10 Things To Do Now
Find out more about common sense survival prepping right here
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Why your family might not survive the coming crisis
Today I want to talk to you about something very serious
but a little bit uncomfortable.
But before I do, I want you to ask yourself this vital
question:
"What steps would I take to ensure my family's safety and
security after a crisis or natural disaster?"
There is no humorous way to say this so let's not beat
around the bush. I want to talk to you about the many
reasons why your family might not survive a crisis.
* The most common killers
Let's say that a crisis situation descends on your area,
whether it's a natural disaster, an industrial disaster, a
financial disaster, or a conflict disaster.
Depending on the type, the disaster itself might not even
be the biggest killer. The aftermath can often do just as
much damage to an insufficiently prepared population.
Thirst is one of the major killers in nearly all disaster
scenarios. You can survive for three weeks without food,
but only three days without water.
Because the water supply is often one of the first things
to get affected in a catastrophe, it is incredibly
important to have access to clean water.
In addition, you should have several ways of filtering and
purifying unclean water.
Just like we often take water for granted today, we often
take protection against the elements for granted. But
insufficient protection against weather weakens and kills.
It is not just a matter of having the tools to stay warm
in the cold, or cool off in extreme heat.
Without staying dry and out of the wind, you'll become
more susceptible to cold weather.
Hygiene is another factor that we take for granted, but in
a survival scenario, poor hygiene leads to infections that
affect your overall survival odds.
Lastly, there is the human factor: violence.
As much as we would like to think that an emergency brings
out the best in us, our most compassionate selves, in
some people it unleashes the beast.
But, more so than making already ambiguously moral people
bad, disasters have a way of bringing out the
opportunists and giving rise to already violent tendencies.
Take Houston, Texas, for example: When the victims of
Hurricane Katrina was sheltered there, homicides went up
by 23%.
"But what about hunger?" you may ask. "I have all of these
food preps!"
Of course, hunger kills. Hunger leaves you weak, as well
as open to viruses and bacteria. But you knew that! You've
prepped for it or you are prepping for it now.
Your family probably won't be dying from hunger.
* Incorrect prepping
That said when it comes to longer-term disaster
situations, food availability does, of course, play an
important role.
Faced with a three-year disaster, you won't survive if your
food preps expire in a year. And if all you have are beans
and rice, you may suffer from palate fatigue and fall prey
to illness.
Incorrect prepping kills. That said, it's not usually
incorrect food prepping that is the most immediate killer.
The real problem arises when the entire family's needs
aren't fully considered.
For example, if you have young children their needs will
be different from yours, and if you don't prep properly
for your pets, they may not make it.
This goes far beyond food and water and into other aspects
such as protection against the elements, first aid,
hygiene products, and more.
Bug-out scenarios are particularly precarious. Fleeing
home means that incorrect prepping becomes all the more
dangerous.
Failing to prep medications is a killer in a large number
of scenarios that most preppers would not even consider
disasters or emergencies.
Even a few days of being snowed in can become highly
dangerous if you don't stock your medications and supply
is running low.
* Dependency
Dependency is the deadly cousin of incorrect prepping. In
particular, I am talking about dependency on people.
Let's say that there is a bug-out scenario and you are far
away and unable to get to your family.
What would that mean for them if you are the only one who
is strong enough to carry the main bug-out bag with the
necessary supplies?
What would that mean for them if you are the only one who
knows how to use all of those survival supplies?
What if you have designed the entire bug-out plan around
your very specific survival skills?
Your family will be dead in the water without you.
There are some dependencies that you just have to accept,
of course. An infant will not carry on without you, nor
will a weak elderly or handicapped family member.
When it comes to certain dependants, such as certain types
of pets, you might even have to make the tough decision to
sacrifice them because of their dependency.
* Insufficient skills
Last, but certainly not least, your family simply might not
have the knowledge or capabilities to survive. When you are
the lead survivalist in the family, their insufficient
skills can lead to dependency.
But insufficient skills can apply to anyone and does not
necessarily mean that some family members are more
dependent than others.
Insufficient skills often boils down to not enough drills.
It is not enough to have the tools; you have to know how
to use them in a given emergency. That will give you the
ability AND the confidence to see it through.
Don't forget about the little ones. A lot of smaller
children have routines that they are used to and will have
a massive meltdown when those routines are broken.
Your toddler won't be able to learn to build a shelter,
but he should, for example, be able to fall asleep, to
eat, and to stay relatively quiet in an emergency
scenario.
I hope that was more eye-opening than terrifying, although
a little bit of fear is not necessarily a bad thing!
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Main Causes of Food Shortages
This is not just an academic exercise; it's one that will
help you to see food shortages as they develop - before
it's too late.
Unfortunately, you may have many opportunities to watch
these common food shortage causes unfold.
Food shortages are currently a reality affecting large
parts of the world, including impoverished families in
developed countries.
Greece, Spain, China, India, and Venezuela are just some
of the countries where very large numbers of people are
currently going hungry. But, hunger is coming closer and
closer to home.
with the uncertainty of not knowing when and where they
will get their next meal.
What causes this widespread hunger?
* Nature
Extreme weather is increasing in many parts of the world.
Drought, in particular, has been a major player in food
shortages during these early years of the 21st century.
It is currently the most common reason for the food shortage.
Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Guatemala are just some of
the countries currently suffering from several years'
long food crisis at the hands of drought.
Although the farmers in these countries are used to
dealing with low levels of rainfall, often by selling off
livestock, several consecutive years of drought have left
their resources depleted.
* Poverty
A more common reason for hunger in all regions of
the world is the economy.
Greek charities report that around 90% of the people in
lower class city neighborhoods are currently subsiding on
food banks and soup kitchens.
The cause? The collapse of the Greek economy in 2009.
Without jobs, it doesn't matter that there is food to be
had; many people can no longer afford it.
And when the poor are hungry, they are weak, more likely
to fall ill, and less likely to be able to take action to
get out of poverty and satiate their hunger.
Poverty is a self-perpetuating hunger cycle.
* Lacking infrastructure
In the developing world, one of the main reasons for
hunger is that the infrastructure needed to feed the
hungry is not prioritized, or there are no funds for it.
There are not enough roads, silos, and warehouses. There
is no infrastructure for getting water to the crops.
This either raises the costs of the food produced beyond
what people can pay, or it means that the food does not
get to the people regardless of what they are willing to
pay.
At its worst, it means that food is produced but spoils.
This is a major problem for many developing countries; yet
their governments continue to spend money on urban
developments.
Because the farmers cannot sell their food, they cannot
grow more, and so a downward spiral begins.
* Unsustainable farming practices
This world is rife with unsound farming practices.
Deforestation, overgrazing, and over-cropping are just a
few of the problems the environment faces.
We poison our water with fertilizers, and we kill all of
the pollinators with insecticides so that our crops won't
grow in the future.
We leave our fields bare in the winter winds, leading to
large soil losses and we spread human waste on food
crops, introducing diseases into our soil.
We plow and we spray so much that nothing lives in the
soil, and the only way to make it fertile again is to
poison our water with more chemical fertilizers.
Never mind how we are patenting modified seed so that
farmers in developing countries can't save seed from year
to year but have to plunge into financial ruin and go
hungry themselves.
Don't get me wrong; I love the countryside and have great
respect for farmers. It is really good out there!
But, there are also widespread bad practices, even in the
developed world. Farmers are often forced into these
practices by government subsidies and regulations.
In many parts of the world, the soil is simply dying. There
is nothing left for it to give - until, of course, we
start taking better care of it.
When the soil erodes, salinate and becomes desert, people
go hungry.
* War
Lastly, the war continues to be the main reason for hunger and
food shortages in the 21st century.
Unlike during World War II, when food imports were cut off
and supplies had to be saved for the troops, war-based
food crises today are often more acute.
Many of the current armed conflicts are displacing
millions of refugees. These refugees need to be fed, and
the regions giving them refuge cannot feed all of those
new hungry mouths.
It's not because those regions aren't normally perfectly
well-equipped to feed their people. There are just, very
suddenly, too many of them to feed.
There you have it, and that is not even getting into the
postulated reasons for coming food crises, such as global
climate change. But it's a good start to understanding why
so many go hungry now and why your family might go without
Thursday, June 13, 2019
7 Shopping Strategies to Build Your Disaster Supplies
By now you have some idea of what it means to be a
prepper and you are probably ready to get started
collecting your own survival supplies.
It can be a daunting project at first. On the one hand,
you want as many preps at home as soon as possible, but on
the other hand, covering all your bases would take a hefty
budget.
I wish that I could tell you that you can have it all, but
the truth is that you are going to have to decide which is
more important to you:
Amassing preps quickly - or - Amassing preps cheaply
You will also have to decide whether it is more important
to have the highest quality preps or to have higher
quantity.
Prepping is all about prioritizing. If you are not already
a master prioritizer, then prepping will help you develop
the skills to get there.
To help you get started, here are seven strategies that
you can use when building your disaster supplies.
1. Prepper kits... and we're done!
For the prepper who has no shortage of money and wants to
feel safe as soon as possible, there are a great number of
survivalist kits available.
You don't have to calculate your family's calorie needs or
learn to make 500 different dishes with rice and beans;
all you need to do is buy a six- or twelve-month food kit.
You don't have to go through the trouble of researching
and building a bug-out bag or car kit because they're
available pre-made online.
First-aid kits, water purification kits, survival cooking
kits, survival knife kits, survival garden kits ... these
can all be bought and shipped to your location.
Even if there are some quite competitively priced kits out
there, you are going to end up spending a lot of money.
That is just not a possibility for everyone.
For others, stocking only these ready-made kits is
unthinkable because generic kits are not tailored to their
individual needs.
It is hard to argue with the convenience, though, of
being fully prepared as soon as your kit arrives.
2. Starting with what's lethal
Everyone who doesn't have more money than they have time
is going to have to decide where to start with this
the overwhelming task of prepping.
One way to go about it is starting with what could kill
you.
Do you have severe allergies? If so, what would happen if
you got an allergic reaction while the roads are blocked
or there is no one home to drive you to the hospital?
What would you do if you cut yourself deeply while
cooking? Do you have the tools on hand to handle that
until you can get to a medical professional?
Do you have extremely cold winters and rely only on an
electric heating system?
With this strategy, you won't be prepared for everything
immediately, but you will survive deadly scenarios!
3. Starting with what is likely
If you don't want to start with what is lethal, you can
start with what is most likely. This is a very simple and
efficient way of prioritizing your shopping.
In its very essence, this strategy asks the question: Am I
most likely to lose my job or live through a zombie
apocalypse?
If the answer is "zombie apocalypse," that's the
scenario
you'll prepare for first.
Of course, you will probably start by preparing for a
power outage, an accident, a lost job or being snowed in
and then work your way up.
You won't be prepared for everything for a long time, but
the odds will always be in your favor.
4. Starting with the short-term
Prepping for the short-term first, moving into the
This way, you are not making guesses as to what kinds of
situations you ought to be preparing for. You are
preparing for them all, but starting small.
The upside is that you are preparing for a wide range of
scenarios.
The downside is that some of those scenarios may last for
much longer in duration than what you will be ready for
in quite some time.
5. Low-budget strategies
The prepper who has a strict budget to work with has many
great strategies to apply in combination with one of the
last three shopping priorities.
Classic low-budget strategies such as buying in bulk,
buying from wholesale corporations and clipping coupons
can, with great benefit, be used by preppers.
Preppers with a cash trickle instead of a cash flow, who
find it difficult to justify large purchases even to
justify savings, can start by buying just a few extra
items on each shopping trip.
Truly handy preppers can create their own preps by buying
produce very cheaply at the end of the season and canning
or drying it themselves.
6. Quality over quantity
If you are a stickler for quality, you may choose to prep
more slowly in order to save up money for the very best.
If that is the case, know now that you are in good
company. The survivalist and prepper communities are full
of people who share a love for fine things - especially
if those high-quality things involve knives, tools and
weapons.
Better quality often means better durability. Beware,
though, of dooming yourself to inertia simply because you
want the best. Sometimes it is better to compromise.
7. The middle road
It's okay to want the best, but sometimes you have to
settle. Maybe you can invest in the best possible knife,
but spend less on a handgun?
Maybe the best costs so much that you are saying no to a
a large number of crucial preps when something a little less
perfect would do just as well.
You have to weigh the cost of having the best of the best
Otherwise, you may have a great knife but go hungry in a
disaster.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)