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Doomsday ‘Preppers’ Warn of Hard Times Ahead As Preparedness Goes Mainstream

Doomsday ‘Preppers’ Warn of Hard Times Ahead As Preparedness Goes Mainstream

Food scarcity. Food vouchers. Food riots and flash mobs.

All of that’s coming—and soon, says Texas-based food scientist and “Health Ranger” podcaster Mike Adams, who sees dire events unfolding in America in the short term.

His advice: people need to get prepared now.

“The thing to really watch for is the food inflation,” Adams said.

“My position is we’re going to see food riots in America before the end of this year. We’re going to see flash mobs in grocery stores—especially for meat products.

“Grocery stores are going to respond with increased security and checkpoints. At some point, we’re probably going to see an attempt at price controls and rationing. 

“And not on everything—certain types of things. It’s almost certain that the rationing they will attempt to enforce with a vaccine passport app that becomes a food rationing app,” Adams told The Epoch Times.

Adams is not alone in his predictions of hard times coming to America—and the world.

With food production buckling under the weight of runaway inflation, skyrocketing fuel costs, and fertilizer shortages, much of what’s in store is already “built-in.”

Unfertile Ground

In North America two years ago, it cost around $200 an acre to fertilize a 1,000-acre commercial farm, Adams said. Right now, with spring planting, farmers can expect to pay $1,200 to $2,000 an acre.

And consumers will pay for it in higher prices for basic necessities. 

“Many farmers are deciding not to plant. In addition, the diesel fuel prices and diesel fuel scarcity is going into their equation whether they should plant,” Adams said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trumpocalypse? Suddenly Liberals Are The Ones Stockpiling Food, Guns And Emergency Supplies

Trumpocalypse? Suddenly Liberals Are The Ones Stockpiling Food, Guns And Emergency Supplies

prepper-photo-by-nomadic-lass-on-flickrNow that the shoe is on the other foot, many liberals all over America have suddenly become extremely interested in prepping.  Fearing that a Trump presidency could rapidly evolve into a “Trumpocalypse”, a significant number of leftists are now stockpiling food, guns and emergency supplies.  In fact, even though many had expected a sharp drop in gun sales following Trump’s victory, what actually happened is that fear of what is coming under Trump pushed background checks for gun sales to an all-time record high on Black Friday.  The election of Donald Trump has awakened the left to a degree that we haven’t seen in decades, and some on the left are embracing hardcore survivalism without any apologies.

What is ironic about all of this is that on the other end of the political spectrum interest in prepping is probably the lowest that it has ever been in the history of the modern prepper movement.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about how it was like “a nuclear bomb went off in the prepping community“, and nothing has changed since that time.

In fact, since I originally wrote that article we have gotten some hard numbers that show how dramatically optimism about the future has surged among those on the right.

Just before the election, CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey found that only 15 percent of all Republicans believed that the economy would improve over the next year, but after the election that number skyrocketed all the way up to 74 percent.

But among Democrats it is a different story altogether.  That same CNBC survey found that optimism about the economy on the left fell by more than half after the election.  At this point, it is sitting at just 16 percent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to survive a global disaster: a handy guide

Whether it’s a natural disaster, bioterrorist attack or pandemic, experts reckon society as we know it will collapse within 13 days of a catastrophic event. So what do you do next?

Ubisoft’s role-playing shooter The Division wouldn’t be as much fun if players followed Nafeez Ahmed’s advice and stayed rural.

Ubisoft’s role-playing shooter The Division wouldn’t be as much fun if players followed Nafeez Ahmed’s advice and stayed rural.
Photograph: Ubisoft

On 22 June, 2001, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, organised a war game like no other. The two researchers, working with an array of bodies such as the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, set out to simulate the effects of a biological attack on the US. The project was called Operation Dark Winter.

What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope. Within two weeks there would be enormous civilian casualties, a catastrophic breakdown in essential institutions, and mass civil unrest. Food supplies, electricity and transport infrastructures would all collapse.

In short, the world would get medieval on America’s ass. And the same thing would happen all over the globe.

These days we’re spoiled for choice in terms of potential catastrophes. Natural and ecological disasters, nuclear weapons, terrorism, experimental technological accidents (“Oops, we’ve accidentally created Skynet”) – they’re all in the game. In 2008 a group of experts met at an Oxford University conference and suggested that there was a 19% chance of a global catastrophic event before 2100 (with super intelligent AI and molecular nanotechnology weapons at the top of the threat list). It was just a bit of fun, and they added plenty of caveats to that figure, but still, something to think about, eh?

With all this in mind, the Guardian spoke to the academic and author Nafeez Ahmed, who has studied global crises and mass violence, and recently advised Ubisoft on the authenticity of its post-pandemic video game, The Division.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Doomsday Bunkers of the Rich and Famous

Doomsday Bunkers of the Rich and Famous

Facing the zombie apocalypse as a super-wealthy person sure is different than it is for the rest of us mere mortals. While most of us would be ecstatically happy with a homemade bunker on the back 40 of our property, these luxury bunker apartments in a little village in Germany take survival retreats to a whole new level.

vivos outside

Originally, the 76 acre facility was built by the Soviets during the Cold War, for use as a military equipment storage facility, but due to regulations about the storage of ammunition, they were unable to continue with their plans. It was auctioned off by the German government and purchased by an investor.

California entrepreneur Robert Vicinio turned it into a facility called Vivos One, complete with 227,904 square feet of blast-proof luxury living space and more than 3 miles of tunnels. 34 “high net worth” families will be able to purchase one of the 2500 square foot residences where they can ride out the apocalypse in style.

vivos tunnels

Here’s a little tour.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Prep for a Summer Power Outage

How to Prep for a Summer Power Outage

Sometimes people think that a sumer power outage is easier to deal with than a winter one. After all, in the summer, you don’t have to worry about freezing to death, which is a very real threat during a long-lasting winter outage.

However, a summer power outage carries its own set of problems. Foremost are heat-related illnesses and the higher potential of spoilage for your food.

Even if you aren’t convinced that hardcore preparedness is for you, it would still be difficult to argue against the possibility of a disaster that takes out the power for a couple of weeks. Basic emergency preparedenss is important for everyone, not just us “crazy preppers.”

Just ask the people who lived through the Derecho of 2012 how unpleasant it was.  Severe, fast-moving thunderstorms (called derechos) swept through Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington DC. Millions lost power, an estimated 4 million for an entire week. As if a week-long power outage wasn’t miserable enough, that part of the country was in the midst of a record-setting heatwave during the time period.

Also keep in mind that summer stresses our fragile power grid to the max, as everyone increases their usage of electricity to try and keep cool with air conditioners and fans. This ups the chances of an outage even when there’s not a cloud in the sky.

Back in 2003, a software bug caused an extremely widespread power outage in the middle of August. It was a very hot day, and increased energy demand overloaded the system. Because of the issue with the software, engineers were not alerted of this, and what should have been a small local outage turned into an event that took out power for over 10 million Canadians and 45 million Americans. I remember this one clearly because the little sub shop beside my workplace gave away all the perishable food that they had out at the time before it spoiled and I took home fresh sandwiches for my girls’ dinner that night. We sweated uncomfortably through the next two days until the power was restored.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

How to Properly Debate a Non Prepper

How to Properly Debate a Non Prepper

Let me start by saying that I almost never do this. I hate giving people a hard time for their opinions, even if they’re wildly divergent from my own. But sometimes, people say things that are so baseless and ignorant, they demand a response.

Such is the case with a piece published yesterday at piquenewsmagazine.com, by Leslie Anthony. His article “Be prepared for Preppers” may be one of the most outrageous attempts to smear the prepper community, that I’ve ever seen.

Normally this wouldn’t warrant a response from any of us. We’re all thick skinned people who’ve faced our fair share criticism for our lifestyle, but in the course of painting us all as dumb, paranoid losers, he actually managed to present himself as a prime example of why we prep for disasters. Dissecting his article also presents an opportunity to dispel a few myths about preppers, so let’s dive right in.

After starting his article with the Oxford definition of a prepper, which is “a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition, and other supplies.” He immediately associates this definition with being a part of a lunatic fringe.

Thus, “prepper” doesn’t apply to those who carry an extra house key, a first-aid kit and roadside flares to accompany their spare tire, or who might be hoarding enough popcorn and juice boxes to get through a blackout. Instead, the term more rightly fingers conspiracy theorists and anti-government nut-jobs who are strangely looking forward to a biblical End of Days to descend they can break out their toys and supplies to fight the resulting looting-spree / civil-war / zombie-apocalypse.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

12 Strategies for Creating the Perfect Pantry

12 Strategies for Creating the Perfect Pantry

There are a lot of different ways to go about building your pantry.  While each style has its pros and cons, I think that adhering to any one strategy alone leaves some gaps in your food preparedness. Personally, I’m a fan of combining the best of each world based on the needs of your particular family. Enjoy this excerpt from the updated version of my book, The Pantry Primer.

 Excerpt from The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget

Looking for a strategy to create your own pantry? There are a lot of different philosophies out there, but I think it boils down to three basic types of food supplies:

  • The Bunker Pantry
  • The Agrarian Pantry
  • The Bargain-Hunter’s Pantry

This doesn’t mean you are stuck with just one strategy, however. All of the types have positives and negatives. Learn about these food storage ideologies and then take the most applicable components for your situation. Combine them to create your own version of the Perfect Pantry. Use strategies from each type to create a stockpile that meets your family’s needs.

The Bunker Pantry

This is the most “hardcore” of the food storage types.  A Bunker Pantry is the type of food supply that could keep you going for the next ten years without a single trip to the store.  Sure, it might be a little bit boring and lacking in variety, but it is a supply that will see you through any disaster while allowing you to remain in your shelter.  This type of pantry focuses on huge quantities of long-term foods, repackaged carefully to resist spoilage due to pests or the elements.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

Looking for Motivation? 21 Preppers Share the Stories of How They Got Started

Looking for Motivation? 21 Preppers Share the Stories of How They Got Started

One of the most common questions I’m asked in interviews is how I got started prepping. That crucial moment when you decide that you need to change the way you live is paramount to understanding the motivation to live a prepared lifestyle.

Recently, I asked many of you how you started out, too, for an article I was working on.  You answered via email and social media, and I so thoroughly enjoyed hearing your stories that I decided to publish some of them in this collection, as opposed to merely quoting bits and pieces in the original article I had planned.

Sometimes I think we all have days where we lose our prepper mojo just a little bit. These stories of our awakenings can serve as a reminder to push you through the low spots, and they just might inspire someone who is considering becoming more prepared to take the leap. For privacy reasons, I’ve redacted anything that might identify the person or their location.

How I Got Started Prepping

20 years ago, I was a new mom to a lovely baby girl. My husband had a good job, we had an adorable little apartment, and we were doing okay on our small budget.  Then, when my daughter was just 3 weeks old, my husband came home unexpectedly in the middle of the day.

His good job was no more. Completely out of the blue, he had been laid off.

Panic ensued. Rent was due, which used up most of his paycheck, and we had 2 jars of peanut butter, 10 bags of bagels in the freezer, and a garden that had just been planted in the yard, but had not yet produced anything we could eat.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

How to Prep When You’re NOT an Epic Wilderness Survival Guru

How to Prep When You’re NOT an Epic Wilderness Survival Guru

Did you ever read a blog post on a prepper site and sigh, because the person writing the post seemed to have been born a survivalist?

In your mind’s eye, you could envision them at the tender age of six, weaving a snare from some vines that they wisely assessed not to be poison ivy, catching a rabbit, skinning and gutting it with a pocketknife, and cooking it over a fire they started with two sticks that they rubbed together, while wearing their little elementary-school-sized camo outfit.

Discouraging, isn’t it?

But not everyone can be Daryl Dixon.

In fact, I really don’t believe that the majority of preppers actually are rugged survival gurus. Most of us had to make a conscious effort to learn. Most of us aren’t wilderness guides or professional hunters or military special forces operatives.  We don’t regularly pop a deer in the backyard with a homemade bow, we don’t have a bunker with 30 years of storable food and an aquifer we can access from within the safety of its walls, we don’t isolate our children from all forms of popular culture, and we don’t live in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the woods that we have to carefully climb a tree while clenching a laptop in our teeth to get an internet signal. We aren’t all off-grid homesteaders that weave our own fabric from the sheep we nurtured through a Himalayan winter.

Nope.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

 

San Andreas for Preppers: 12 Earthquake Survival Lessons from the Movie

San Andreas for Preppers: 12 Earthquake Survival Lessons from the Movie

Nothing warms my prepper’s heart more than a good disaster movie that supports my hypotheses about a specific event, and the recent movie San Andreas was no exception.

Okay, sure, there was some pretty unrealistic stuff like when The Rock was driving a boat through post-tsunami San Francisco and just happened to find his daughter that he was looking for. The last time I went to San Francisco, my daughter and I had trouble finding each other on the first floor of Forever 21, for crying out loud.

But, when you only have two hours for a movie, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief somewhat and put that kind of stuff aside.  So. putting that aside, I enthusiastically recommend the movie. We live about 4 hours from San Francisco and go there occasionally for educational outings to the excellent museums, so the setting was quite familiar to us, as was the premise of what would occur if an earthquake happened there. So familiar that my daughter was the frequent recipient of my elbow, as I whispered, “See!!!! I told you this was what would happen if the Big One hit that time we went to the Science Museum!”  Trooper that she is, she said, “Yes, Mom, I know, you were right about that too.” Since she’s a teenager, she probably also rolled her eyes each time, but it was dark and I can’t be absolutely certain of that.

As I’ve said before, you can’t overestimate the value of finding entertainment that enhances your preparedness mindset. A movie is like the prepper version of a sporting event, where we can cheer, jeer, and scheme our ways through some imagined event.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Primitive Survival Skills: Surviving Without Supplies

Primitive Survival Skills: Surviving Without Supplies

Although modern day technology has made outdoor living easier than the last few thousand years it is still very important to have knowledge of primitive survival skills. Knowing primitive survival skills will ensure survival without gear or supplies.

A vast majority of people lately have been gathering gear and supplies for various scenarios such as natural disasters, economical collapses, and even possible martial law.  However, although having a stockpile of gear and supplies is great, preparing to survive without gear is even better.  This is because situations may occur where individuals and even entire families may not have an opportunity to gather their supplies in case of an emergency.

Primitive Survival Skills

This is where primitive survival skills come in handy.  Knowing how to stay warm, create shelter against the elements, construct weapons and tools, and of course gather and hunt for food without any modern gear will prove to be a useful feat that many others may not even be aware of.

Collect Rocks and Wood to make Weapons and Tools  

The first task that should be completed is creating tools and weapons that can be composed together from the elements that are around.  This includes sharpening rocks to be used as knives and spear like weapons as well as wrapping strips of vine around both wood and blunt rock in order to create tools such as mallets or hammers for building shelter.  Keep in mind that this task should be done immediately as the tools will provide for a much easier experience while completing the other tasks such as gathering food and building a fire.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Should I Do? – Crash Course Chapter 26

What Should I Do? – Crash Course Chapter 26

Chapter 26 of the Crash Course — the final chapter — is now publicly available and ready for watching below.

If there’s one message to take away from this newly-updated Crash Course video series, it’s this:  It’s time for you to become more resilient and more engaged. Things are changing quickly and nobody knows how much time we have before the next economic, ecological or energy related crisis erupts.  Nobody knows when, but we do have a pretty good idea of what is coming.

Either you respond to these inevitable changes or they will happen to you.  That’s the simple choice we all face.

Yet I really want you to understand that this is not a message of doom and gloom, but one of excitement and hope.  How so?

Because it is within your control to enter the coming future with a higher degree of security, prosperity and fulfillment than you enjoy now.

By using the time we still have available to us now, before the trends described within the Crash Course arrive in force, to build resilience. To invest in the practices that will increase your quality of life, whatever the future may bring.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

All Over America, Government Officials Are Cracking Down On Preppers

All Over America, Government Officials Are Cracking Down On Preppers

Why would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families?  There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought that there are families out there that actually want to try to become less dependent on the system.  So if you use alternative methods to heat your home, or if you are not connected to the utility grid, or if you collect rainwater on your property, or if you believe that parents should have the ultimate say when it comes to health decisions for their children, you could become a target for overzealous government enforcers.  Once upon a time, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are being transformed into a socialist police state where control freak bureaucrats use millions of laws, rules and regulations to crack down on anyone that dares to think for themselves.

For example, people have been burning wood to heat their homes since this country began.  And this is still very common in rural areas.  But the Obama administration does not like this at all.  The Obama bureaucrats at the EPA fear that our little wood stoves may be contributing to “global warming”, so they have outlawed the production and sale of 80 percent of the wood stoves that are currently in use.  The following comes from a recent Forbes article

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to make Meals in a Jar

How to make Meals in a Jar.

How much easier would it be to have a meal ready to cook by only adding water, or adding some meat and maybe some canned tomatoes?  There are many books on the market for making meals in a jar for meat eaters and vegetarians plus dehydrated meals for hikers and campers.  If using dehydrated or freeze dried meat, the only item necessary to add is water.  You can make your own MRE’s at a fraction of the price.  If properly sealed, meals in a jar or Mylar pouch will last easily 7-10 years!  So let’s get started.

The first thing I did was to learn how to make mixes for baking and soups, etc. by reading and by watching youtube.com.  I have several links at the bottom that will introduce recipes; but more important, basic skills to learn.  Improperly sealed jars or pouches means food goes to waste to soon.

The first process I go through in developing a mix or a recipe is to identify which recipes I use that are adaptable to storing in a jar.  I look for those with a majority of dry ingredients.  I lean toward recipes with lots of dried veggies including beans.  You will see a video later on how to treat beans if you want to use them in your meals in a jar.  Pasta in any form is great.  As a Vegan, I do not use real meat, but there are many meat substitutes out there many with beef or chicken flavorings.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Preppernomics: How to Survive While the Dollar Dies

Preppernomics: How to Survive While the Dollar Dies

 

I really don’t like to make predictions.

I’m not Zoltan, the fortune-telling dude in the machine  – you know, the one with the turban who waves his mechanical hands dramatically over a crystal ball and tells you of your future in a heavily accented voice.

But, I think there is something coming in 2015 that we all need to be concerned about, and I wouldn’t be doing my job, writing these posts, if I didn’t warn you.

Some people are going to roll their eyes and call me a doomer. Some people are going to say, “You warned us about stuff all the time, and it hardly ever happens.” Some people are going to revert to cognitive dissonance and say, “Life is too short to worry all the time.”

But there is something very troubling on the horizon, and it’s going to affect us all. From most reports, the outlook for 2015 is not particularly bright.

Economically speaking, the bottom is falling out.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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