National Risk Register/National Resilience Update - Nothing new to us.

[HorseGuy]

If it went in for years there would be soooooooo many talks at your local community hall on how to work around it.

Little businesses would spring up maybe making shoes out of old tyres (as in the poorer African countries.)

Lamps from bottles, shed illuminators made out of plastic drinks bottles etc etc.

When you have to, you usually can.

Indeed! I don't doubt that for a second. When push comes to shove never underestimate the power and ingenuity of the human spirit and what some people are capable of when required.

Still, given a choice between having a pair of rough, handmade shoes constructed from pieces of car tyre and old fabric sewn together or having a spare pair of brand new waterproof Altberg boots I know which option I would prefer.

 

[GeraldTheBonsai]

If it went in for years there would be soooooooo many talks at your local community hall on how to work around it.

Little businesses would spring up maybe making shoes out of old tyres (as in the poorer African countries.)

Lamps from bottles, shed illuminators made out of plastic drinks bottles etc etc.

When you have to, you usually can.

True. But.
How many people today have the knowledge to build / make the most basic of things, let alone the tools to do it?

 

[Pattree]

True. But.
How many people today have the knowledge to build / make the most basic of things, let alone the tools to do it?

Nearly all of us. We’d share tools, knowledge and stuff. It’s happened in the lifetime of many of us here.

 

[ONE]

True. But.
How many people today have the knowledge to build / make the most basic of things, let alone the tools to do it?

A surprisingly large number. If you think more along the lines of a reversion to early industrialisation, rather than going all the way back to being hunter gatherers, a lot of the skills & technologies are still out there.

 

[GeraldTheBonsai]

I would argue that you are looking at this scenario from the perspective of someone who is able to manage these challenges, such as someone who is familiar with bushcraft, prepping, DIY or general real world problem solving. My suspicion is that the vast majority of the urban population wouldn't have a clue what to do in the event of even a minor outage of some sort, let alone a prolonged outage.

Consider how many people in big cities are totally dependant on our Just In Time logistics networks.

 

[Pattree]

I believe that you are seriously underestimating peoples abilities to overcome.

In there of a major system failure we wouldn’t go back to some sort of amiss Marple era. We would ALL be Modern people with modern understanding of what is possible.

Those who understand the fundamentals of communications and information handling would be every bit as useful as gardeners and carpenters.

Have you ever flown over Brum in daylight and seen all those houses stretching into the distance? Do you really think that a Bushcrafters knowledge would be more useful in that environment that the collected brains of those people? Multiply the houses by an average of four - that’s a LOT of brains. They also have large scale organisational skills. In fact that is probably the most dangerous aspect: The development of gang/tribal cultures. It happened during the blitz in London.

A big knife and a hammock are not the solution to a societal breakdown.
There simply aren’t enough trees to swing from.

 

[HorseGuy]

My suspicion is that the vast majority of the urban population wouldn't have a clue what to do in the event of even a minor outage of some sort, let alone a prolonged outage.

I believe that you are seriously underestimating peoples abilities to overcome.

Despite being polar opposite I think there's some truth to both of these comments and the reality would lie somewhere inbetween these two extremes.

My guess is that if there were prolonged power outages and shortages of essential products and services a huge portion of the population would be totally lost and would struggle to adapt even with help and instruction from other people. These people could easily find themselves in considerable and even potentially life threatening trouble as a result of their inability for self-survival. However I do also think that there would also be a sufficiently large enough portion of the population who would know how to cope or would at least be quick enough to learn from others and adapt to a basic skill level so that they would be more or less be alright.

 

[GeraldTheBonsai]

Unfortunately I have a somewhat jaundiced view of people in general and the masses in particular. However, let's agree to differ.

What i do think will happen is that those among us who have these skills and knowledge will very rapidly be in demand.

 

[ONE]

will very rapidly be in demand.

Yes. And I'm not sure that's a good thing!

 

[slowworm]

What i do think will happen is that those among us who have these skills and knowledge will very rapidly be in demand.

Tethered to someone who lost their sight looking at the meteor shower?

 

[Falstaff]

Cannot remember where, but came across a pair of those truck tyre sandals and they were bloody good, and comfortable.
Wish I could remember where, it was probably either Nepal or Barbados, but I might be completely wrong.

 

[Woody girl]

Cannot remember where, but came across a pair of those truck tyre sandals and they were bloody good, and comfortable.
Wish I could remember where, it was probably either Nepal or Barbados, but I might be completely wrong.

How good are they in the snow?

 

[TLM]

How good are they in the snow?

Well, one uses winter tires for a start ...

But they would still be quite bad, frozen toes you know ...

 

[Woody girl]

Gatwick presently without water after power cut at water treatment plant. It can happen anywhere any time. Store some water!

 

[Nice65]

Picked this out of an email from a friend who’s running NEB showings in her area. There’s serious opposition to companies and the government making people aware.

“There is a serious question… about why the public hasn’t been made aware of this assessment,”he said.

https://www.farminguk.com/news/uk-food-supply-at-risk-of-catastrophic-failure-by-2030-report-warns_68225.html?link_id=2&can_id=9f4208928aed069745d71af625613e8c&source=email-an-invitation-to-preview