Letter Re: Veterinary Antibiotics

Jim,
Thank you for responding to my e-mail. As a healthcare professional, many of us are going to have to make some really hard decisions in more difficult times when drugs will no longer be available. If it came down to having someone die or administering an out of date tetracycline, I would be happy to try the tetracycline out of date or not. Tough choices either way.

The reason I continue this discussion is due partly to an article I read in The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 28, 2000, page A-16. ‘Many Drugs Prove Potent Long Past Expiration Dates.” {see: http://www.timestriponline.com/shelflife/drugexpiraton.htm] This article sites the findings of the Food and Drug Administration when they tested out of date (up to 15 years) military drug stockpile. The purpose was to see if the military could extend the life of its inventory. The testing included tetracycline and aspirin “and typically found batches effective for more than two years.” The results on over 100 drugs “showed that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date.” I am not in a position to obtain the full report but it must have been great [to read]. – Russ

Jim’s Quote of the Day

"It is an uphill struggle, but I wish that we could distinguish more carefully between freedom and liberty. These conditions are not the same, though they are certainly related. Freedom is the absence of restraint – a physical circumstance. Liberty, on the other hand, is a political situation denoting the lawful capability of the citizen to defend himself and his near and dear without interference from the state. Note that the Declaration of Independence forcibly and particularly establishes the blessings of liberty upon ourselves and our posterity. I like to carry a pocket copy of the Declaration, plus the Constitution, in my travels. It is a good thing to have in hand when discussions arise." – The Late Col. Jeff Cooper

Note from JWR:

I recently spent an afternoon with The Memsahib at a COSTCO store. For our overseas readers: COSTCO is an American membership “warehouse” type grocery store chain that sells everything from canned hams to home computers. By the way, COSTCO is not to be confused with the Chinese shipping company, COSCO, although surely some COSCO goods end up in COSTCO stores. Just not to the same extent that they do at Wal-Mart. (Or, as my brother calls it: “Great Wal-of-China-Mart.”) We were at COSTCO primarily to stock up the Rawles Ranch on paper products, soap and cleaning supplies, and some staple foods. The trip was reminiscent of the COSTCO tour that I took last summer with publisher Jake Stafford, when we were developing the “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course. The premise of the course is that more that 80% of what a family needs to stock up for emergencies can be purchased in a single shopping trip to a “big box” store such as COSTCO. The preparedness course stresses the shelf lives of various products–so that you don’t buy too much of anything and hence not be able to systematically use it before it reaches the end of its shelf life.

Needless to say, a massive purchase (or a series of purchases) is not something that I would recommend doing during a crisis. Do it now, in normal times. That way you will have a full selection of products, and you won’t “hoarding”, since the supply chain is still humming along nicely. Everything that you buy today will be efficiently re-stocked. So in effect, by buying your year’s supply now, you’ll be one less person that rushes to the store at the 11th hour. Hence, instead of being part of the problem, you’ll be contributing to the solution. Also, be sure to buy plenty of extra food to have available for charity. Again, that will make you part of the solution.

The CDC’s New “Five Categories” for Pandemic Severity

Several SurvivalBlog readers mentioned an article that ran recently in the New York Times: U.S. Issues Guidelines in Case of Flu Pandemic. The article begins: “Cities should close schools for up to three months in the event of a severe flu outbreak, ball games and movies should be canceled and working hours staggered so subways and buses are less crowded, the federal government advised today in issuing new pandemic flu guidelines to states and cities.
Health officials acknowledged that such measures would hugely disrupt public life, but they argued that these measure would buy the time needed to produce vaccines and would save lives because flu viruses attack in waves lasting about two months.
“We have to be prepared for a Category 5 pandemic,” said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], in releasing the guidelines. “It’s not easy. The only thing that’s harder is facing the consequences. That will be intolerable.”
In an innovation, the new guidelines are modeled on the five levels of hurricanes, but ranked by lethality instead of wind speed. Category 1, which assumes 90,000 Americans would die, is equivalent to a bad year for seasonal flu, Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesman, said. (About 36,000 Americans die of flu in an average year.) Category 5, which assumes 1.8 million dead, is the equivalent of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. (That flu killed about 2 percent of those infected; the H5N1 flu now circulating in Asia has killed more than 50 percent but is not easily transmitted.)” [End quote.]

Given the lethality rate of H5N1, I think that the CDC officials are overly optimistic, almost to the point of being Pollyannas. They have understated the pandemic threat considerably. As I mentioned in my article Protecting Your Family From an Influenza Pandemic, the current strain of the H5N1 virus has a 58% lethality rate for humans. If a new easily transmissible strain emerges, and that strain has the same lethality, imagine this: It could infect 20% of the population, and then kill 58% of those that are infected. In a nation of 300 million that equates to 34.8 million deaths. In fact, the death rate could be even higher. Why? In the recent Asian outbreaks, we have witnessed aggressive hospitalized treatment for all of those that were infected–complete with 24-hour nursing, artificial ventilation, broad spectrum antibiotics (for bacterial co-infections), oxygen therapy, I.V. fluids, experimental anti-virals, the whole works. But in a major pandemic there would not be enough hospital beds for even small percentage of the flu patients. There are roughly 947,000 staffed hospital beds in the U.S. (including prison hospitals) and about 65% of standard beds and 85% in critical care unit beds are filled on any given day. (Some suggest that there is a bed shortage, even in the present day.) And what about hospital ventilators? Forget it! In the U.S. there are “about 105,000 ventilators, and even during a regular flu season, about 100,000 [of them] are in use.“

So what is the bottom line? To be more realistic in assessing worst case situations, the CDC needs to add at least a couple more category numbers (i.e. Category 6 and Category 7.) In my estimation the CDC has publicly underestimated the pandemic threat, to avoid widespread panic.

The latest news is that H5N1 has been found in farm poultry in England. It is just a matter of time before it makes its way into U.S. poultry flocks. But H5N1 is not in itself a big public health threat. It is the potential mutated variety “HX” that is the real threat. But for now, H5N1 has circled the globe and may become endemic. Everywhere that it exists, there is the chance that a viable “H2H” strain could emerge. When that happens, watch out!

Are you ready to self-quarantine your entire family to avoid exposure? If not, then you’d better get on the phone to a food storage vendor (there are several very reputable ones that are SurvivalBlog advertisers) and order an honest six month supply of food for your family. Do it NOW, because if you wait until after a flu outbreak, then it will be too late. The supermarket shelves will swept bare in less than 24 hours, nationwide. Human nature dictates that this will happen. That is what people always do in emergencies. We just haven’t yet seen it happen from coast to coast.

Three Letters Re: Pondering Some Personal Consequences of Global Climate Change

Dear Jim,
In response to this: “(See the movie The Day After Tomorrow regarding tipping points). Discoveries of animals flash frozen solid with fresh grass their stomachs points to the possibility of a very fast onset to global climate change.” The Day After Tomorrow was roundly slammed by scientists and went beyond ludicrous, and the “flash frozen” animals are a myth that has never been documented. The recovered frozen mammoths have all been highly putrefied.
At present, the evidence of warming is mixed, with glaciers in Europe, South America and Antarctica all increasing [in size]. Even with the current Northern Hemisphere warming trend (Which leveled out a decade ago), we’re still quite cooler than during the Viking Era, when summer temperatures in Greenland could reach 80 degrees F. Nor is a sea level rise likely–fill a glass with ice water, let it melt, and the level will drop, because ice is less dense than water (one of water’s unique properties that makes it so useful as a basis for life). The Earth has sustained life from the Carboniferous, with double the current CO2 level and 35% oxygen [JWR Adds: Reader B.F. mentioned that the figure is acutally only about 21% oxygen], to deep ice ages with glaciers as far south as 30 degrees latitude.
That said, SF raises very good points about shifting weather patterns, all of which are cyclic. Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, ice storms are all potential crop killers. Volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts have affected the global environment (see The Year Without A Summer) and are definitely things to prepare for. The latter would be catastrophic, as the huge population of Earth depends upon steady movement of harvested crops to keep people fed. (I covered this as a military strategy in my novel “The Weapon.”)
Even in “normal” climate, I’ve seen snow flurries in San Antonio in August, snow on Memorial Day in Chicago, and temperatures as low as 30 degrees F in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania over July 4th weekend in quite modest hills (Also T-shirt weather in January, but that’s less of a threat). Breaking down in those hills on a back country road means you might need a fire or warm clothing at once.
I guesstimate that a local disaster (riot, tornado, earthquake) could last days, a regional one (hurricane, major earthquake, political collapse) weeks, and a global disaster (mega-volcano, large meteorite, infrastructure failure) a year or more. Once we get into that, deaths from starvation are utterly certain for those not prepared, until population reaches equilibrium with the available food supply.
This reiterates that one’s survival preparations should not be public knowledge. Starving people have and will kill to feed themselves and their children. This could be the ugliest of scenarios. – Michael Z. Williamson

Dear Jim and Family,
This is in response to the post about climate change. I have a degree in geology, though when I graduated there were no jobs. (Thanks, Bill!). There were some good points raised, however I have to raise a flag over the “flash frozen animals” thing: it’s more of a myth than a fact. Yes a few mammoths were found that way but the cause is only speculation. Far more likely they got drowned by a small tsunami raised by a calving ice sheet. That whole aspect of the movie showing superfreezing from the middle atmosphere is bunk. The Day After Tomorrow wasn’t a great film (unless you enjoy humor), however one aspect of it was right: a flood of melted ice water (low salt content) would either change or stop the Gulf Stream (shifting it South is most likely), thus suddenly allowing Arctic storms into Europe. Temperatures would drop considerably, which would actually provide much more habitat for fish but ruin crops.

During the Little Ice Age (see Wikipedia) from 1300-1850 AD, climate got very erratic. Some years were too wet for crops. Some were too dry. Some years it snowed in July. Some years the glaciers advanced several hundred yards. Other years they retreated. We’re between Ice Ages (and some geologists say that the Pleistocene isn’t over, this is just a minor retreat). For the scientifically minded, the most recent warming began 20,000 years ago, and picked up a lot around 8000 years ago, when things really started to melt. A lot of grass grew and a lot of creatures died out, and the rest of them ran upon grassy plains where our ancestors hunted them and made cave drawings and early agriculture, Sumeria, Egypt, Greece. In the present its really dried out and all the grass is gone. Lebanon has few trees but used to be covered in giant Cedars, which grow well in wetter climates. Israel was also heavily treed and resembled Eastern Arizona of today. Yes, rains and wind will probably change and after two years of studying the Pleistocene (for the purposes of writing a novel about it) … I don’t know if it will get wet during the next ice age’s arrival. I really don’t. It may dry out more and promote growth of desert. It will almost certainly be bad for crops so agriculture is going to take a beating and food supply will almost certainly be less. That’s a real problem for a population of 6.5 billion, and not so great for a population of 2 billion either (if 4.5 billion die from starvation).

One important piece of history to keep in mind: we survived the last ice age with little more than stone tools and fire. We’ll get through the next one considerably better off. It’s not like we’ll forget iron working, and properly made CD-ROMs (pressed, not burned) last for centuries. Consider how much useful information will fit in a tiny space with a very basic computer to read them. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Imagine Wikipedia complete with engineering designs and open source CAD software to help you develop it. Society won’t fall very far down the ladder if that’s the case. That engineering knowledge will let us continue to make firearms, steam engines, computers, electricity, food storage, farming, genetic engineering, navigation, etc, without having to resort to bows and arrows or wattle and daub houses. It’s very unlikely to drop below 1950s technology, we’ll just have to get by without cheap oil.

If climate change starts heading for return of the ice age, which is still possible, the way to tell is rapid growth of glaciers in formerly dry northeastern rockies. That’s where the ice sheets began last time, according to best current data. We think they began due to melting of the polar ice, which winds swept up and deposited snow on these 19,000 foot elevation plateaus (currently dry). The ice built up and flowed down slope, increasing reflected sunlight and eventually cooling the globe. It’s possible that while the ice caps remained wet (rather than icy), the ice age was already beginning.

Keep in mind there are at least 34 identified feedback loops responsible for Earth’s climate, and that’s without involving Divine Intervention. Eight of these loops are based on orbit, volcanics, and magnetic field (plus solar storms), all of which have a huge impact on climate. Based on the Milancovic cycle we’re about due to begin the next Ice Age, a point made in 1970 is that Global Cooling would kill us all (sound familiar?). Warming is curious. Higher CO2 levels are unprecedented. But the climate has been much warmer than it is now and everything didn’t die then, so I don’t expect it will die now either. Plants and animals will end up migrating to suitable habitat or dying out. That’s how it goes. And apparently there’s quite a few new species trying to come into being but they keep dying out due to human interference to “preserve” something or other green nonsense. Best not to get worked up about it.

The tropics did not require cold weather gear, however ice was in tropical environments, around subtropical plants because the ice moved faster than it could melt during certain points of its advance stage. There’s enough evidence to support this quirky image: 70’F Florida type weather and plants next to ice sheet a few dozen feet away. Yes, that’s really weird, but there’s evidence to support this. The nice thing about ice ages is there’s generally time to get out of the way, same with volcanic eruptions. You get plenty of warning. If things change, you can always built it yourself, or adapt otherwise. Everything flows from the will to live and the fortitude to endure hardship to accomplish that. Best, – InyoKern

 

James,
I’m tired of everyone playing the “fear” card in regards to global climate change. Man’s ability to adapt to different situations and in fact thrive in them should not be underestimated. The fact that man has lived in harsh northern environments has led to the development of countless tools, technologies, and techniques that have benefited all of mankind. In reference to the comments made by SF in Hawaii, the frozen woolly mammoth couldn’t put on a coat or jacket, we can. Also I don’t know that an autopsy was ever actually performed on that animal, I think everyone just assumed it froze to death but as far as I know it might have died of an aneurysm! If ocean levels ever rise fifteen feet I will personally go to SF’s house and move his belongings to higher ground. I do not believe there is enough water on the planet to raise ocean levels anywhere close to fifteen feet. At any rate it is downright foolish to try and take anything from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” other than entertainment, and even the that was marginal. The climate will change, is changing, and has always changed, the part mankind plays in all of this is miniscule at best, and very likely totally insignificant. Whatever changes lie ahead we will overcome them, that’s why we are all here; to overcome whatever hardships we may face. We will face these challenges with strength, faith, truth, ingenuity, wisdom, justice, and communities such as this on SurvivalBlog. If people want to do something for the environment that’s fine, but don’t be so foolish as to think you are going to prevent global climate change. Reduce, reuse, and recycle, these are good things no matter what your political stripe, and buying quality instead of junk is always wise for the survivor. – A. Friendly

Odds ‘n Sods:

Don’t miss the recent economic analysis from ContraryInvestor.com (by way of our friends at Gold-Eagle.com): We’re Swimming In Liquidity, Aren’t We? The charts say it all! We are about to experience the inevitable outcome of the liquidity bubble. Major market corrections are rarely fun. When market imbalances get way out of proportion and then markets do correct, it can get ugly. (For example the deflationary Great Depression of the 1930s, which followed the credit bubble of the 1920s.) Rawles Mantra mode on: Be prepared. Diversify out of the dollar. Get out of debt. Invest in tangibles.

   o o o

There are just 12 days left in the big “Container load sale” at Survival Enterprises. This is a tremendous opportunity, so don’t miss out. They are selling nitrogen packed canned storage foods at prices are less than half of retail.

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I heard that the folks at Medical Corps have scheduled just one hands-on Combat/Field Medicine Course thusfar for 2007. It will be at the OSU Extension Campus, in Belle Valley Ohio, April 20-21-22. Since there are no other courses scheduled, this one is likely to fill up rapidly, so get your reservation in early. They offer great training–including advanced life saving topics that the American Red Cross doesn’t teach–at very reasonable cost.

Jim’s Quote of the Day

"Politicians cannot be trusted with a monopoly of power over other people’s lives. Thousands of years of history have demonstrated this again and again and yet again." – Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays, p. 12

Note from JWR:

Today we present the first article submitted for Round 9 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $1,600.) Second prize is a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. I will again be sending out a few complimentary copies of my novel “Patriots” as “honorable mention” awards. If you want a chance to win the contest, start writing and e-mail us your article. Round 9 will end on March 31st. Remember that the articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Blue Water Sailing as a Retreat Option?, by CMC

1

Coming from a Southern family and having hunted as a child and adult, and having backpacked the Smokies, I would not want to depend on a mountain man scenario for survival during TEOTWAWKI. I want to walk a bit further with this. Most particularly consideration of a sailing vessel and the ocean as a way of survival. I seriously question the concept of mobility, particularly mobility at sea. I remember Sun Tzu said something to the effect that “when the army of maneuver meets the army of the fortress, the army of the fortress generally looses.” But I think that the mobility concept here may be an exception to what Sun Tzu said. Having sailed since I was 9, and my first offshore passage with a friend of my dad’s and his son when I was 10, I ve been drawn to the ocean rather than the golf course. My first and incidentally most survivable offshore capable boat was an old converted ships lifeboat, wooden hull, wooden masts, plow wire for standing rigging and canvas and cotton for sails. Simple, basic, rough. The preceding sentence is read in a few seconds and many can visualize what’s written there. But its a little more in depth than that. The “in depth” goes something like this. With a wooden hull and plow wire rigging and cotton sails a knowledgeable person can take a vessel like that and maintain and/or repair her anywhere in the world given a lot of [time and] luck. Taking an axe to cut down a tree then a foot adze to rough out a plank, the a box plane and a draw knife to fine the plank up (bear in mind all of these tools you carry deep sea in something that is less than 40 feet on the waterline) and spike it in to the hull to replace a defective plank. Then the aforementioned plank is in the hull the same material that the sails are from , raw cotton is used to caulk the plank periphery to make the repair watertight. Then its paid or sealed with a white lead and copper oxide and linseed oil mixture. Or use the same tools on another tree carefully chosen to be a mast or bowsprit or gaff or boom. Where of course all of this leads is to the discipline nay more like way of life of wooden boat building and seamanship,and being able to survive that way. Or survive any way–whether on the ocean or a ranch or farm its no different. It is the same way of life with each of their own peculiarities, for many different paths of survival but all of them take time and none are learned in a year or 18 months from a book.

My first and second boats were both wood, the second one was a 42 foot John G. Alden design, cutter rigged and built in 1936, that I sailed and lived aboard for 15 years. She was still going deep water and crossing oceans over 50 years after she was constructed, and still is today. I remember the first major re-fit I did taking the working sails off and storing them in my parents basement, (I was a youngster then and they were still alive and tolerant of an eccentric non-golfing kid) and the second night of that, going to get the bare minimum (mainsail, working jib, staysail, a genoa and storm trysail) at 10 PM because I didn’t like the feeling of insecurity–of not being able to sail out of my slip, sail out of the marina, sail out of the harbor, and the bay if necessary. My parents did not understand then .I’m not sure I did completely either. I do much more clearly now.
An offshore vessel departure is something that does not involve just slipping the lines and leaving the marina. It starts years before that point in the preparation and continuing maintenance necessary to prep a small (under 60 feet long) sailing vessel to cross oceans and more importantly those who sail in her. I think its the same with a survival retreat. With a boat, each hull material is a complete discipline in itself. Each way of life (ocean, farm, ranch) is a discipline unto itself with many interlocking parts. Wood hull with galvanized plow wire or for that matter the same wire (1 x 7) that the utility companies use to guy poles, and cotton, flax or canvas sails and manila line for running rigging is a survivable vessel. More modern more easily maintainable materials at least now: aluminum(my favorite hull material hands down) , steel (my second choice)or fiberglass (my least favorite) accompanied by stainless steel running rigging, dacron or carbon fiber sails and sometimes masts are only maintainable with the society and level of industrialization that we have now. I was a navigator in modern fiberglass boats years ago in Latin America. I tried to replace a piece of 1 x 19 stainless standing rigging and its fittings on a sailing vessel. If you want 1 x 7 or 7 x 7 [mild] steel or galvanized rigging, no problem. However, stainless, dacron sails, synthetic line running rigging, argon gas for aluminum welding and or the equipment to do it with, then forget it. That pretty fiberglass (barrels of oil for resin and glass fibre cloth) production boat is repairable these days on the shores of the industrialized countries, but in the third or fourth world it won’t happen. Post-TEOTWAWKI it won’t happen, either. Post-TEOTWAWKI, what the h**l are you gonna do with a refrigerator with a TV in the door? Post-TEOTWAWKI you will find families who build boats out of wood and galvanized steel and so forth and have been doing so for generations. Primitive but effective .That pretty GPS chart plotter you carry and its backup–and for that matter all of your onboard electronics and electrical may be a victim of EMP. The navigational gear may be a victim of the vulnerability of the GPS satellite constellation going down due either to EMP (unlikely to get them all in high orbit with one shot) or lack of ground correction of satellite position due to orbital perturbations. Interesting concept. How many carry paper charts. How many can do the old lunar distance sights and calculations to determine with reasonable accuracy, the correct time to determine one’s longitude a.k.a. Joshua Slocum (remember the EMP? WWV and WWVH probably along with CHU and a host of other time stations are off the air either temporarily or maybe for good along with,–depending on your luck quotient–most or all of your onboard electronics, particularly in a wood or fiberglass hull. And for that matter how many carry a sextant and the tables (HO 214, 219, 229 or 249) to reduce the sun, moon and star sights you take or even better yet found a 1920s-era copy of Nathaniel Bowditch’s “The American Practical Navigator” to learn the spherical trigonometry to reduce the sights without tables?

This brings up another point: Carrying firearms is a sensitive business because many , if not most foreign governments are mildly nervous about this practice unless you are a commercially documented vessel, have a bonded stores area in the vessel where you can lock up tobacco, spirits and firearms when in port. (The most likely time the firearms are going to be needed is in harbor) and the customs agent can come aboard and seal that locker. And in TEOTWAWKI there is no guarantee that pratique procedures in a foreign country are going to be followed. There is also always the possibility that at sea, you well may be outgunned and at sailing vessel speeds (maybe 7 knots, which is about 9 mph ) you can’t run away. And there you cannot bug out to a pre-cached position either.

When I was younger and had my Alden I lived alongshore in the Gulf of Mexico. A group of us all live-aboards (in those days we were rare and a close knit community) used to sand table what it would be like if the balloon went up. The most likely scenario we envisioned was a limited nuclear strike on the CONUS. Consider if one will being alongshore in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and what it would take to get “away” provided one survived the first strike. And we lived the life (many of us did with a minimum of 60 days dry stores aboard) and walked the walk, always prepped for sea (not an easy thing to do.) Figure say from Mobile, Alabama to get out of the Gulf of Mexico basin where one would be deep sea, the closest being the Southern littoral of the North Atlantic Ocean would take a minimum of 7-to-8 days on a vessel with a 40 foot waterline length. (Considering that will provide on a very good 24 hour noon-to-noon run, 150-170 miles driven hard with cooperating weather. We then figured if we could get past Cuba and the tip of Florida. From Mobile, depending on the time of year and the weather that can be a daunting task. We might have a chance. There was another cadre of people in the marina, who rarely left their slips. They took a minimum of 24 hours to get gear below decks stowed in lockers to be able to get underway. Those in our group could be stowed for sea and underway in 30 minutes. We practiced it routinely.
Also consider the very long distance most of it along shores of various countries (you are much safer when deep ocean both from wars, storms, and people.) Then one begins to appreciate if one will, the risky scenario for a person or family. But eventually one must put in to a harbor. Somewhere. Today ( when I was young we didn’t have them) with water makers a vessel with deep bunkers (my last vessel, 48 feet LOA carried 600 gallons of diesel and 1,000 gallons of water in deep tankage)–the diesel fuel needed to make the electricity to charge the batteries to run the water maker to fill the tanks and fishing equipment and solar and wind adjuncts and rain catchment and so on and so forth. Eventually one must put in. That of course is when you are the most vulnerable. Even in a large vessel where you can carry the depth of stores–line and sails and wire and welding equipment and blocks and parts–material needed to repair the ravages of days and days and days at sea, finally the larder runs out. Depending on how far down things fall then you may well have no idea of the conditions where you are putting in. And if you are putting in under duress for example, dismasted and under jury rig while trying to double Cape Horn–and it has happened to many vessels in the high latitudes of the great Southern Ocean–then the options considerably narrow. Have you ever thought about in a small boat what even considering a passage through he Canal might be like during TEOTWAWKI? The only other alternatives are either Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope. Look at a chart.

I grew up sailing and surfing and diving. I would not consider the ocean as a refuge if the balloon goes up. In my humble opinion one is too vulnerable. Vulnerable to whom? To a Caribbean Island fisherman whose family is starving because the inter-island freighter has stopped running and he needs antibiotics/pure water/salt/diesel fuel/gasoline/toilet paper. Or vulnerable to a rogue element of a Third World military –or for that matter a First World military–who have the materiel to be the top guy on the heap of post industrialization in your part of the ocean. Or,… Well you get the idea. Post 9-11-01, I sold what will probably be my last offshore vessel, a 48 foot aluminum pilothouse ketch with five watertight compartments. I finally woke up and realized that although I could (and did) single hand her offshore without problems, being survivable and secure did not seem to be a practical scenario. That plus my age led me to other considerations. – CMC

JWR Adds: I agree with CMC’s basic assertion. I consider blue water sailing a viable retreat alternative only for someone that is: A.) An experienced yachtsmen that lives close to his boat harbor, and B.) has the means to afford the right boat and can afford to fully equip it, and C.) that has an established overseas retreat destination that is well-stocked in its own right. So in effect, a well-stocked sailboat is not in itself a retreat, but rather could be your G.O.O.D. vehicle to get you to an established offshore retreat. In all, the preceding list eliminates most of the people reading this! It may sound brutal and terse, but for anyone else “sea-mobile” retreating is just another fantasy–unaffordable and unrealistic. I briefly discuss some issues regarding seA-mobile retreating in my non-fiction book Rawles on Retreats and Relocation. The following is a quote from the book:

Unless you are an experienced blue water yachtsman with many years of experience, then I cannot recommend “sea mobile” retreating. I only know a few yachtsmen with this level of experience–most notably Mark Laughlin and Matthew Bracken. (BTW, Some of the characters and descriptions in Matt Bracken’s recent novel “Enemies Foreign and Domestic” shed some light on sea-mobile retreating.) IMHO, for a long term Crunch with anticipated fuel shortages, only a sailboat with an auxiliary engine makes sense. If you do choose this approach, then by all means select the largest sailboat you can afford (and that can be manned by a small crew) with the following features:
A minimal radar cross-section.
A retractable keel so that you can navigate shallows.
A very quiet auxiliary engine.
The largest fuel and fresh water tanks possible.
A full suite of communications gear (marine band, 2 Meter, CB, and HF.)
At least two Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, plus a sextant and a couple of accurate hairspring or quartz watches. (In case your GPS receivers fail, or if the GPS satellites ever fail. (Such as if the GPS constellation is ever destroyed or significantly degraded by anti-satellite weapons.)
A hull and rigging design that will “blend in” with the crowd of seasonal yachtsmen.
Plenty of spare parts.

Be forewarned that your inevitable desire to add a large photovoltaic array will be in direct opposition to blending in. If you buy photovoltaic (PV) panels, buy canvas covers to make them less obvious when sailing near shore.

A sailboat moored at night is vulnerable to sea-going looters. Even today, piracy is a problem, particularly in the Caribbean and the waters around Southeast Asia. This threat will surely expand by an order of magnitude WTSHTF. So plan your landfalls carefully!

Letter Re: Advice on Sawdust and Other Barn Waste as Fertilizers

Mr. Rawles:
I thought I would pass on a valuable tip I learned thank goodness not the hard way. I have found that taking the bedding from the horse stalls, (manure and urine-soaked sawdust), composting it, and mixing into the garden has converted my hard pan top soil into a nice “loam” which tills and works so much easier (after working it with a tiller).
We are going on year number 4 for our garden and have noticed a substantial decline in productivity and did not follow through with soil testing when I first noticed the “problem”. I attributed it to everything but the culprit.
I have found that sawdust in quantity into soil renders it much less productive, and I am not sure of the longevity of the problem. I understand that the sawdust absorbs the nitrogen in the surrounding soil and does not release it back. I do not have hard facts, but was told by an experienced farmer that he lost the top 14” of topsoil due to sawdust/ bedding introduction on an entire farm!
I am happy to say that I have not had to live off of my yield so far, so this lesson could have saved my family’s life. Two other thoughts come to mind:
1). If composting bedding, straw, clippings, etc., you can introduce a bunch of unwanted weed seed into your garden if you did not in fact let the mixture sit long enough to “burn out” the weed seed. Rotate often.
2). If situation necessitates, cutting wood for the stove may become a more thought thorough venture. Knowing what I know now about sawdust, I personally am making quite sure that where I do most of my cutting is not a potential “expansion” area of the garden, post-SHTF. Grateful for Experience Now, – The Wanderer

Odds ‘n Sods:

Another derivatives debacle! At least I can say that I warned you. From Bloomberg com comes this story: Sallie Mae 4th-Quarter Net Falls on Derivatives Losses. The article begins: “SLM Corp., the nation’s largest provider of college-student loans, said fourth-quarter profit tumbled 96% because of a decline in the value of financial contracts it uses to protect against swings in interest rates.”

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Reader J.M. sent us a news story link and asks: “When will the ‘nanny state’ mentality ever end?”: California may ban conventional light bulbs by 2012 OBTW, I also read that in California the Nanny-Staters want to make spanking any child under three years old a misdemeanor offense. There comes a time when people have to just vote with their feet.

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The folks at Freeze Dry Guy (one of our most loyal advertisers) mentioned that they are having a special sale for February on their Dehydrated Variety Case. This case is designed to expand your variety and increase calories and protein in your storage food supply. The Dehydrated Variety Case includes six #2 1/2 size cans, all nitrogen packed for long term storage: 1 Mountain Stew (13 cups), 1 Potato Granules (40 cups), 1 Stroganoff Casserole (11 cups), 1 Applesauce Mix (28 cups), 1 Butter Powder (29 Tbsp) , 1 Fruit Cocktail (11 cups), plus 6 plastic lids for #2 1/2 cans. Pricing: $62 for 1 case, or $166 for 3 cases, shipping included within the Continental US. Oh yes, be sure to ask for their excellent free report, “Thoughts on Disaster Survival.”

Notes from JWR:

The February “support our troops:” sale on copies of my novel “Patriots” has started off with a bang, with e-mailed reservations and PayPaled orders for more than a dozen copies on the very first day of the sale. I should mention that I’ve also received e-mails from two veterans who recently returned from The Big Sandbox. Both asked if they’d also be eligible for the special pricing. My reply: Yes, indeed! Just send a photocopy of your DD-214 showing that you served in OIF or OEF, or in Bosnia–along with the payment for your book ($12 + $3 postage) to:
Elk Creek Company
P.O. Box 303
Moyie Springs, Idaho 83845

Otherwise, to qualify for the special pricing , the book orders must be mailed to an APO or FPO address, (Roughly half of the orders that I’m getting are for “gift” copies that will be mailed to relatives that are serving in Iraq, Iran, or Bosnia.) Again, the price is just $12 per copy, plus $3 postage. (That is $10.99 off of the cover price–right near my cost.) OBTW, speaking of supporting our troops, be sure to visit the AnySoldier.com web site, and “do your bit.” As previously mentioned, some young enlisted troops that are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan get no mail from home, so anything that you can send them–even just a postcard–is appreciated. I now offer a couple of additional payment options for book orders: both AlertPay and GearPay. (I prefer AlertPay or GearPay because they don’t share PayPal’s anti-gun political agenda.) In my experience, AlertPay has a frustratingly labyrinthine account set-up procedure, but GearPay seems much quicker and easier to set up.
Our AlertPay address is: rawles@usa.net
Our GearPay address is: rawles@usa.net
Our PayPal address is: rawles@earthlink.net

Please continue to spread the word about SurvivalBlog. Please mention SurvivalBlog whenever you call a talk radio show. I would also greatly appreciate it if you’d consider adding a SurvivalBlog link to your web page and/or to the bottom of your mail “sig” block. Thanks!

Letter Re: Pondering Some Personal Consequences of Global Climate Change

James:
While the pundits assure us that global warming, if real at all, won’t affect us in our lifetime, other scientific models suggest explosive climate shifts as ‘tipping points’ are reached. (See the movie The Day after Tomorrow regarding tipping points). Discoveries of animals flash frozen solid with fresh grass their stomachs points to the possibility of a very fast onset to global climate change. While suddenly finding yourself in an Arctic climate is likely not survivable, we must consider if we have the flexibility to survive in a radically different or highly volatile climate. Global warming can make warm places colder and cold places warmer. Dry places wetter and wet places drier. Rather than thinking of global warming as a ‘warming’ per-say (as in the end it may even trigger an ice age), think of it as having the potential of radically changing in any direction your historical weather pattern and making weather very unpredictable. Questions to ponder are:

If it got much wetter/drier where I live what would happen? What if the rain stops, or it rains 50 times more than it used to? If you rely on catchment and the rain stops, then what? If you rely on a well in an otherwise dry climate, are you prepared for flash floods? Do you have proper drainage ditches?

If it got much warmer or much colder, do you have heirloom seeds for temperate and tropical climates? Are you prepared to build a greenhouse if temperature fluctuates from 70F to 6F in a matter of weeks (as it did in New York City recently). Do your crops require a frost and what if you don’t get one? Will your crops be killed by a frost and what if you do get one? If you live in the tropics, do you have any cold weather gear?
Warm weather can bring insect and vermin to an area that would otherwise not survive. Could your crops deal with insects from another climate? Witness the rising of malaria in locations that had until now been at a high enough altitude to prevent mosquitoes from thriving in central American cities. Alternatively, if you hope to add to your larder by hunting game and migratory bird, what if the birds shifted their flight path to accommodate a weather change? What if the local deer decided en masse to move south (or whatever direction was warmer)? If you hope to fish to augment your protein stores, what if the fish (which are as we speak disappearing) left your shores or your waters became another notorious ‘dead zone’?

If it got much windier or less windy, then what? If you rely on wind power and the wind patterns shift direction, can you move your system to accommodate it? What if the winds stop entirely (unlikely as climate changes tend to make for more wind not less), then what? If it got much windier, can your wind generating equipment handle it? Can you house survive a hurricane in a location where houses are not built with hurricanes in mind? (Remember the recent Pacific Northwest windstorms?) Would your crops suffer if your windbreak were suddenly on the wrong side of your farm?

If you rely on solar [power or water heating] and you go from a sunny location to clouds all the time, then what? Do you have crops that can handle both high levels and low levels of sunlight?

Do you have snow tires or chains for your car? What would you do if your roads were covered in snow and ice? Do you have anti-freeze?

Where would a 15 foot rise in sea level put you? – SF in Hawaii