Monday, 5 August 2019

What I've Been Reading, July 2019

Links

Miscellaneous

Fascism

Collapse

  • Are We Doomed? Let’s Have a Conversation, by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
  • The Age of Denial, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia & Co
    I certainly agree with most of what Umair is saying, especially the part about the present day rise of fascism. But I would add resource depletion to his list of problems, and instead of "stagnation", I'd say our economic problem is a system that works well only when it's growing, when we need an economy that can handle degrowth with a minimum of disastrous consequences.
    Anyway, his closing paragraph is brilliant: "Let us all learn the lesson, my friends. Denial has already broken the mightiest nations on earth today — like twigs. It has made them laughingstocks, pariahs, jokes, and paupers. If it can do that to them — nobody is above being brought low this century, no matter how rich or powerful. Who will denial bring down next? Or will the rest of the world learn from the strange, sad story of the world’s two most powerful countries — whom denial made its newest collapsed ones? That part, I imagine, is up to you."
  • The Big Crash, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia & Co
    "America is now a country of a tiny number of ultra rich, who effectively own everything, and one of something very much like neo serfs — the average American will die in debt, which means he’ll never (in net terms) own, earn, or save anything. Anything."
  • ‘High likelihood of human civilization coming to end’ by 2050, report finds, by Harry Cockburn, The Independent

Peak Oil

Climate Change

Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

Energy

Hazard and Risk

Agriculture

Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that I am a shill for Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are being spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

Food

Practical Skills

  • You’ve Probably Never Had Real Soy Sauce, by Wei Tchou, Medium—Heated
    A few years ago, I made soy sauce, using a procedure similar to the one in this article. I got the soy beans from a local farmer, the wheat from Bulk Barn, the mold from Gem Cultures, and miso (the source of another culture) from a local health food store. Worked well and the result was a very nice soy sauce.

Politics

Canadian Politics

Ontario Politics

Debunking Resources

These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

Science Based Medicine

Lacking an Owner's Manual

The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

  • Why We Don’t Just Go Get Help For Depression, by Shannon Ashley, Medium—Honestly Yours
  • The problem of mindfulness, by Sahanika Ratnayake, Aeon
    "Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos"
  • The Science Behind Eureka Moments, by Markham Heid, Medium—elemental
    Aha experiences aren’t as serendipitous as you may think. Here’s how to proactively produce them.
  • Against ‘natural’ parenting, by Olga Mecking , Aeon
    "We’re opportunistic, inventive and flexible animals, and there is no ‘natural’ or ‘right’ way to bring up our children."

    • There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

    I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.

    • Why I’ll Never Go on a Mission Trip Again, by Mariette Williams, Medium—Zora
      "Our well-intentioned attempts to serve Black and Brown people barely made an impact
      " This piece speaks volumes about that's wrong with Christianity in America.

    Puerto Rico

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Housing

    Artificial Intelligence

    Education

    Humour

    These are great times for political satire.

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

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    Wednesday, 17 July 2019

    Responding to Collapse, Part 10: the future of the power grid

    Sunset over Lake Huron

    In this series of posts I've been advising my readers that moving to a small town remote from large population centres, in an area that can supply the basic necessities of water, food and firewood, is a prudent way of coping with the ongoing collapse of BAU (Business as Usual). With the caveat that some advance preparation will be needed to ensure successful use of those resources.

    In the next few posts in this series, we'll look at some of the details of how BAU will collapse and how you can prepare to weather that collapse. In the immediate future infrastructure breakdowns will get more frequent and longer until finally it's no longer practical to rely on BAU for the necessities of life. It seems to me that supplies of electrical power, diesel fuel and money will be at the heart of many of the troubles that lie ahead, so I'll concentrate on those areas.

    And while I'll mainly be talking about infrastructure breakdowns we should remember that interruptions of service can occur for a couple of other reasons.

    The first has to do with the way our economy is organized and how we choose to provide vital services such as power, water, sewers, housing, food, communications, transportation, education, health care and so forth.

    Today most of the world's nations are capitalistic, with a distinct neo-liberal flavour. Under such conditions, companies are operated to make a profit and other goals, such as the public good, are strictly secondary. So when a "for profit" company finds its business becoming less profitable they must find ways to increase their charges or to supply less for the same fees or to quit supplying customers in less profitable areas altogether. And if they don't do those things they will either be bought out by companies that will, or they'll suffer bankruptcy. If there doesn't appear to be much chance that another company could make a good profit in the same business then it will never be reestablished. And if the public was relying on that company to provide vital services, then we are just out of luck.

    Of course there are other ways of organizing an economy, and in particular other ways of setting up companies to provide infrastructure services. But the argument is often made that for profit companies operating in a free market are more efficient. I would question if there has ever been any such thing as a free market, and whether it would function as predicted in any case. Efficiency in this case is defined as the amount of return on share holders' investments, and has nothing to do with providing a high quality and reliable service to your customers.

    But perhaps we should set all that aside in order to focus on the really critical thing, which is the difference between the way such companies work in growing economies versus contracting economies. In a growing economy it is relatively easy to make a profit and do so while supplying a service for the public good. But when the economy begins to contract that becomes more and more difficult for "for profit" companies.

    Governments can set up non-profit organizations whose primary goal is to provide services for the public good and they are likely to last longer in a contracting economy. In my experience, contrary to typical capitalist propaganda, they can also be quite efficient. But as the economy contracts so will tax revenues and eventually governments will have to cut back on the services they provide. With good planning though, they can do this in a controlled manner with lots of advanced warning, and give people time to adapt to the situation.

    As the economy gets even weaker, co-operatives organized by the people who need the services hold considerable promise. I'll have more to say about this over the next few posts.

    The second thing is that if you rely on BAU to make a living, you will find that your own economic circumstances are declining. When you can no longer afford the services you have come to rely on, you'll have find ways to provide them for yourself, and in the process learn how to get by with less, like it or not.

    I can consume along with the best of them, and there are certainly all kinds of things that it would be useful to have as we try to become more self reliant. But don't worry too much if you can't afford some of the shiny toys I'll be mentioning in future posts. As well trained consumers we may feel that buying things must be the solution to the problems that face us, but it isn't. Actually, there is no solution to the fix the world is in at the moment, and the best we can do is adapt to the changing conditions. Part of that is learning to get by while consuming less. This is hard for me and I'll bet it's hard for you too. That's why I talked first about preparing by become part of your new community (in posts 7 and 8 of this series), rather that the less important preparations that involve accumulating "stuff".

    Back 2012, when I started this blog, the authorities recommended that you be prepared to weather emergencies lasting for as long as three days (72 hours). They were basically saying, "don't rely on us to be there immediately—it may take as long as 72 hours before help arrives." In the meantime, this has been changed to two weeks in some areas. Is emergency response capability declining, or are they expecting more lengthy and severe emergencies? I suspect both. Of course serious "preppers" are laughing at this—they'd recommend that you have supplies on hand for a year or two. I don't disagree, but you have to start somewhere. And as collapse deepens those longer intervals to prepare for will come to seem more reasonable.


    Power Outages

    Power outages will probably be the most frequent infrastructure failure you'll have to cope with. Short outages have relatively minor impacts, but because electricity is at the heart of so much that goes on in modern civilization, as outages stretch out they start to effect more and more things.

    Eventually, it seems very likely that the power grid in many, if not most, areas will cease to function. I encounter two different responses to this idea. Many people cannot conceive that their 24 hour a day, essentially infinite supply of power could every come to an end. Others are fixated on the idea of a sudden and hard crash which will bring the whole of industrial civilization to an end, including the power grid.

    I'm somewhere in between, holding what I think is a more detailed and nuanced opinion. Most of the rest of this post is going to be spent talking about how the slow decline of the power grid will go, leaving the responses I would recommend for the next post.

    Power outages can be as simple as a utility pole getting knocked over during a traffic accident, to as complex as the grid failures that happened in northeastern North America in 1965 and 2003. And to take it even further, EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) from nuclear weapons or coronal mass ejections (solar flares) can do huge damage to electrical girds which may be very hard to recover from. But I think some of the most common and serious problems with the grid will come from three specific areas:

    • The first is equipment failure due to age and/or lack of maintenance, aggravated by overloads such as air conditioning load during summer heat waves. As the economy continues to contract power companies are going to find themselves short of capital and less able to invest in their own systems, leaving those systems more susceptible to failure. /li>
    • The second will be damage due to storms that are growing more frequent and more intense due to climate change—things like high winds, tornados and ice storms in particular. Lengthy outages will happen when there are widespread weather related problems combined with shortages of spare parts and limited manpower to install them. Those latter two problems will come mainly from cash strapped utilities trying to save money.
    • The third is sabotage. The grid is very exposed to a saboteur who knows what he is doing, and because of its geographically diffuse nature, very hard to secure. As collapse intensifies, there will be increased civil unrest—more angry people looking for easy targets that symbolize the establishment. The grid is certainly one such target.

    Of course, these concerns apply to the grid as it exists today, using conventional generation. It seems there is going to be a serious attempt to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, primarily solar and wind. Those who are pushing for a "Green New Deal" are telling people that we can use wind and solar to replace fossil fuels, and that in the process more jobs will be created and we'll actually end up more prosperous. This is a very unrealistic dream and just off the top of my head I can think of four serious problems with it:

    1. What solar and wind produce is electricity. But electricity supplies only 18 to 20% of our current energy use. Most of the rest comes directly from coal, oil and natural gas, and those fuels are used in ways that will be difficult, if not outright impossible, to replace with electricity.

      The main issue is that a battery is not nearly as effective a way to store energy as a tank of diesel fuel. And there are definite physical limitations on how much better batteries can get— we can probably improve them by a factor of two, but that's about it. Despite what we keep hearing in the news, it simply isn't practical to use batteries to power airplanes or long distance heavy transport by road, rail or sea. The quantity of batteries needed, and the size and weight of those batteries, is the problem.

      There are many industrial processes that use coal or natural gas for heat. Replacing those fuels with electricity may be theoretically possible but we haven't, for the most part, even started to develop ways to do so, much less begun to implement them.

    2. Phasing out fossil fuels would require using renewables to supply much larger quantities of electricity than we are currently using. But there are fundamental problems with using renewables to produce even part of the comparatively small amount of electricity we use now.

      One aspect of running a power grid that the general public is largely unaware of is that generation must be matched exactly to the load. Since load is something the grid operator cannot control to any great extent, generation that is "dispatchable"—that can be turned on and off on demand and ramped up and down as required—is very important. Conventional generation is dispatchable to varying degrees but renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are intermittent and for the most part not under the control of the grid operator—the very opposite of dispatchable. As such, renewables only exacerbate the problems of running a grid, especially given the lack of feasible large scale storage technologies. Yes, I know there are a number of storage technologies available but none of them are economical to use on the scale that would be required for use in a power grid with intermittent renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

      The concept of a "smart grid" which gives greater control of both generation and load offers hope of addressing these problems to some minor degree, but only at the price of adding complexity to the system. And adding complexity never increases reliability.

    3. The immediate reason for switching away from fossil fuels is to reduce the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere in order to combat climate change. But no one seems to be thinking of the carbon footprint of switching away from carbon. The switchover to renewables would be a massive undertaking powered mainly by fossil fuels, and the amount of CO2 being released would greatly increase during that effort.

      Much of this construction effort would also require large quantities of steel and concrete. Making steel and concrete involves the release of CO2, regardless of where the energy comes from—it's inherent to the chemistry of the processes involved.

      So it is by no means obvious that we can get off fossil fuels and onto renewables without creating an even worse climate crisis that the one we are currently facing.

    4. Renewables have a very low EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). A high EROEI is essential to the functioning of a modern industrial economy--money is just accounting, energy is really what makes the economy go. Any country which adds a large quantity of renewables to its energy mix will lower its overall average EROEI, making it more difficult to support a growing economy and a high tech industrial society. So even if we could somehow manage to switch over entirely to renewables, we'd have trouble sustaining a high enough level of technology to maintain and repair solar and wind generation facilities. And replacing them when they wear out would be a real stretch. Switching to renewables is something we might be able to do once, but then we'd be in big trouble.

    All this is of course based on not having to change our lifestyles, not having to accept a lower level of prosperity and consumption. Indeed one frequently hears people talking about increasing economic growth in order to bring the poor parts of the world up to our level of consumption. It is clear to me that this is not going to happen and that what we really need to do is reduce our levels of consumption down to what can be supported without fossil fuels, using local, sustainable, low tech renewables. It is also clear to me that we will not do this voluntarily, that the majority of our efforts will go into maintaining business as usual regardless of the consequences.

    Give all these factors time to work and it will become difficult to continue running the power grid as a whole. Some parts of the gird will simply quit working. Others that have proved unreliable, which place the grid as a whole at risk, will eventually have to be excluded from the grid. These islands will grow until the grid as we know it falls apart.

    There will be a few areas where generating equipment will continue to function for a long time and will be able to supply local load. Again, the matching generation and load will be a problem since most such generation comes in large chunks and is a long way from large amounts of load. The most hopeful situations are small hydro (water) powered generators, which can be run at less than full capacity and adjust quickly to match varying loads.

    Anyway, it seems clear that we can indeed expect more frequent and longer power outages. But what are the effects of these outages, and what can we do to mitigate them?


    The effects of power outages

    When the power goes out, you lose the lights, heat, cooling, cooking equipment, refrigeration and so forth in your own home. Even most oil, gas and wood heating systems rely on electricity for control, ignition and circulating fans. Then there are all the services that comes to you from outside your home, that you rely on to just work, but which need electricity to do that.

    In general, the most critical services run off batteries which are kept fully charged as long as the power is on. When the power goes out, these services keep right on running as if nothing had happened, at least until the batteries are discharged. The batteries for the controls in power stations are rated for eight hours. The batteries in cell phone towers are rated for two to four hours.

    Everything I'm finding on the internet says that the central switching stations for land line telephone service should keep working even during long power outages, which implies both batteries and backup generators. I have some doubts about this, and I'll be keeping an eye out for more detailed information.

    Many slightly less critical services have generators that start automatically with only a brief interruption when the power goes out and run as long as there is fuel (usually diesel fuel) in the tank. If arrangements have been made to refill that tank, then this can go on for quite a long time.

    Even less critical services than these can have a portable generator hooked up to them if need be. This would include facilities operating on battery power, if the power is off so long that the batteries need to be recharged.

    Most service stations don't have backup power so you likely won't be able to get fuel (gasoline, diesel, propane) while the power is off. During long outages the many supply chains that are powered by gasoline and/or diesel fuel will be in trouble.

    Natural gas pipelines have to be pressurized to keep to gas flowing through them. Some of the pumps used to do this are powered by natural gas, some by electricity. And I suspect that at least some of the controls for the gas powered pumps are electrical. So your natural gas supply, at least in some areas, will be compromised during electrical outages.

    The pumps in municipal water and sewage systems need electrical power too. Some may have backup generators, but not all. If you live on a farm or in a very small town, your toilet is likely gravity feed into a septic system and weeping bed, and will work as long as you have water to flush them. Or perhaps you have already set up a composting toilet which requires no power at all. Your water supply is probably from you own well, with a pump driven by an electric motor that uses 240V AC (if you are in North America). Even if you have a generator, you may need an electrician to help you hook it up to that motor.

    Refrigeration of food in grocery stores and pharmaceuticals in pharmacies and hospitals will be jeopardized. Fortunately our local hospital does have a backup generator.

    Radio and TV can be important sources of information during emergencies. But you will likely find that only a very few of your local stations are set up to keep broadcasting during power outages.

    It would also be great if internet service could continue during power outages. I understand it some areas it does, but we get our internet through the local cable TV company, and even short outages to their facilities knock out our internet connection and our cable TV service, even if the power is still on at our place. Your situation may be different—I hope so.

    Oddly, or so it seems to me, most traffic lights aren't backed up in any way and stop working when the power is off.

    ATMs won't be working, nor the systems that allows us to pay for things by credit and debit cards. Even if you do have cash in hand, you may find many retail outlets are unable to sell you anything when their cash registers and product code scanners aren't working. Many of them may just lock their doors for the duration of the outage.

    Not all of them, though—I was quite impressed during a recent outage when I saw the guy behind the counter at a nearby convenience store beavering away with a cash box, battery operated calculator and a notebook to record sales in. It can be done, but one hopes the prices are marked clearly on items rather than encoded in UPCs. This is an example of an individual (or maybe his manager) taking the situation in hand and keeping things working rather than sitting back and letting them fall apart.

    No doubt I am missing many of the potential effects of long power outages, but I think this gives you the flavour of what you'll be facing. Next time I'll talk about how you can mitigate the effects of power outages, both short and long, and what your community can do to cope when it finally finds itself permanently isolated from the grid.


    Links to the rest of this series of posts, Preparing for (Responding to) Collapse:

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    Tuesday, 9 July 2019

    What I've Been Reading, June 2019

    Links

    Miscellaneous

    • What Bikini Atoll Looks Like Today, by Sam Scott, Medium—Stanford Magazine
      "Sixty years after the nuclear tests, the groundwater is contaminated and the coconuts are radioactive. But are the coral reefs thriving?"
    • A radical legal ideology nurtured our era of economic inequality, by Sanjukta Paul, Aeon
      "...economic coordination is increasingly accomplished through the mechanism of large, powerful firms, while economic cooperation among smaller players is increasingly disfavoured. These choices are fundamental to the policy prescriptions made by the law-and-economics approach. Again, we find ourselves with a choice that is necessarily moral and political: we can allocate coordination rights in a way that exacerbates imbalances in economic power, or in a way that ameliorates them. What we cannot do is pretend not to make the choice."
      Capitalism couldn't function without government support in the form of laws that govern economic activity in favour of capitalist and against the working class. This article does a pretty good job of explaining how this works in the U.S.
    • Fully Automated Luxury Communism Isn’t Our Future, by Robin Whitlock, Medium—OneZero

    Collapse

    Peak Oil

    Climate Change

    • An object lesson in greenwashing, by Tim Watkins, The Consciousness of Sheep
      "... if our intention is to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, then we need to stop doing all of the things—including economic growth and having babies—that cause greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot grow our way out of the consequences of growth; but it is easier to brush over this inconvenient truth in bright green paint than it is to take the hard decisions that are now essential."
    • Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' to tackle climate crisis, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian
    • Planting trees cannot replace cutting carbon dioxide emissions, study shows, by Lauren Lipuma, Geo Space
      A careful reading shows both this article and the one above are saying much the same thing—first cut back on carbon emmissions, then plant trees to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
    • Deconstructing Federal Conservative Climate Policy, by Bill Hullet, The Guelph Backgrounder
      "I'm getting sick of writing post after post about how awful the Conservatives are right now. It makes me feel that somehow I'm not being "fair" or "balanced". But the fact of the matter is that currently they have their heads shoved up their butts in a truly spectacular way. These are not ordinary times. I have always tried to be as honest and objective as possible in everything I write—and it is just a fact that there is something really wrong right now with conservatives all over the planet."

    Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

    • #152: Stuffed—why the monetary lifeboat won’t float, by Tim Morgan, Surplus Energy Economics
      " Conceptually, it’s useful to think in terms of ‘two economies’. One of these is the ‘real’ economy of goods and services, its operation characterised by the use of labour and resources, but its performance ultimately driven by energy. "The other is the ‘financial’ economy of money and credit, a parallel or shadow of the ‘real’ economy, useful for managing the real economy, but wholly lacking in stand-alone substance."

    Agriculture

    Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are being spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

    Food

    Practical Skills

    • The Nomad's Ger, Producer: Daniel Grossman , Aeon
      "Mongolian nomads building a traditional yurt is a master class in cooperation"

    Politics

    Ontario Politics

    Debunking Resources

    These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

    Science

    Science Based Medicine

    Lacking an Owner's Manual

    The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Housing

    • Do the Rich Deserve to be Rich? — Basic Income Ethics, by Robert Jameson, Medium—Bob's Economics
      I don't agree with a lot of what this article has to say about the role of the market and the supposedly positive things the market does. But it's main point is that the market doesn't give people what they deserve, and with that I agree completely.
    • Is taxation theft?, by Phillip Goff, Aeon
      "The assumption that you own the contents of your pay-packet, although almost universal, is demonstrably confused."

    Humour

    These are great times for political satire.

    Books

    Fiction

    • Dies The Fire, by S,M. Stirling
      This is a favourite among kollapsniks, and while it is certainly an entertaining read, the picture it gives of collapse is pretty unrealistic.
    • A Meeting at Corvallis, by S,M. Stirling

    Non-Fiction

    I am reading a couple of excellent non-fiction books at the moment and hope to list them here at the end of July.

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    Thursday, 13 June 2019

    Responding to Collapse, Part 9: Getting Prepared, Part 1

    Willow I coppiced earlier this spring.
    The new shoots are already 18" long--by fall they will be between 4 and 6 feet long and ready for basket making.

    The central idea of this series of posts is that the collapse of our industrial civilization is already underway (has been since the 1970s) and seems very likely to continue until "Business as Usual" (BAU) is no longer capable of supplying us with the necessities of life. This collapse is proceeding in a fashion that is uneven (geographically), unsteady (chronologically) and unequal (socially), and we can expect it to continue in the same irregular way. Accordingly, it should be possible to pick some places and lifestyles that will suffer less severely than others.

    I have recommended moving to a small town fairly remote from larger cities in an area likely to suffer less from the worst ravages of climate change and with the local resources necessary to provide at least water, food and energy (mainly firewood) for its inhabitants. Of course, some advance set up is going to be needed if you are to put those to work effectively. In my last two posts (7, 8, links) I talked about preparations in the human or social sense—becoming a part of the local community and developing the connections you'll need.

    I'm going to wrap up this series with a few posts talking about the material preparations you'll need to make. First, to cope with the continued decline of BAU and the increasingly frequent and lengthy infrastructure interruptions that will accompany it. And finally to use local resources to gain a degree of local self-sufficiency that will see you through the end of BAU.

    If you've followed my advice about moving to a small town, you'll initially be living in rental accommodation to allow yourself time to get to know the place before investing in property (If indeed you can afford such a thing). Renting puts some limits on what you can do to prepare and renting an apartment is even more restricting than renting a house. In the next few posts I'll discuss alternatives for both renters and homeowners.

    I've been noticing that living in an RV, van or car is becoming more of a thing all the time what with ever increasing real estate prices. It occurs to me that this lifestyle may fit in nicely in many ways with moving to a small town. I can't pretend to have any experience in this area, but I hope some of what I have to say will be useful to those who's wheel are also their homes.

    The first thing to be clear on is what you'll be preparing for. For quite a while yet, if you have income or savings to draw on, you'll be able to rely (more or less) on BAU for the necessities of life. But there will be lengthening and ever more frequent interruptions in infrastructure services—the power grid, communications, the financial and credit systems, water and sewage and of course the supply chains that bring us the fuels, food, pharmaceuticals, and various other supplies and equipment that we need to maintain our current life style. You need to be prepared to weather these interruptions. And of course, you always need to be prepared for emergencies like storms, floods, droughts and fires.

    You might wonder why I am not advising setting up some sort of "lifeboat community" which is largely independent of BAU. I'm not against it—if you have the wherewithal, go for it. But the cost of such a setup is extreme and the skills required to make it work are many and hard to come by. For most of us a less grandiose plan is more practical. I do think the existing social and physical infrastructure of a small town and its surrounding area can be the foundation for a poor man's lifeboat. But only after a few serious infrastructure outages have convinced people that BAU is going to be unreliable.

    "Bugging in" and "bugging out" are terms I've borrowed from the survivalist and prepper communities. Bugging in refers to being located where it's safe to stay when the "shit hits the fan", while bugging out assumes it won't be safe to stay where you are, and you'll need to be prepared to leave on a moment's notice. Of course, I don't think the shit is going to hit the fan all in one big lump, but rather in dribs and drabs that will make the situation unpleasant but perhaps not absolutely dire for quite a while yet.

    The typical survivalist approach to bugging out—heading for "the hills" and living off the land—is actually a pretty bad idea, even if you are well prepared. Check out the article at the other end of that link to see what I mean.

    I've been advising my readers to find a safe place and prepare to "bug in". I've been settled into my own choice of location for a long while now and that's what I encourage you to do once you've moved to a place where it is practical to do so.

    Unfortunately, there are still circumstances where you'll need to bug out. Things like your house catching fire, being leveled by a tornado, inundated by a flood or anything else that renders it unlivable. I have to admit we are not terribly well prepared to leave our home on short notice.

    And in the kind of circumstances I'm thinking of you want to be able get out quickly with your skin still intact and not waste time gathering up stuff to take with you. That certainly true in the case of a fire where seconds can make all the difference. In floods, there is usually more warning and you want to get out before the roads are submerged and impassable. In the case of tornados you want to take shelter in your basement or the closest thing you have to one until after the tornado goes by. Then, if you home has been destroyed, you'll be glad to have an emergency plan in place.

    I haven't solved this challenge to my satisfaction yet, and it's mainly due to lack of effort, and complacency. But recently I have started to think more seriously about it. Here's what I've come up with so far.

    You need a plan for evacuating your home when disaster strikes. This is the kind of thing you want to think out in advance and practice occasionally, so you don't have to figure it out from scratch in a short timeframe when the need arises.

    Once you're out of your house, it would be good to have arranged in advance alternative places to stay, both in your own community and elsewhere in case circumstances force you (and maybe many others) to leave your community. This may involve taking shelter with neighbours, family or friends, and ideally you would make reciprocal agreements with those people. Of course, if you can afford it, or your insurance is paying, you may decide to go to a hotel. But in a widespread disaster, all the hotels may be full, or in no better shape than your home. And insurance companies may not respond in a timely fashion.

    You should prearrange a communications plan for family members who aren't home when disaster strikes, and don't assume cell phones or even landlines are always going to work. This might involve a prearranged meeting place and/or someone at a prearranged location to leave messages with.

    You should pack a bag for each person in your family with:

    • a change of clothes suited for the season, including outdoor shoes and outdoor clothing that you won't have had time to grab in an emergency
    • soap, shampoo, moisturizer and such, especially if you need particular types
    • a few day's supply of medicines
    • sleeping bags, air mattresses, towels and such so as to be less of a burden when you have to drop in on short notice
    • copies of idendification, important legal documents and personal information:
      • will
      • power of attorney
      • marriage license
      • lease or deed for your home
      • birth certificate
      • SIN number card
      • Health card (access to single payer health insurance here in Ontario) or the equivalent for wherever you live
      • drivers license
      • vehicle registration and insurance
      • contact info for family and friends
      • copies or scans of heirloom photos

    These copies could be electronic or on paper, or better yet, both. If you take photos or scans of these documents they could be kept on a flash drive or on your phone. But best not to rely completely on electronic means of storing information.

    There are no doubt other items that haven't made it onto my list yet, but that will do for a start.

    These bags should be stored someplace safe, outside your home. Maybe in your car, in an out building that's up wind from your house, or at the home of a neighbour or friend. The problem I have with all this is I'd have to have two of quite a few things that are rather expensive, winter clothes in particular. I clearly have some more study to do, and no doubt I will eventually figure it out. But don't let my hesitation hold you back from starting to make these preparations.

    Making a quick escape in winter can be a particular problem, as you ideally want outdoor clothing close to hand. Our bedroom is on the second floor and there is a ladder leaned up against the side of the house that can be accessed from the bedroom window. It would be good to have boots and gloves close to hand at the very least—it would make that climb down that ladder a lot more doable.

    In my next post I'll get started on the details of preparing to bug in. In the meantime, have a look at a couple of posts on emergency preparation that I wrote early in the history of this blog. The articles I've linked to in them are also full of useful information and I can especially recommend the ones by Sharon Astyk, Bob Wardrop and Vinay Gupta at the end of Part 2

    When I recently reread those posts I was pleased to find I had done a fairly thorough job, and that the links in them point to web pages that still exist, even though in some cases the authors are much less active on the collapse scene that they were 7 years ago.

    In the second one I mentioned a few things I hadn't yet gotten around to doing at that point. I am happy to be able to say that in the meantime I have taken care of most of those issues.

    We are still storing a fair bit of water for emergencies, but I also finally got around to putting together that water filter kit, the result being a filter similar to the Berkey or Doulton/Berkefeld ones, but with plastic 5 gallon buckets instead of stainless steel tanks. We live only a couple of blocks from Lake Huron, so water is readily available, but safer to drink after a trip through that filter.

    I also finally got around to cutting up that sheet of plywood and putting together a composting toilet (a la Jenkins). We also switched from peat moss to wood shavings for kitty litter. Shavings are more sustainable than peat moss and there's always a bale or at least part of one on hand if we need to start using the composting toilet. I know that for most people it is unthinkable that the sewers would just stop working. Let me assure you, it is definitely possible.

    I kept an eye out for sales on generators and we picked one up in the fall of 2017. Also a couple of 5 gallon jerry cans. I start the generator once a month and run it for a while, then close the fuel supply valve and let it run dry so gunk doesn't build up so much in the carburetor. Stale gas makes for harder starting, so once a month one of those jerry can gets emptied into our car and refilled with fresh gasoline. And every six months I drain the gas tank on the generator and fill it up with fresh gas. So far it has started easily, even on cold days in the winter, but before long I'll need to take it to the local small engine shop for some routine maintenance.

    I wasn't sure about getting a generator, but we store a quite a bit of food, mainly expensive meat, in our freezers, and the thought of it spoiling during a long power outage finally convinced me.

    Last fall(2018) we had a chimney and woodstove installed and we heated with wood for most of this winter. The stove and especially the chimney weren't cheap, but we're very happy with the results and the money to be saved over heating with electricity.

    In addition to the things we've finally got around to doing, a few things have changed as well.

    The flashlight on my keychain is now the type that uses a single AAA cell, much brighter and longer lasting than the single lithium cell light I was carrying. The large folding knife I used to carry has found its way to my hiking knapsack, and I'm only carrying my smaller folding knife on a daily basis.

    My old Gerber multitool is also in that hiking knapsack and has been replaced in my coat pocket by the new and superior Gerber Center-Drive Multitool. This comes with a sheath and set of 12 screwdriver bits. The screwdriver shaft opens when the rest of the multitool is closed and lines up with the center line of the tool, making it much easier to use. It takes standard 1/4" hex drive bits so you can use the bits you already own, unlike the oddball little flat bits that the Leatherman multitools take. And the knife blade is large enough to be quite useful.

    After spending 31 years as a tradesman, there are a lot of things I can do if I have the right tools, and it's pretty frustrating to be stymied by the lack of a tool. This multitool goes a long way towards solving that problem.

    The single knapsack that I had 7 years ago has evolved into one knapsack which stays in our car, another that is ready to head out on a hike at a moment's notice, and a "book bag" which spends most of its time in the house but comes with us on car trips.

    These bags are a work in progress and idiosyncratic to our circumstances and skills. Tools and materials for repairing broken things and first aid supplies for repairing broken people are prominently featured. I started out following typical advice for bug out bags and it has evolved from there.

    Drinking water is important and we have two 750 ml. water bottles that usually go with us in the car and fit nicely into compartments intended for them in my hiking knapsack. For long trips we have a 2.5 gallon water jug.

    Further details are a topic for another day, but if you are interested in more information let me know in the comments.


    Links to the rest of this series of posts, Preparing for (Responding to) Collapse:

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    Wednesday, 5 June 2019

    What I've Been Reading, May 2019

    May was a busy month between stacking up 10 cords of firewood for next winter and getting started on gardening, so I didn't do as much reading, or writing, as I would have liked.

    Links

    Miscellaneous

    • Abortion is an Economic Issue, by Hanna Brooks Olsen, Medium—Economy
    • Why I Left the Pro-Life Movement , by Sarah Olson, Medium—Human Parts
      "I protested abortion for years. But when I saw how the movement’s beliefs harm women, I realized I had to get out."
    • The Debate of the Century or a Waste of Time? by Jackie Thornhill, Medium
      "Everything you need to know about today’s debate between Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Žižek"
      Well, maybe not everything. But apparently Žižek mopped the floor with Peterson, and that is good news.
      "Hopefully Jordan Peterson learned the most important lesson — he may have a devoted fan base and legions of followers, but he’s not the heavyweight public intellectual he pretends to be. Perhaps next time Peterson will think twice before challenging someone like Žižek."

    Collapse

    Peak Oil

    Climate Change

    Economic Contraction

    • The Economy Continues To Deteriorate, by Investment Research Dynamics
      This article is right about the state of the economy, but it doesn't go deep enough when it talks about the causes. Why is the economy contracting and why is debt being used to keep it going? Clearly, decreasing surplus energy is the underlying cause.

    Energy

    Hazard and Risk

    Agriculture

    Genetic Engineering

    Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

    Practical Skills

    Debunking Resources

    These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

    Science Based Medicine

    There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

    I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.

    • If God Is Dead, Your Time Is Everything, by James Wood, The New Yorker
      A lengthy look at various views of what it means to be secular, as opposed to religious. Concentrating in particular on Martin Hägglund’s view, as articulated in his book This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom.
    • The Cult of the Good Christian Woman, by Sarah Olson, Medium—Human Parts
      "The community that raised me is pushing an ideal for women that is repressive and damaging."

    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Housing

    Autonomous Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

    • The Cancer Chronicles, by George Johnson
      "Unlocking Medicine's deepest mystery."
      An excellent reality based survey of what we know, and can do, about cancer.
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    Monday, 6 May 2019

    What I've Been Reading, April 2019

    Links


    Miscellaneous

    • The Barely Hidden Flaws in Jordan Peterson’s Scholarship, by Emily Pothast, Medium—Culture
      "Peterson’s philosophy, while it may inspire motivation at the individual level, is a deadly engine of status quo maintenance and self-justification at the cultural level. It is an ideology that denies it is ideology, hissing insults and flinging lawsuits at those who challenge its god-like powers of complacency."


    Collapse

    • The end of industrial civilization, by Nils, Small Precautions
    • In Defence of Inaction, by Dave Pollard, guest post on Damn the Matrix
    • NASA Study Concludes When Civilization Will End, And It's Not Looking Good for Us, by Tom MacKay, Mic.com
    • , by Nafeez Ahmed, The Guardian
    • , by John Beddington CMG FRS, Government Office for Science (in the UK)
      "It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce around 50 per cent more food and energy, together with 30 per cent more fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events (Figure 7). The key questions for policy makers and scientists are these:
      • Can 9 billion people be fed equitably, healthily and sustainably?
      • Can we cope with the future demands on water?
      • Can we provide enough energy to supply the growing population coming out of poverty?
      • Can we do all this whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change?"
      To me, it seems extremely improbable that we will succeed n all these efforts. And collapse seems inevitable.


    Responding to Collapse,


    Peak Oil


    Climate Change

    • PBO: Most Canadians To Get More From Rebate Than They Pay In Carbon Tax, byMia Rabson, Canadian Press, Huffington Post
    • Climate change deniers are increasingly angry and hostile, by Michael Barnard, Medium
      "Cognitive dissonance at being forced off of position after position is leading to anger "
    • Why desperation could be the key to tackling climate change, by Cam Fenton, Open Democracy
      Extinction Rebellion, student strikes and the Green New Deal show that desperation is starting to define climate politics. This could be a game changer.
    • We Can Limit Human-Induced Global Warming to 1.5℃, but It Will Be Painful, by Keith Shine, The Wire
      "The report is sensitive to the fact that changes required to meet 1.5℃ must be consistent with the UN’s wider sustainable development goals. Limiting climate change will help meet goals associated with health, clean energy, cities and oceans. But there are potential negative impacts on others (poverty, hunger, water, energy access) “if not carefully managed."
      And that's about the most you're going to find anywhere in the climate change discussion about the consequences of doing something about climate change. I would say we really need to face up to how very painful it is going to be, that the idea that we can maintain and even increase prosperity while solving climate change is bizarre. But realizing at the same time that if we do nothing, it will be even worse.


    Hazard and Risk


    Agriculture

    Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are being spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.


    Practical Skills


    Debunking Resources

    These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.


    Science Based Medicine


    Lacking an Owner's Manual

    The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.


    Gender and Sexuality


    There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

    I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.


    Refugees and Migration


    Puerto Rico, Venezuela


    Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Housing


    Autonomous Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence


    Humour

    Books


    Fiction

    • Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves
      Book 3 in the Shetland mystery series
    • Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves
      Book 4 in the Shetland mystery series
    • Thin Air, by Richard Morgan
      Morgan's new science fiction novel, the first one in a long time, set inthe same universe as Black Man.
    • Join, by Steve Toutonghi


    Non-Fiction

    • Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff
      I very much on side with what Rushkoff is suggesting in this book, but I am afraid he uses a lot of outright woo to support it. A pity, since his position can easily be supported without any woo at all. I suspect this is a case of virtue signaling—saying certain things because your audience expects to hear them.
    • The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould
      I almost didn't read this book, based on what Murray and Herrenstein had to say about it in the Bell Curve. But like so much of what is in the Bell Curve, their comments on The Mismeasure of Man were just plain wrong. Gould's book was definitely worth reading.
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