The Organic Prepper – by Anonymous 411
Sometimes mainstream news outlets talk about historical disasters and make it seem like they’re “one-off” events. But really, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Our planet has a long history of life-altering disasters, and it’s a history that we can learn from now.
Preppers understand that disasters can happen and have a much more realistic on the scope of those catastrophes than the average person who is busy keeping up with the Kardashians. For your reference, here’s a brief history of the life-altering disasters that have been recorded and predicted. Go through the links and when you’re reading, click the other links to read more if this type of disaster is likely to strike in your area. Learn from historical events to be better prepared for future ones.
How the disasters are organized
The types of disasters have been divided into five levels based on the area potentially affected, the number of people potentially affected, and the frequency with which such disasters happen. Level 3 disasters will alter life as we know it, likely causing societal collapse. Those individuals prepared enough and lucky enough to survive a Level 4 disaster will have to rebuild civilization. In Level 5 disasters, everybody dies.
There can be devastating or catastrophic consequences caused by a disaster that results in even more human devastation than the original disaster itself. These could include riots, famine, epidemic, economic depression or collapse, disaster winter, war, and more.
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(Level 1) Individual, family, village
- Wild animals
- Warlike neighboring groups (tribes)
- Criminals
- Insane persons
- Weather
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(Level 2) City, region
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(Level 3) Nation, continent
- Economic depression
- Cyber attack
- EMP – Electromagnetic Pulse
- Failure of the electric grid – North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
- Government repression, Dictator, Dictatorship
- Pandemic
- Civil war
- Large war
- Supervolcano can result in Volcanic winter, see Volcanic Explosivity Index Yellowstone activity
- Medium size rocks from space
- Coronal mass ejection Space Weather Enthusiasts
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(Level 4) Planetary
- Over Population
- Exhaustion of Natural Resources, Resource depletion
- Pollution
- Ozone depletion
- Nuclear war can result in Nuclear winter
- Supervolcano, to extreme, can result in Volcanic winter
- Large Coronal mass ejection
- Reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field
- Large size rocks from space, another dinosaur killer event can result in Impact winter
- Self-aware computer(s) running amok
- Space alien invasion SETI Institute
- Climate change (doesn’t matter if caused by humans or is the natural progression of solar/planetary cycles)
(Level 5) Solar system (and larger?)
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- Sun goes nova or other major solar change
- Gamma ray burst
- Supernova within 10 to 20 lightyears
- Wandering Black Hole
- Rogue Planet
- Rogue Star
What you can learn
By far, the most likely disasters are 1, 2, and 3. These are the things for which most of us prep and we should learn all we can about them. Not only does this help us to be better prepared, but it can also predict the things that could go wrong next if it should cascade (and they nearly always do.) These should be the focus for your research.
Level 4 disasters are survivable to some extent, but those are the things that movies are made about. The death tolls would be very high and everything we know would change. Your skills, knowledge, and adaptability would stand second to your good luck of not being taken out in the initial catastrophe. (Or bad luck, depending on how you look at things.)
Level 5 events are extinction level events that are completely unsurvivable. It’s interesting to understand them, but there is virtually no kind of preparation that would allow for survival.
Well I guess it’s good that someone organized our potential disasters for us, but preparing for one is really no different than preparing for another.
For any of them, excluding the astronomical choices, it’s a matter of being able to eat and fight and heal without the help of anyone outside your surviving group. Collect everything you can to make this possible while you still have resources (money) to do so, and after that, rely on your mental abilities.
I think psychological preparation is what’s most commonly overlooked. We’ve had very pampered and sheltered lives, and the transition to a life of struggle, violence, and little to look forward to will be too much for many to bear.
Wowser, is that ever so true!!
I’m nearly uncomfortable, only because my comfort cup is overflowing. Don’t want hard times, but it looks like they be coming, regardless.
Funny thing was, when I was most physically miserable, I was most financially capable. My body got sold to the corporation. In getting fired, i was able to keep my soul, and thus wake up and heal.
While losing one’s pot to piss in, one must function otherwise.
Prepping was not in my lexicon when I had money enough to spare. Now that I know a little, the troubles could be a lot.