...Trapped in the City with Millions of Other People Needing Food, Power and Everything Else

You know that survivalism is in neverland when the New York Times posts a piece on it. Survivalism is not just for right wing crazies anymore. With the frenzy over "peak oil", "global warming", and "overpopulation", now left wing crazies can feel justified when indulging in the survival instinct.

...interest in the survivalist movement “is experiencing its largest growth since the late 1970s,” Mr. Rawles said in an e-mail, adding that traffic at his blog has more than doubled in the past 11 months, with more than 67,000 unique visitors per week. And its base is growing.

“Our core readership is still solidly conservative,” he said. “But in recent months I’ve noticed an increasing number of stridently green and left-of-center readers.”

...“The ‘where do we land when climate change gets crazy?’ question seems to be an increasingly common one,” said Mr. Steffen in an e-mail message, adding that such questions have “really gone mainstream.”

Many of the new, nontraditional preparedness converts are “Peakniks,” Mr. Rawles said, referring to adherents of the “Peak Oil” theory. This concept holds that the world will soon, or has already, reached a peak in oil production, and that coming supply shortages might threaten society. While the theory is still disputed by many industry analysts and executives, it has inched toward the mainstream in the last two years, as oil prices have nearly doubled, surpassing $100 a barrel.

...Some middle-class preparedness converts, like Val Vontourne, a musician and paralegal in Olympia, Wash., recoil at the term “survivalist,” even as they stock their homes with food, gasoline and water.

“I think of survivalists as being an extreme case of preparedness,” said Ms. Vontourne, 44, “people who stockpile guns and weapons, anticipating extreme aggression. Whereas what I’m doing, I think of as something responsible people do.

“I now think of storing extra food, water, medicine and gasoline in the same way I think of buying health insurance and putting money in my 401k,” she said. “It just makes sense.” __NYT

Think of it as "survivalist chic" or "survival lite." Once you wrap your mind around the idea that survival is now politically correct, it gets easier.

The harsher reality is that it will actually take a village--an enclave--to survive, if just half the things the catastrophists of global warming, peak oil, and overpopulation are predicting actually come to pass. If the nouveaux survivalists truly could organise in all seriousness, and in the numbers required for long term survival, it is unlikely the disasters that haunt their dreams would ever come to pass.

Of course, if "environmental" policies prevent nuclear power plants from being built, stop oil refineries from being constructed and operating, and obstruct large oil deposits from being tapped, you can actually create some of the very catastrophes you are pretending to prepare yourself for--if you really try hard enough.

The type of discipline and foresight needed to survive the type of devastation dreamed of by witless hacks like Kunstler and Al Gore, or by skilled writers like Cormac McCarthy, is exactly the type of disciplined foresight that would prevent most of these legislated and artificial disasters from occurring in the first place.

But let me be the last person to discourage anyone from stocking food, water, fuel, and power supplies in case of natural or man-made disaster. I do recommend taking care of who your neighbors are going to be, if such a situation actually crops up. Avoid most university professors, journalists, political activists, lawyers, faux environmentalists, and serial killers. Seek out surgeons and ER docs, former special forces and marines, farmers, ranchers, engineers, good cooks, mechanics, builders, and craftsmen of all kinds.