Preparedness for when

boultdj

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

This may be an abberant thought but it popped into the ageing brain so I'll ask the question. For the very first time today I have had the realisation that I have been prepping for an emergency that would be of a finite duration and probably sorted out and life back to normal having coped in the meantime. Has anyone else of you had the thought that any changes will probably be permanent and not reversible back to 'before' and that what we are probably prepping for is a different future? It is quite hard to get my head around but I can see it being that way and really need to gear to that and not back to comfy as soon as possible. Does that seem possible?

I'm not as old as you but,yes I worry that the change's will be permanent:o, I can vegelly recall the power cut's from the 70's but can't remember going with out anything food wise, but in saying that I'm carrying on the family tradition of the women growing food so I got taught gardening from a young age by my Gran, Mum and Aunt's.
I find program's like Vicorian/Edwarden Farm helpful for showing how we can live without power, and I realy want to watch the program on Sky called Power, detailing what could possably happen with no power at all.

mardatha

I think Mrs L that prepping has layers. First layer is for weather/strikes/shortages so short term food stashing. Second layer is for gas & electric prices rising so high that we can't afford them, so medium term planning cheaper ways to heat and cook. And the third layer - the remote possibility that the oil will one day stop dead.

pineapple

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

This may be an abberant thought but it popped into the ageing brain so I'll ask the question. For the very first time today I have had the realisation that I have been prepping for an emergency that would be of a finite duration and probably sorted out and life back to normal having coped in the meantime. Has anyone else of you had the thought that any changes will probably be permanent and not reversible back to 'before' and that what we are probably prepping for is a different future? It is quite hard to get my head around but I can see it being that way and really need to gear to that and not back to comfy as soon as possible. Does that seem possible?

One school of thought is that we could be knocked back to practically stone age :eek: leading to a completely different way of life. In which case learning practical skills is the way to go - with shorter term preps to tide people over the transition and the resulting mayhem. There would still be a massive die off however while society re-establishes itself and reduces to 'sustainable' levels and even after a generation or so I guess longevity would still be a lot less than it is now.
Another possibility is simply a long term depression - maybe with hyperinflation or civil unrest along the way.
And yet another possibility is a short, sharp, shock in terms of a sudden currency devaluation where the value of any savings is cut overnight. Cue more mayhem..
But debt forgiveness as part of a 'reset' has been mentioned too.

But maybe the can kicking will continue a while yet. Pensions, wages, savings etc not keeping up with inflation is just another way of bleeding people dry but in a less dramatic fashion.

ginnyknit

A friend of mine is a website designer for one of the big magazine conglomerates and he said a few years ago that soon everything as we know it will collapse and the old ways will come back. He was telling me this as I trained as a photographer in the days when you developed film yourself and he said my skills would be precious again. I always remembered this and it seems it will happen sooner rather than later. We all have some of the skills we will need and are prepping ourselves well. I think the power problem will gwet much worse as others have said and thats one area I feel we need to look into. Not so much saving energy because of the bills but working out how to mange without it as you have all reported today. Obviously part of the year some of us could cook outside but with the weather we have had the last few years that wont work often.

We have just been on a circuit of our area avoiding roadworks and traffic jams and saw a council estate not far away and a lot of the houses had solar panels on them :T I would love them. OH said that where DS's girlie lives in Stockport nearly every house has them. Is that the way to go? and what do they power? does anyone one have any experience of them here?

Rosetta92

Hello everyone, a lot of good ideas and humour on here as usual. Thanks to one and all for your contributions.

Vanoonoo - sorry to read of your loss. I hope you can allow yourself some breathing space to grieve amidst the house move.


[QUOTE=MrsLurcherwalker;59456209]
Did anyone see the news item this morning regarding the power supply in the future? we need a brainstorming session to generate viable ideas my friends, over to you!!!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.[/QUOTE]

I heard this on the lunchtime bulletin. Brainstorming is a great idea - thanks for getting us started. I need think about alternative heating. House is a modern one with GCH and no chimney. Not sure I can afford to make major structural changes just now as I'm between jobs.:eek:

mardatha wrote: »

I think Mrs L that prepping has layers. First layer is for weather/strikes/shortages so short term food stashing. Second layer is for gas & electric prices rising so high that we can't afford them, so medium term planning cheaper ways to heat and cook. And the third layer - the remote possibility that the oil will one stop dead.

You're right about the layers - a good way to think about it. But about the oil - it will stop. I went to a lecture about it from some of the experts last year - a lot of the current reserves may not be useable and nuclear is only a short term alternative because fuel for that is limited too.

I don't think we'll go back to the dark ages ( though if you're a history buff like me they weren't actually so dark). I think we'll continue to build on knowledge from the recent past but use it to create a new future. Eg: so much research on organic growing is aimed at improving quality and yields in a sustainable way, so food can be produced without chemicals but will still be better than in the past.

R

pineapple

Rosetta92 wrote: »

I don't think we'll go back to the dark ages ( though if you're a history buff like me they weren't actually so dark).

Possibly not - so long as one doesn't need a root canal or open heart surgery! :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone, it isn't a daunting prospect or anything like one, I have just had to make a fairly major readjustment to my thinking and how I see the future. I am a bit of a dinosaur in some ways and feel a real need to keep old skills and methods alive just in case, as with all these things once the living knowledge is gone, it's only recorded in books and the realities and practicalities are lost. Of course it would be possible to fathom out how to do things again, but we have one maybe two generations who have no skills and only a sense of self and self interest in general, no interest in anything beyond fashion, make up, celebrity ,instant fame and getting lots of money for no effort on their part. It would be very difficult to motivate the young and even more difficult to give them a sense of responsibility towards the rest of the population that would make them participating adults in whatever civilisation we evolve in the future. I think it would be a very traumatic time for most of them and I'm not sure that we could support non participaring passengers. It would be hard lines all round I suspect.

I wonder if we would find that small local businesses would provide some services as they used to, the village baker having heated the oven to bake bread was used by villagers to bake their pies, stews etc in the cooling oven. The idea of communal kitchens is not unheard of with everyone contrubuting towards community food and then taking a share for themselves, the wash pool where everyone took the dirty clothes or even the village washerwoman might make a return. I think people will once again be a valued commodity and without power to run factories, machines, farm equipment etc. certainly a large workforce of people will be needed. It will be interesting to see how things work out, I believe in people and their resiliance and adaptability but I think it will be very hard for most of us having been used to the conveniences and comforts of 21st century life!!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

RAS

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

This may be an abberant thought but it popped into the ageing brain so I'll ask the question. For the very first time today I have had the realisation that I have been prepping for an emergency that would be of a finite duration and probably sorted out and life back to normal having coped in the meantime. Has anyone else of you had the thought that any changes will probably be permanent and not reversible back to 'before' and that what we are probably prepping for is a different future? It is quite hard to get my head around but I can see it being that way and really need to gear to that and not back to comfy as soon as possible. Does that seem possible?

My personal take is that a full-blown "Survivors" llike situation is unlikely to happen world-wide. However as the power relations (political and economic) and power (fuel) situations change over the next decade or two, we will see a gradual diminishing in the availability of what was "before" interrupted by occasional shorter term crises when SHTF for a while. Prepping for those crises is my first concern.

We have also all seen how long it takes for "the state" to regain effectiveness when natural disaster (tsunamis, quakes, fire, flood and meteors) overcomes a large area. Life does not get back to normal on a year or two after some of those events. Not likely but worth being aware of perhaps.

Outside our recent experience but within the memory of our oldest folk is the sort of situation that occured after WW2 when vast numbers were at risk of starvation because of the disruption of production and destruction of infrastructure. Without outside help from the competing US and USSR economies, a lot of people would ahve starved and it would have taken a LOT longer for those countries to rebuild. Certainly, the post-war years were the hardest for many in the UK rather than war-time itself; not least now it was over everything was supposed to get better not worse.

ALIBOBSY

Interesting discussion relating to power.

I think the best hope we have for an alternative to carbon fuels and nuclear power as is ie, fission. Is hot nuclear fusion. The tech looks pretty good and early practical experiments support the theory. They are now building a small scale generator ITER and hope this will demostrate fusions ability to produce power-the prediction is to get 10 times the power out that they put in. If that works then a large scale demo station would be buildt followed by commercial power stations.

BUT all this takes time and money. Best estimates hope fusion would be running commercially inside 30 years, but more likely closer to 2050ish.

So that leaves a period of "transition" where costs to run the homes/cars/buisinesses will climb and climb. TBH even if we have a viable source of cheap energy up and running quite swiftly there will still be alot of changes. For example oil is not just a fuel it and its many extracts produce many of the items around us and in many ways it is also a commodity making alot of money for those countries who have it. Hot fusion mostly uses a fuel extracted from water and small amounts of other highly available chemicals. So there is no money to be made from the fuel itself, it wouldn't be a finite product. That changeover would certainly shift the balance of power and money across the world.

It would probably effect the cost of moving things via tanker as many products are-has anyone even thought how to convert planes and boats to electric? Cars, trucks and trains are fine tho so perhaps things will move back to more local production, which long term brings more jobs and maybe we will learn to be more self sufficent as people and as a country.

Going to be a painful changeover I reckon, and as a Mum of 4 under 13 I hope the things I do now will help them to prep for the future.

Ali x

ALIBOBSY

BTW sorry to those having pet troubles, they are part of the family aren't they.

BIL going from strength to strength but is still in the intensive care unit, but off the ventilator.

Ali x