collapse, wet-bulb temperatures, and Community Preparedness, even though Rupert Read Talks about stockpiling food for himself and his neighbours. I wonder if they are doing the same, or even know? At the Tunbridge Wells Green Fair, he talks about stockpiling food; when asked where more information is available, he points them to the Climate Majority Project, which has no preparedness Information on it.
It’s clear that Green “Thought Leaders” are clueless and, out of pride, would rather kill their followers than point them to people who do know what they are doing. Welcome to the Green Death Cult.
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