However, if all of this has any real usefulness, it may be
to remind us that we all need to be prepared to survive under
circumstances where many of the goods and services that we
take for granted may no longer be available, either
temporarily or permanently. In recent Canadian history, the
best example of a relatively mild type of disaster situation
is the big ice storm in southern central Canada and environs
in January of 1998.

In that instance, where the power went off and stayed off for
weeks on end, many, many people were forced out of their
houses and apartments and into hastily-organized shelters
because their heating systems were dependent upon
electricity. In the case of conventional houses, even if the
natural gas supply was uninterrupted the motors on the forced
air furnaces were inoperative. Those people that were able to
stay home in comfort had a back-up heating system, usually a
wood stove.

Essentially, this is what we all need to have in place in our
own lives in order to be prepared for a short to medium term
breakdown in our technological infrastructure: Back-up
survival systems that are unsophisticated in comparison to
those that we usually depend upon. A large metal container
full of unprocessed grains and beans could replace the
supermarket. Warm clothes and sleeping bags could stand in
stead of thermostatic temperature management. Water could
come from large stored jugs, a well, or the sky. Needed
medications or other special requirements could lie waiting
containers, like a squirrel's winter provisions in a hole in
a tree. Life in a mild disaster needn't be more difficult
than a camping trip.

However, much of this preparedness would only last for a
specified period of time. If we ever have to deal with a
really big emergency, like World War III, a major climatic
shift or a worldwide crop failure, (or all three at once),
then a whole new set of survival strategies would need to be
brought into play. As a society, we might have to put
together a command economy from relative scratch, and then
bootstrap it into operation. The financial efficiencies of
modern mechanized agriculture would have to be replaced by
the yield per acre advantages of intensive, hands-on farming.
The competitive, acquisitive, individualistic tendencies that
modern free market society has put much energy into creating
in all of us would become a considerable hindrance, in need
of replacement by a far more co-operative and
conservationistic ways of thinking and doing.

The best course of action for an individuals or collectives
wishing to survive would be to quite quickly form highly
functional associations with others in a rapid and flexible
manner. One might find oneself in a gardening co-op and a
local militia rather than working providing a highly
specialized service. On top of the individual, hardware
oriented skills of short term survival all of those capable
would need to develop a whole range of new goals and
expectations, as well as numerous callouses and a great deal
more muscle.

We are living in very interesting times. All of us will
likely be called upon to change our ways of dealing with life
considerably over the next decade or two. Hopefully, we can
find ways of doing this that will be fulfilling for us as
individuals as well as good for human society and our planet
as a whole. By accumulating survival skills of all sorts, we
can all be in positions to make the best of new situations as
they arise.

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