Hi,
I have been reading SurvivalBlog now for several months and really enjoyed the articles. I live in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia . For those who don’t know the place and I imagine there are many who are unfamiliar with this part of the world, it’s an island at the bottom of Australia.
I work on disease protection for the government. This involves responding to bird flu pandemics, terrorist attacks etc. Being an island at the bottom of the world with not many threats, it’s an easy job. But I do believe that there is lots of trouble coming in the future from climate change, increasing world populations in areas that cannot support any more people, Peak Oil, et cetera. So in my view, thinking people should prepare for trouble ahead and develop personal plans for survival.
The reason I have written in today is that from some of the posts that people have submitted to SurvivalBlog, many are planning just for total breakdown in society, everyone for themselves, point the guns out the door and survive at all costs. From my limited reading and understanding of such situations, total breakdown would only occur in extreme events like total nuclear war. For example, even in Germany during war time with the Russians advancing one direction, and the allies the other, it had a functioning society where you could buy goods and services and the government still functioned. Thus perhaps people should have several plans. One for total breakdown (like nuclear war), one for minor disruptions like financial meltdowns/depressions and another for global pandemics/biological warfare.
Hopefully we will only experience minor disruptions and we should have already planned ahead by growing as much of our own food as possible, reduced our mortgages, moved closer to work, kept food stocks, stored heating fuel etc. Being prepared for something to happen tomorrow will lessen people’s reliance on the modern supermarket and the expected doubling of prices, shortages etc. In the event of a pandemic, then avoiding public places and other people is a very good idea, so food stocks will help and being able to work from home is a major advantage.
My point is that people need to plan for a number of scenarios, not just “let’s retreat and point the guns”. I personally will be trying to help my community survive any disruption, for the sake of my children, loved ones and country. Previous generations have faced bad times before and moved through them without losing their sense of community. My grandfather used to tell me about life during the Depression, where he used to hunt rabbits and other game to stretch the family budget and how they used to reuse things to save money. You could buy things, but you just didn’t have any money. But even during those hard times he said there was always a strong community spirit and they always helped out others who were less able to cope. We should all plan for being able to help others by being self reliant.
Lastly if people want to relocate to an area that is not targeted for nuclear war, has a modern economy, speaks English, and has less than half a million people in an area the size of Ireland, then move here to Tasmania. We even like Americans. – M. L.