What Then Must We (Learn To) Do?
Talk of the potential “collapse” of the global economy, or civilization, or life as we’ve known it, seems to be everywhere these days. People are starting to ask about whether and how one might prepare for such a contingency. But how do you prepare for something so ill-defined and so frightening that it defies rational thought?
A place to start is with clarity on what we are NOT talking about, which is absurd schemes by the super-rich to briefly outlive the starving masses by holing up like rats (or with rats) in well-stocked bunkers, or dying on the airless, arid surface of some other planet or in a rocket explosion in route to that undesirable destination.
What I am talking about is extraordinary ordinary people developing thought patterns and learning skills that might help them cope tomorrow with radically altered circumstances that can’t be anticipated with any precision today. Hopefully most of us will never experience anything you’d reasonably call system collapse. Hopefully we will change our ways in time to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe and species extinction. Hopefully the economy can be reformed — or bypassed and superseded — by modes of production and social organization that are fairer and that work with, not against, the Earth.
But what if we don’t avoid all those visibly looming disasters? What if they happen? Even if we don’t know and can’t envision what a post-collapse world would look like, surely we as individuals, families, and communities should be thinking and talking about how we might get by — and even develop a fulfilling life — in a radically altered material world. What follows is meant merely as a spur to wider discussion about such coping. Not to provide answers — much less as a self-help guide.
Imagine Food
What do we really need to live? Water, food, clothing, shelter, fuel, and in some cases, medicines. It seems reasonable to suppose that, regardless of the type or extent of social collapse we might experience, it will mean less food, fuel, and manufactured stuff from faraway places, including clothing and drugs. That gives us a starting point: What’s available close by to drink, eat, wear, live in, cook and warm us if it’s intolerably cold, and keep disease and disabilities at bay?
Wherever you live, what skills might you need to obtain those needed things that are nearby and to help others do the same? if the shelves in your stores no longer had fruit and vegetables from California, or Spain, or wherever they come from where you live? Or solar panels and farm equipment from China?
One important thing is to know how to cook basic food in basic ways, with no pre-processed anything. To make simple but possibly tasty soups and stews with whatever ingredients are available. To understand what ingredients in recipes can be substituted for things that are no longer around. Whether it’s using types and parts of cactus plants in the desert or substituting lovage and sorrel for celery and lemons in northern climes. Know how to make yeast, baking powder, or other bread types depending on what grains and leaveners can be found, and what to do when you have no leaveners. A little food chemistry might go a long way.
Have plans for storing basic seasonal foodstuffs — potatoes, carrots, beets, and other root vegetables where I live — if there isn’t enough electricity to freeze or even refrigerate things. Know what vegetables will last and what won’t. Know that apples have to be stored separately from other fruits and vegetables. Knowing how to can food safely wouldn’t hurt either.
Eating locally now so that you have experience and knowledge should disaster strike needn’t be a sacrifice. In these relatively good times, it can be a life-enhancing pleasure. And knowing how the local food system works could prove amazingly useful if times cease to be good.
Getting a little practice at growing food would also be a useful and potentially pleasurable thing that could prove of vital importance later. It’s possible to grow a few salad or cooking greens, herbs, other bits and pieces even in apartments. If you have a yard or access to a community garden space, much more is obviously possible.
Imagine Fixing Things
Develop usable skills that would help keep your household operating if energy and equipment from afar ceased to available — even through Amazon. Electricians, plumbers, and carpenters will probably be incredibly important if there’s a situation where we can’t just buy another version of things that break down. You don’t have to be a professional to fix basic things, as long as you have some reasonable understanding of how the things you’re trying to fix work and what has to be turned off so you don’t electrocute yourself or send sewage all over the house. Hopefully, YouTube fix-it videos or their equivalent will still be available!
Electricians or people able to work with electrical appliances or systems to some degree may be in particularly high demand in a situation of social disruption, given that electrification is the direction in which we’re moving for all our energy supply.
If you’re into computers, learn as much as seems feasible about how to fix them and the other equipment they need to function properly. Knowing something about how to keep EVs functioning if Elon Musk and his ilk aren’t around will be another area in which computer savvy is vital — along with an ability to fix electric motors.
More of us should learn the basics of how 3-D printing works. Even now, when there’s been no societal collapse and we don’t know that there will be one, communities might want to consider community-owned 3-D printers for use especially in making spare parts, so people aren’t so inclined to throw stuff away. You might also want to learn something about where the material you use in this 3-D printing comes from, and whether there are local or at least domestic channels for supplies. Small-scale manufacturing of replacement parts and other necessary items could be crucial to how well people can live post-collapse.
Learn to Make Do
Specialization in both people and equipment is a pervasive attribute of contemporary industrialized society. The old art of fixing things MacGyver-style with duct tape and paper clips is not widely practiced, partly because it’s blocked by manufacturers whenever possible. Efforts to fight back are spreading, though. There are massive legal campaigns for the right to repair everything from cellphones to tractors. There are walk-in community Repair Cafes aimed at helping people keep and use older stuff rather than always buying new replacements.
This approach encourages not only development of skills, but of a problem-solving attitude that could someday be of life-or-death importance. It counters the pervasive assumption that things that break can be fixed only if specific, custom-made parts are available — and otherwise must be replaced. That assumption will leave the urbanized, digitalized North exposed to supply-chain breakdowns that dwarf those of the Covid-pandemic.
Even professions that we all accept should be specialized might benefit from encouraging retention of basic skills. Take medicine. Doctors Without Borders has courses in which it reminds surgeons and other specialists how to perform common procedures such as delivering babies, setting bones, and treating wounds with minimal equipment, even by flashlight, because that’s how things often are in the areas where the organization operates. Perhaps more doctors and nurses should take such courses even if they’re not going to war- or faraway disaster-zones, lest the sophisticated hospitals in which they’re used to working at home one day cease to have dependable electricity and disposable equipment.
Again, these are just examples of the sort of things people might think about doing. It’s not anywhere close to comprehensive. Indeed, you might do better to read people like Sri Lankan writer Indi.ca describe real-life experience with collapse on a small-country scale. The important thing is to not just sit there and be afraid. Prepare to the extent you reasonably can for whatever collapse-like thing you see coming — even as you also act to avert it. Odds are you’ll feel better today for making the effort to prepare for a wildly uncertain tomorrow.
