I was asked a fascinating question by several posters in my diary on probabilities. They wanted to know if I thought there was anyway to increase your odds of surviving the looming climate catastrophe. I had to think about that for quite a while before trying to answer.
i think there are a number of questions embedded in that single query. For example, how complete will the destruction be? This in turn begs the question how likely are politicians to do anything? The corollary is how successful are they with that action or if you like, is it the right answer?
Do we end up with pockets of civilization intact or do we go full Mad Max or some combination of the two? Possibly a new type of politics and a new type of politician emerges. How likely is that? How about a new/old economic system like barter, will barter-able assets replace a fiat currency?
Then there are pragmatic implications to be considered. Does wealth give you any advantage? Does savagery? Does education? Does the ability to cooperate, to communicate. What about pragmatic skills?
My mathematical modelling (and it is very early days) suggests early and wise decisions can slightly increase your odds of survival in every scenario. What surprised me was which decisions actually improved your odds. Here is my current list.
1. Develop friends all over the world. I have friends from France living with me right now. And they have shaved 40 degrees off the temperature they have to deal with. Imagine you have to move to a new country. Wouldn’t it be nice to have friends there?
2. Befriend, help, work with, employ and partner with immigrants. Particularly those who have seen hell and survived. Every model says you gain an advantage being surrounded by experienced survivors. And again you broaden your network.
3. Practice for the catastrophic changes global heating is likely to cause. What do you do when the power grid collapses? I lived for two years with no electricity, no gas, no running water and no sewer system while doing field work. In Haiti (I was with the Canadian Military Reserves) it was very useful to have learned life is possible without those things.
4. This will be controversial but learning to shoot, owning a weapon, knowing how to fix and maintain it, and how to make your own ammo is helpful in some scenarios. For example, hunting may be very useful. And then there are the Mad Max scenarios. You may have to harden the target.
5. Learn and practice survival skills and teach them to your children. It is likely none of the skills you learn will be helpful but the attitude you learn will be very helpful. Want to know who survives? It isn’t the biggest, the fittest, the meanest, the mostly heavily armed, the youngest, the richest, the smartest, and I could go on and on. It is the ones who won’t quit, ever.
6. If it isn’t too late admix your genes. As my mother put it breed out. It expands your resource base of people who have an interest in you surviving. Much more importantly in a couple of generations you can marginally increase your grandchildren’s likelihood of carrying advantages genes that provide competitive advantage in truly chaotic and unpredictable circumstances.
7. Build networks. Join, belong, be useful, build, make friends, be joyful. Strong communities are more likely to rebound and rebuild after cataclysmic events. And every person who might help you survive is a win.
8. Take positive action. Keep fighting to improve the environment until you die. Why? Waking up one day and realizing the Shit Has Hit the Fan and that either you did nothing or contributed to the problem is a psychologically weak place to start trying to develop a survivor’s mindset.
I am really curious to know what you are doing to prepare for the climate catastrophe?
Believe it or not planning for the worst actually makes it far easier to expect the best.