Here are some articles that touch on issues I raise in my book, “The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide.”
The Race Between Tipping Points: Can We Save Our Civilization?
I’ve been studying global environmental issues for decades, and for perspective, I read about ancient civilizations that declined and collapsed. Most often, shrinking food supplies were responsible for their demise. For the Sumerians, rising salt levels in the soil — the result of a design flaw in their irrigation system — brought down wheat and barley yields, and eventually the civilization itself. For some other early civilizations that have collapsed, it was soil erosion that triggered their decline.
Does our civilization face a similar fate? Unless we can reverse the environmental trends that are undermining the world food economy, the answer may be yes. Here are the 10 greatest environmental threats I think we face today.
If it suddenly ended tomorrow, could you somehow adjust to the fall?
We’ve all played the “what if” game, and specifically the one with a timeline. What if I had six months to live? Would I live differently? Would I see somebody, or some place? How would I “make my peace” with the world and those I love?
Let’s kick it up a notch. It’s not one of us with six months to live, it’s the industrial economy. Now whatcha gonna do?
Climate Terror: Global Warming, Failed States, and the Rise of Terrorism
“Evidence is fast accumulating that, within our children’s lifetimes, severe droughts, storms and heat waves caused by climate change could rip apart societies from one side of our planet to the other. Climate stress may well represent a challenge to international security just as dangerous - and more intractable - than the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war or the proliferation of nuclear weapons among rogue states today.” – Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon, Leading Scholar on Environment and Conflict.
Related Posts
- Postcards from the End of the World as We Know It (01/26/10)
- China, Post-American World, Global Warming & … (05/12/08)
- Dollar and Gold are Soaring as World Flees Risk (02/17/09)
- Where in the World Is Sean Brodrick? (11/14/09)
- Where in the World is Sean Brodrick? (05/21/08)
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
January 21, 2010
Sean: Your interest and insight into survival is interesting and timely. Inadvertantly, your survival interests may be perpetuated by the sales and profit of your new book. My observation: While preparation, honing the mantality and skills of “self sufficiency” and awareness are wise, prepareing for the unknown can be expensive, elusive,and preoccupying. I would counsel moderation, a theoritical end-point to preparation, with an annual review and re-assessment, inorder to avoid the suductive and expensive preoccupation of never being quite ready-enough for the unknown, whenever it may envelope us.
Remember and return to your original strong tallent of assessing current and anticipated monetary, pol;itical and social events and how to profit from them. This exercise will encoumpass preparation.
Keep up the good work. Thanks
Bill Van Handel
Yes, I do believe modern civilization will encounter a food shortage crisis in the future. It is already starting to happen. I encourage all my friends to learn gardening skills, and to purchase arable land on the chance that it will be necessary to grow our own food. I also recommend they use heirloom seeds, rather than the sterile hybrid ones, so they can harvest viable seeds from their own plants rather than have to go to that monster Monsanto for sterile, genetically modified seeds. Monsanto may be able to pay for good press and Company of the Year status, but they can’t fool me!
Did you not catch the whole “Climate Gate” thing recently? It’s all been fabricated, my friend. That doesn’t mean what has been put in motion from false assumptions won’t have a major impact though.
Sean,
We can argue ‘global warming’ till we are blue in the face. The issue here is credibility. When you espouse a theory, whatever theory, that cannot be replicated by everyone in every lab, it is not ‘proven’. You are disposing of using the scientific method to come to conclusions, and dispensing with data that may be contrary to your position. You rely not on facts but on suppositions, hidden agendas (on both sides), and emotionalism. That is NOT an admirable trait for someone who we trust to be an unemotional, fact based, ‘analyst’.
Until the issue can be irrefutably proven (a la the earth revolves around the sun) it’s an opinion. I refuse to argue the other side, but I can give you a list of 32,000 scientists and engineers who refute the whole notion. I need my analyst to be more unemotional and data driven when he decides to pick sides. And now he has a hidden agenda to boot….selling books.
Bottom line: It needs further study before we go hell bent into destroying the oil economy we currently rely on for cheap energy and massive human productivity. You do yourself no favors with this.
Regards,
Bob
All of these problems will eventually climax in a time of trouble, then the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will destroy the wicked, raise the righteous dead, and transfer them and the righteous living to Heaven where there will be no trouble. Eventually this world will be recreated in its original pristine condition and reinhabited with perfect people.
dear sean:
you have destroyed any confidence in you that i may have had with your view on the envioroment. you obviously have an inability to get beyond your personal opinion and to rely upon the actual facts. we have been actually cooling for the past at least 11 years. have you forgotten what was taught in the fifties about the trend of the ice cap gradually receeding for several thousand years now. you apparently are not aware of the deceptive uses of those who wish to destroy our form of freedom that we have been able for some time to maintain. If I have misunderstood your comments, please inform me.
Those are wise words, William. Thanks.
Elizabeth, I think you’re going to like my book.
Hi, HJ. I disagree. I don’t think climate change is a fabrication. The denial camp blew some things out of proportion. But they’re on the payrolls of the coal and oil industries to do just that. Mission accomplished.
Now, the world may get cooler. The 11-year solar cycle peaks in a couple years and we seem to be in a VERY cool cycle. Scientists wonder if the lack of sunspots indicate something is going on with the sun.
But I can’t worry about something as big as the sun. I can worry about what I can see right in front of me. And the thing about scientists is they admit when they make mistakes and correct them. The noise machine on the other side never admits mistakes.
And supposing the “save the Earth” crowd is wrong. We end up with cleaner water and air, and less dependent on foriegn oil. That’s not so bad. Now suppose the other side is wrong. That’s not so good.
Hi, Bob. Governments around the world are going to throw money at global warming no matter what you believe. You can ignore that flood of money or profit from it. I know what I’m going to do.