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406 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148.
407 S. Connor, “Vast Methane ‘Plumes’ Seen in Arctic Oceans as Sea Ice Retreats,” at http://
www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html. N. Shakhova (et. al.), “Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf,” Science, vol. 327, 2010, pp.
1246-1250.
408 Z. Carpenter, “Scientists: We Cannot Geoengineer Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis,” February 10, 2015, at http://www.thenation.com/blog/197521/scientists-we-cannot-geoengineer-our-way-out-of-climate-crisis.
409 A. J. Ferraro (et al.), “Weakened Tropical Circulation and Reduced Precipitation in Response to Geoengineering,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 9, 2014, 014001; doi: 10.1088/1748-93/26/9/1/014001.
410 A. Kleidon and M. Renner, “A Simple Explanation for the Sensitivity of the Hydrological 143
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Clive Hamilton is right in my opinion in seeing climate change as signalling the end of orthodox social sciences, humanities and philosophy, which in itself is a good thing. He quotes US climate scientist Kevin Trenberth who has said: “The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”411 The separation of the “Human”
and “Nature,” taken to be the defining quality of modernity, is thus an il usion Hamilton says, as climate change “shatters the self-contained world of social analysis that is the terrain of modern social science, and explains why those intellectuals who remain within it find it impossible to “analyse” the politics, sociology or philosophy of climate change in a way that is true to the science. They end up floundering in the old categories, unable to see that something epochal has occurred, a rupture on the scale of the Industrial Revolution or the emergence of civilization itself.”412
Or, the coming col apse of civilization, the zombie apocalypse.
Conclusion
Guil aume Faye in Convergence of Catastrophes,413 predicts a col apse of global civilization by around 2020, which is already too late to stop, although he has probably jumped the gun slightly on the early time frame. Nevertheless, even if the evil date of col apse is a more likely 2030, societies will return to a state similar to the Middle Ages, but more destructive. This is due to converging forces of environmental destruction and climate change, global financial col apse, world Cycle to Surface Temperature and Solar Radiation and its Implications for Global Climate Change,” Earth System Dynamics, vol. 4, 2013, pp. 455-465.
411 Clive Hamilton, “Climate Change Signals the End of the Social Sciences,” February 7, 2015, at http://www.carolynbaker.net/2015/02/07/climate-change-signals-the-end-of-the-social-sciences-by-clive-hamilton.
412 As above.
413 Guil aume Faye, Convergence of Catastrophes, (Arktos Media, 2012), original y published as La Convergence des catastrophes, (Diffusion International Edition, Paris, 2004).
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pandemics, the depletion of fossil fuels, the destruction of agricultural land, the depletion of fishing resources, the undermining of Western societies through mass immigration, civilizational clashes with Islam, the ageing of Western populations, terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and ultimately, nuclear war. He says:
… war is coming and announcing itself with unheard-of violence: war in the streets, civil war, widespread terrorist war, a generalised conflict with Islam and very probably, nuclear conflicts. This will probably be the face of the first half of the twenty-first century.
And we have never been less prepared: invaded, devirilised, physical y and moral y disarmed, the prey of a culture of meaninglessness and masochistic culpability.414
Western societies, Faye concludes, believe in “miracles,” seduced by egalitarian, humanitarian and liberal dogmas, believing that no matter what, an “invisible hand” will continue to produce harmonious equilibrium. Miraculous beliefs include: the sustainability of unlimited economic growth and development; that the permissive society will produce social harmony, that mass immigration will not erode the social fabric and that cultures can be preserved and nurtured without widespread social conflict. But, there are no miracles in this cold (or, rather, hot) brutal world; hence the planet faces a series of converging ecological, economic, cultural, and religious crises. Facing so many threats means that one or more is almost certain to nail us, and polish us off.
In a nutshel , the col apse of techno-industrial civilization is inevitable. It is possible that the human race itself, if not most life on the planet, faces extinction in the more distant future, but that is less probable than the end of the world as we know it. The zombie apocalypse, a world of violence, disease, bloody death and heat (if not radioactivity) is just around the corner. What now?
414 As above, p. 198.
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I am an archaeologist. I have spent my career attempting to make sense of the past, and I find a world completely at odds with popular misconceptions. Not only is the past I observe not peaceful and pristine, but, cruel and ugly as it may be, it provides great insight into the present [...] Humans have been destroying their environments for a long time and continue to do so for the same reasons they did in the past. Much of today’s warfare reads just like the warfare of tens of thousands of years ago – the same causes, the same tactics, the same attitudes.
- Steven A. LeBlanc and Katherine E. Register415
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal . In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; and no knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of al , continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)416
In my mind. I’m never going to die in no ghetto. Absolutely never. If a man tries to punch me in the head, the fight is on. If he cuts me, the fight is on. If I’m shot the fight is on. I’m not losing no fight to no scumbag out there in no ghetto. Period. That’s it. No son-of-bitch out there is going to get me. The only way he gets me is to cut my head off, and I mean that. I’ll fight you while I got a breath left in me… You don’t lose the fight.
- Jim Phillips417
If you must journey to mountains and firths, take food and fodder with you.
- Odin418
415 S. A. LeBlanc and K. E. Register, Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2003), pp. xi-xii.
416 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651), chapter 13, paragraph 9, emphasis added.
417 Jim Phillips, Surviving Edged Weapons, (Calibre Press Video, 1988), cited by Lt. Col.
Dave Grossman and Loren W. Christensen, On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and Peace (PPCT Research publications, 2004), p. 134.
418 “Words of the High One,” in W.H. Auden and P.T. Taylor, Norse Poems (The Athlone Press, London, 1981), p. 161.
ChaPter
4
aLL you need is Lead
(and a feW other things):
survivaLism, teotWaWKi and Zombageddon
Introduction: Dare to Prepare… for the End
Economist and financial advisor Barton Biggs in Wealth, War and Wisdom (2008)419 says in chapter 16 of his book, en
titled “Barbarians at the Gate,” that those who have wealth should recognize that the “four horsemen will ride again, and…
someday, suddenly the barbarians will be at your gate.”420 This threat is usual y posed by war but today the greatest danger he believes “will be some form of total breakdown of civilized society and the social and financial infrastructure as we know it.”421 Here is Biggs’ advice: Another, much smaller part of your diversification strategy should be to have a farm or a ranch somewhere far off the beaten track but which you can get to reasonably quickly and easily.
Think of it as an insurance policy, and for rich people in the 419 Barton Biggs, Wealth, War and Wisdom, (John Wiley, New York, 2008).
420 As above, p. 331
421 As above.
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developed economies a farm is a fine diversifier and probably an excellent long-term investment. Perhaps its purchase price should amount to five percent of your net worth. The control of food-producing land is a basic instinct of mankind, and landowners seem to find considerable psychic satisfaction just from the knowledge of possession. There are few things as fulfilling as having a drink in the sunset and looking at your field and cows…
You should assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure. Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food. It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily breaks down. A few rounds over the approaching brigand’s heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pil age. Brigands tend to be cowards.422
This sensible “survivalist” or “prepper” attitude can be contrasted with the general y less-than-prepared position of most characters in apocalypse movies, especial y those dealing with the zombie apocalypse. Of course, the unrealistic attitudes, carelessness, stupidity and screw-ups in many such films is necessary to create dramatic tension and viewer interest. Nevertheless, it is still valid to study film to examine what survivalist lessons can be learnt from the general fol y of these characters.
For example, the film The Road (2009) tel s the story of a man and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, as they journey along a road/roads, to the coast to hopeful y find a more sustainable place. This is likely to be a nuclear winter world: cold, grey and dying.
The man, narrating at the beginning of the film says: “The clock stopped at 1:17. There was a long shear of bright light then a series of low concussions.” Tramping on he then laments:
422 As above, pp. 332-333.
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each day is more grey than the one before… it is cold and growing colder… [as] the world slowly dies… no animals have survived.
All the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fal .
Such is the savagery of nuclear winter.
We ignore the logical point that in such a devastated world, humans outside of underground high-tech facilities would not be likely to survive. The man, has a revolver, but only two bullets, one to kill his son and one for himself, in the worst-case scenario that they are cornered by cannibals. A flash-back to a scene with his late wife indicates that they never prepared for catastrophe; they did not stockpile guns, ammunition and food, so consequently they lived in fear of becoming food themselves for cannibals as they slowly starved.
Formerly, he and his wife lived in a comfortable suburban home and enjoyed art, culture and sex. But, a flash-back indicates that the man’s wife was not too keen about enduring in a post-apocalyptic world: tired of living, she walks out from the house to die in the cold of the night (her body to be eaten by cannibals), or to be gang raped and then eaten by cannibals. The wife contrasts with another wife seen at the end of the film who has two children, a husband and a dog. This group takes the man’s boy after the man dies of blood poisoning from an arrow fired at him by an attacker, armed with a crossbow, fired from the second story of a house, in one of the man’s many mistakes.
The classic foul-up was the scene where the man and the son reach the coast with a cart which they have, luckily enough, been able to fill with food, scavenged from someone’s survival stockpile. The pair see a wrecked ship, a little way out to sea. The man leaves his son (who has a fever), on the beach with the food cart while he strips off, and naked swims out to the ship to see what he can find. But all that he finds in the ship is a flare gun with only one round. However, the man comes back to find that someone has stolen the cart while the sick son slept; fortunately, he wasn’t raped and/or throat-cut. The man is deeply angry about this, and having his clothes still left, manages to catch up with the thief, a poor old black guy who has, as his sole weapon, a carving knife. The man, under protest from his son, takes 151
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back the cart and makes the thief strip, and leaves him naked in Post Apocalyptica, to freeze to death.
The Road is a story of survivalist mistakes by an ordinary person who more by good luck than good management, initial y survives a catastrophe. It is likely that the world has experienced an all-out nuclear war but not an On the Beach (1959) type of die-off. The man regularly coughs blood, which may be due to respiratory disease; he has no other visible symptoms of radiation poisoning, and nor does the son. Nuclear war survival preparation skil s could have been acquired before the catastrophe from books such as Bruce D.
Clayton’s Life after Doomsday;423 Cresson H. Kearny, Nuclear War Survival Skil s 424and Dick Couch, The U.S. Armed Forces Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Survival Manual. 425 At an absolute minimum, more revolver ammunition could have been obtained with just a little bit less of the pre-apocalypse good life. Even a Ruger 10/22 with a wheelbarrow load of bricks of bullets would have been better than a revolver with only two rounds. Going up a few prepper levels, if a more secure retreat was obtained before the catastrophe and stockpiled with guns, ammunition, other weapons and provisions (especial y long-life food) and seeds, then the journey would not have been needed in the first place. One could have sat back and greeted human extinction in comfort.
Likewise, in the film The Day (2011), a party of five survivors in the same grey post-apocalyptic world as The Road, seek refuge in a decaying farmhouse as they prepare to battle a zmb band of roaming cannibals who want them as fresh meat. The survivors are better armed than the man in The Road, having shotguns, what looks like a Mini-14, an ak-47 and a m1a1 battle rifle, a couple of combat knives, an axe, but a very limited supply of ammo. Genuine survivalists would have done their best to avoid being in this situation in the first place.
423 Bruce D. Clayton, Life After Doomsday: A Survivalist Guide to Nuclear War and Other Major Disasters (Paladin Press, Boulder, 1992).
424 Cresson H. Kearny, Nuclear War Survival Skil s (Updated and expanded, 1987 edition), at http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p904.htm.
425 Dick Couch, The U.S. Armed Forces Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Survival Manual (Basic Books, New York, 2003).
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Amc’s The Walking Dead derives its drama, suspense and entertainment value primarily from mistakes. Indeed, in episode 5, season 2 (“Chupacabra”), after an initial meeting with Hershel, the former veterinarian and farmer expresses amazement that Rick’s motley band of survivors have made it this far. These are folk who (for a few seasons) avoid picking up military assault weapons (that seem to be everywhere around dead soldiers), but who risk zombification in season 1 by going back to Atlanta’s cbd to recover a bag of shotguns and bolt action rifles. Zombies and mzb (such as the band of thugs Daryl had joined, the “Claimers,” led by Joe) always sneak up on them because no guards are posted, or if they are, they are “blind,” or, as in the case of episode 8, season 6, they walk or drive right into a trap. Thus, Daryl, Abraham and Sa
sha take a truck, which no doubt belongs to a band of bad guys, members of which they have just fought, and merrily drive along the road, right into a road block by warlord Negan’s band of mzb, saved only by Daryl’s
“convenient” rocket launcher. And, way back in season 1, the group has an enjoyable dinner with plenty of wine and no guard; Amy needs to do a cute pee and is the first to get her throat torn open by a party-crashing zombie, toilet paper tragical y in her hand. Zombies overran Hershel’s farmhouse in season 2 and the group drives around in cars trying to shoot them, Hershel having a pump action shotgun with endless rounds. There was, again, no fortification, or thought of just fleeing the horde, and coming back later.
Heading to the prison definitely had many security advantages for team Rick,426 but it is debatable whether there would be enough farmland (water seemed to come from a stream) for a long-term survival via agriculture. Further, the prison’s wire mesh fences ultimately started to fall apart. There was no attempt made at further perimeter fortification, using nearby trees. In fact, a belt of trees surrounding the prison gave cover to the Governor in season 4 to sneak right up to the prison perimeter and capture Hershel and Michonne who were burning the dead. Later, after this warning of 426 See Angry Vikingman, “Prison: Fortress or Fol y?” At http://web.archive.org/
web/20140420060601/http://www.zombiesarecoming.com/2012/08/01/prison-fortress-or-folly/.
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imminent attack, the Governor and his gang plus a tank are able again to come right up to the prison perimeter fence. Then the tank driver leans outside of the tank, an easy target for a sniper. But, no shot comes, although Rick’s son Carl contemplates it. Rick delivers a speech about us all living together, though they have seen from the battles of season 3 the Governor is a psychopath even by raised-bar psychiatric standards of Post Apocalyptica.
Better yet, in season 4 and 5, team Rick enter “Sanctuary” (a place advertised by signs saying that it offered refuge: believe everything you read), but this time make a small security concession of burying some of their guns, just in case it is a trap. Good – but wouldn’t you leave at least one good fighter outside just in case Sanctuary was real y populated by a band of cannibals and everybody got trapped?