Ice, Sun Spots, and the World Bank

You've got to love a story that states: "Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction." Right up my paranoid alley. Please read the full article and note the middle third which discusses grid failure and consequences thereof.

[The second paragraph includes this alarming thought: "The World Bank declares America a developing nation." Are you kidding me? If something of this consequence happens, I don't think the World Bank is going to be declaring much of anything. Besides, how will the declaration get distributed, Town Crier? That's like saying after Hurricane Katrina the NOLA sidewalks were a real mess.]

The purpose of sharing such a dire prediction is to again illustrate how perilous is our modern way of living. We are overly dependent on frail things. If a routine Midwest ice storm can knock out power to a quarter million electric customers (that's houses, not people), imagine what a real disaster could do. Forget the civil unrest arising from Barry O's zealous attempt to declare martial law on our thermostats, what if a massive volcano, a continent-rocking earthquake, or blasted sun spot smacked us square on the chin. The declarations of the World Bank would be the absolute least of our problems.

Some people call this event SHTF (Shallots Hit The Fan) (a reference to an apocalyptic salad-making disaster). Personally, I think it should mean when the Suburbs Hit The Fan. Well, whatever it means, you get the point. When anything hits a fan, it gets radically "re-ordered". Such will be the result when the modern-world-HTF. That's when Plan A fails to work. The idea of storing up water and rations in your urban/suburban home is painfully laughable. How much food can you put away to survive the utter implosion of "the grid" - water, electricity, gas, petroleum, medicine, fire/safety, yada, yada, yada? Let's say you're a devout Mormom and you've got your food store topped off - a year's larder well provisioned. When the first anniversary of SHTF rolls around, then what? There is still is no grid because the ability to rebuild the grid is bound up within the grid. Think about it! What resources - raw and energy - will you access to reconstruct a first-world energy network? (And who is going to build blown transformers when they're hustling to feed their family??)

Food? You've eaten through your rice and beans (cooked with rainwater over a fire in the back yard). How much salt do you have stored? How much sugar? How much baking soda or cooking oil? Maybe you've managed to get a garden going in the yard (cultivated with a neighbor's shovel, sown with bartered seeds, and fertilized with (now valuable) dog poo), but more than a few city dwellers (the fortunate ones in the suburbs near a park or creek) have fried a raccoon in it's own fat before the year is out. Yes, I think SHTF is going to be a relatively far reaching problem that is not resolved by a trip to WalMart.

That's when Plan B comes in handy. This is my gift to you.

Our Saviour Jesus also cautioned about what to do in event of TEOTWAWKI (because of SHTF): "Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city." (Luke 21:21) (Editor's note: Jesus was strictly speaking of the end times and or His return and or the sacking of Jerusalem. In any case, I think the point is that you don't want to be in a grid-dependent city when the shallots get close to the blades.)

This is when you grab your B.O.B., G.O.O.D., and implement the Plan B for which you have carefully prepared.