Last week’s blogpiece bemoaned our cultural focus on the future. During the intervening week I found myself guilty of that same error, although not a future of optimism. In a response to an online post I stated, ‘Unplanned collapse is what will happen…’ Another commentator rightly pulled me up on that comment. Unplanned collapse
Once, getting ready for the apocalypse was for the paranoid. Now, in the face of cyber-attacks, climate breakdown and nuclear threats, the UK government recommends it. Should everyone have a survival kit? This is a great time to be a shopkeeper, if that shop is for those worried about the breakdown of civilisation. “It started
In one hand, an oat latte. In the other, a phone with social feeds full of doom-scroll posts about the end of the world. Across Britain, a quiet transformation is happening. It’s not the stereotype of survivalist preppers hoarding beans in bunkers. It’s middle-class professionals - scientists, sustainability experts, teachers, doctors, policy analysts and management
Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. The world is fast approaching
The Snow Moon is certainly living up to its name this year. But then, the Wolf Moon was snowy also. In fact, there have been only a handful of days in 2025 when it was not snowing here in central Vermont — and only a couple days above freezing. So the garden is deeply buried
I’ve started a stockpile, but that isn’t the answer. If crisis strikes, the government needs a strategy to protect us all I hate to sound like a prepper, but I feel bound to confess that over the past month I’ve been stockpiling food. I think, if you can, you should do the same. I’ve put
Modern, overdeveloped societies in the West are already in a severe crisis, which will eventually turn into a long global emergency in the decades ahead. A five-century-long era of economic growth, ushered in by colonization and leading to the plundering of natural, mineral and most of all fossil fuel resources, is about to come
State Farm will almost entirely stop issuing new policies in California – with climate-exacerbated wildfires and bad public policy a large reason why State Farm, the country’s largest property insurer, announced this week that it will almost entirely stop issuing new policies in California, the country’s largest property insurance market. The reasons for forgoing all
As talk about the threat of nuclear war is being heard against the backdrop of the Ukraine war—and with continuing fears about climate change and economic turmoil—people are beginning to wonder how they can prepare for the worst. Building Collapse (Image: F. Anzola/Flickr) Concerns about a nuclear "Armageddon" or global food shortages may
Back in 2017, I was in a home with solar panels, but no battery backup. Hurricane Irma passed overhead, and I found myself without power for 24-48 hours. We lost all of our food as a result. When the storm passed, I called up the company that installed my solar panels and found that adding in