14 – Going Back to Basics

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In a discussion with a friend recently we were commenting that the environmentalists aren’t going to be happy until they push us back into the Nineteenth Century. No oil, gas, or electricity. No internal combustion engines. No cars or airplanes. No radio or TV. Nothing plastic. Just the simple, carefree life that our great-great-grandparents lived.

That discussion brought to mind a book I have at home—Connections, by James Burke. With the proper attribute to Mr. Burke, I’m going to share with you a part of Chapter One. The chapter is titled “The Trigger Effect.”

Mr. Burke begins the chapter by telling about the failure of one small circuit breaker in a power plant at Niagara Falls, NY, on the evening of November 9, 1965. The failure of that circuit breaker led to a cascade of events that within twelve minutes resulted in the largest power failure in history. For the next several hours the lives of 13 million people were affected, and 80,000 square miles of one of the most heavily industrialized and densely populated areas in the world ground to a halt.

The thesis Mr. Burke is setting up is that our modern technology-based society is so interconnected that the failure of one small thing, insignificant of itself, could bring down our entire society. With that thought in mind, let’s pick up Mr. Burke’s narrative mid-way thru Chapter One…

 

“At this point another myth arises: that of the escape to a simpler life. This alternative was seriously considered by many people in the developed countries immediately after the rise in oil prices in 1973, and is reflected in the attitudes of the writers of doomsday fiction. The theory is that when sabotage or massive system failure one day ensures the more-or-less permanent failure of the power supply, we should return to individual self-sufficiency and the agrarian way of life.

“But consider the realities of such a proposal. When does the city peasant decide that his garden (should he possess one) can no longer produce enough vegetables to support him and his family? Does he join (or worse, follow) the millions who have left the city because their supplies have run out?

“He has no choice. The grocery store shelves are empty. There is no water in the pipes, no electricity in the wires. The sewers no longer work. He must leave or die.

“So he leaves the city. Supposing he has some means of transportation, is there any fuel available? Does he possess the equipment needed for survival on the journey? Does he even know what that equipment is? 

“Once the decision to leave has been made, the modern city-dweller is alone as he has never been alone before. His survival is, for the first time, entirely in his own hands.

“Does he know in which direction to go? Few people have more than a hazy notion of where the agriculturally-productive areas of their country are. Nonetheless, he decides to head in the general direction of one of these valleys of plenty. Can he continue to find fuel for as long as it will take to get there? Can he find enough food to sustain himself and his family during the trip?

“As he joins the millions of other evacuees fleeing the cities, looking for that ‘simpler life,’ does he possess things those other refugees might want or need? If so, and they decide to take them from him, does he have the means to protect himself? Does he possess the courage and the will to harm, perhaps kill, another human being to protect himself and his family?

“Assuming that by some miracle the refugee finds himself ahead of the mob, with the countryside stretching empty before him, who owns it? How does he decide where to settle? Does he know what a fertile, life-sustaining piece of land looks like? Are there animals? If not, where are they?

“How does he find protection for himself and his family from the wind and the rain? If the shelter is to be a farmhouse, has it been abandoned? If not, can the owner be persuaded to make room for the newcomers, or to leave? If he cannot be so persuaded, is the refugee willing to use force, or kill?

“Supposing that all these difficulties have been successfully overcome—a monumental supposition—how will the refugee run a farm that for decades has been heavily dependent on fuel and electricity?

 

The narrative goes on in the same fashion for a good many more paragraphs, but it’s clear where Mr. Burke is going: if civilization as we know it were to cease to exist, a large portion of the world’s population would be dead in six months. They would die of starvation, of exposure to the elements, or at the hands of others who were more willing to use deadly force.

And it’s almost certain that I and most of you will be among those who perish. Why? Because there’s an inverse relationship between being “civilized” and being able to survive in an apocalyptic situation.

In fact, I believe if Mr. Burke’s scenario were to come to pass, the mortality rate in the technologically advanced countries of the Americas and Europe would probably be ninety percent or more. Our technology has allowed us to live the easiest lives in human history. We live in houses that have electricity, gas, and running water. Our houses, cars, stores, and workplaces stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We’ve rarely (possibly never) eaten a meal that didn’t come from a grocery store or a restaurant. We’ve never worn clothes or shoes that weren’t made in a factory.

How are we going to fare when, as Mr. Burke said, there is no water in the pipes, no electricity in the wires? How will we do when the grocery store shelves are bare and the sewers no longer work?

The brutal truth is…not very well.

The people who will do well are the citizens of third-world countries. They’re accustomed to procuring their own food by hunting, fishing, and gardening. They cook over an open fire. They get their water from a near-by river, or from a well they dug with their own hands. Their summers are hot, their winters are cold, but they’ve always survived. They will continue to do so.

“Wait a minute,” I heard someone say. “I’m an experienced hunter. I’ll be okay.”

Really? What do you hunt with? A rifle or shotgun? Are you prepared to maintain that weapon when something goes wrong with it? Are you able to hand-load your ammunition—not with “store-bought” supplies but with bullets, powder, and primers you’ve made yourself?

Ahhh, you’re a bowhunter. Can you restring your bow with materials that come from the forest? Can you make your own arrows? If not, you’d better start practicing your spear throwing.

And when you kill a deer, or a brace of ducks, what do you do with the meat—put it in a freezer? There will be no freezers. No refrigerators. Not even any ice. Do you know how to smoke the meat or preserve it so it doesn’t spoil? If not, your only choice is to throw a big party. Invite everyone over. Eat it all up in one night.

In America, the ones who survive will be those who live a quasi-survival existence every day. They have gardens. They know how to fish and hunt and trap small game, and they do it regularly. Their houses may be equipped for heating and cooking with propane, but they still have fireplaces and wood-burning heaters. They have Grandpa’s mule-drawn plow in the barn, and they know how to use it. Their water well has an electric pump, but they have a windmill to pump the water when the electricity goes off.

Those people don’t live in Houston, New York, or Los Angeles. They live in the rural areas of America—and Mr. Burke’s hypothetical city family isn’t going to persuade them to leave.

 

I’ve heard some people suggest that we should all store a year’s supply of food against the possibility of a temporary or permanent collapse of our civilization. Those of us who were around in the mid- to late ‘Seventies recall that we heard a lot about food storage back then, too. A whole industry sprang up to sell a variety of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods that were supposed to last for several years of storage and still be nutritional and easy to reconstitute and prepare.

The same thing is happening today, and apparently enough people are buying what they’re selling to keep those companies in business.

In my opinion, people who buy and store a year’s supply of food are not only wasting their money—they’re also deluding themselves. Take the hypothetical family from Mr. Burke’s example. Things have come to the point where they need to leave their home in the city.

The grocery store shelves may be empty, but they have a year’s supply of food stored in the basement. Of course, it occupies a space equivalent to two large closets, and it weighs more than 400 pounds. It’s too large and too heavy to carry. If they’re going to take it with them, they’re going to have to have a vehicle. Two vehicles, in fact—one for them and their trappings, and one for the food. That means it’s going to take twice as much fuel, which they may or may not be able to get. It also means they’re going to be the target of every hungry refugee on the road.

So they’re going to be faced with the choice of staying behind with the food but without water, electricity, or sewer…or leaving the food behind. Either way, the food does them no long-term good.

Most of us along the Gulf Coast have a short-term food supply to tide us over after a major hurricane. I keep a 14-day supply of MREs, the civilian version of military field rations, and as hurricane season approaches every year we lay in bottled water and extra canned goods. Those things will tide us over until the grocery stores are resupplied—or until we decide to put the remaining MREs into a backpack and take to the road.

I believe anything beyond that is a waste of money.

 

But is there any real possibility that Mr. Burke’s apocalyptic scenario will come to pass? I can think of two.

In commentary number seven of this series I talked about how the U.S. is more dependent on oil and oil products than any nation in the world, yet for more than forty years we have been steadily reducing our ability to produce and refine oil domestically. As I indicated in that commentary, a severe shortage of oil could lead to a collapse of our society. City dwellers would be forced to go out into the countryside, where many of them would perish.

 

The other possibility is one that would lead not to Mr. Burke’s scenario but to one far more final. In commentary number seven I also recounted that the 2007 State Department White Paper predicted the world might eventually go to war over oil. If that comes to pass, I believe our technology has guaranteed that we will never be faced with a return to an agrarian time.

We live in an age of terrifyingly lethal gadgets. Bombs that can be carried in a truck but have the power to destroy a city. Missiles that can be launched from one side of the planet and hit a point on the other side with deadly accuracy. Viruses that have a mortality rate of 98%, and for which there is no cure. Such weapons are so lethal that rational men may rattle swords and utter threats, but they will never use the weapons.

If there is another global war, it will be started by fanatical madmen (of which there is no shortage in today’s world). It will be very short, and it will be the last one. There will be no winners, no conquered territory, no spoils of war. There will be only charred bones on a dead planet.

 

POSTSCRIPT: I hate to close on such a depressing thought. Those of you who know me well know I’m really not a “the sky is falling” type of guy. So let me leave you with a smile. Let me share with you a scenario that occurred to me many years ago, when I used to watch Saturday-morning cartoons with my small children. I thought perhaps someday I’d write a short story about it but I never did, so I’ll offer it to you.

 

Let’s begin with the thought that ended my essay…charred bones on a dead planet.

Many years go by—perhaps a thousand, perhaps more. Then one day a ship full of alien explorers lands on the planet.

They spend months digging thru the rubble of our cities, trying to find out what sort of race lived on this planet, and how they died. Most of what they find is too broken or weathered to tell them much, but finally they come upon a treasure—a long strip of celluloid with a series of little pictures on it. At the end of their expedition they take this treasure back to their home planet.

Since they were intelligent enough to figure out how to cross light-years of space, it doesn’t take them long to figure out the machine necessary to make the little pictures move. They build a movie projector, and the film they brought back is studied by the great minds of their civilization.

After months of study they all agree that the people who inhabited the third planet of that small yellow sun were incredibly violent—so much so that their self-extermination was probably inevitable.

Eventually, the scientists and explorers move on to other things. The filmstrip goes to one of their museums, where it is shown to tourists and groups of school children.

Having nothing to compare it to, they never know that the only thing they salvaged from the rubble of planet Earth was a Roadrunner cartoon.