Bird Flu Apocalypse: A How-To Guide

On one side of the world, bird flu claims the life of an Indonesian infant. On the other side of the world, the scientific journal Nature publishes research explaining how to modify H5/N1 flu viruses in ways that may eventually facilitate human to human transmission of the deadly viruses. (PDF Download)

Nature
Influenza viruses are modified naturally by spread within and between birds, pigs, and other animals. Some of the natural modifications make it easier for humans to contract the virus, and others make it more difficult. Likewise, human to human spread is facilitated by some natural viral transformations, and inhibited by others.

The ability to intentionally modify a deadly virus, to make it more contagious within and between human populations, suggests that we may be entering an entirely new phase in human bio-warfare. Nature's editorial staff debated the issue prior to the decision to go ahead with the publication of the risky research.

More from Fox News:

Bird flu is lethal in people and spreads among those who are in close contact with infected birds, but so far, the virus known as H5N1 has not had the ability to pass easily among humans through sneezing and coughing, and some scientists had begun to doubt that that was possible.

The studies by Kawaoka and Dr. Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical College in the Netherlands changed that view by proving that with a few genetic mutations, the virus could pass easily among ferrets, which are used as a close approximation of how a virus might behave in people.

"There are people who say that bird flu has been around for 16, 17 years and never attained human transmissibility and never will," said Malik Peiris, virology professor at the University of Hong Kong.

"What this paper shows is that it certainly can. That is an important public health message, we have to take H5N1 seriously. It doesn't mean it will become a pandemic, but it can," said Peiris, who wrote a commentary accompanying Kawaoka's paper in Nature. _Fox News

It was never possible to completely prevent such knowledge from being discovered and disseminated. It was only a question of whether the knowledge would become public, or would instead be classified by government biowarfare divisions.

When these common but deadly viruses are finally weaponised -- which is virtually inevitable -- we will all have something more to worry about.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Can the World Be Saved from Obama's Vision of the Future?

In the mind of the apocalyptic, doom is a certainty, and nothing can be done to prevent it. But in the mind of a messianic apocalyptic, doom rests in the messiah's hands -- only he can prevent it.

There is nothing so useful for a would-be dictator and despot, than a huge threat such as the apocalypse. Obama has used the threat of carbon hysteria doom and other faux environmental dooms to enact sweeping new regulations of energy starvation and private sector suppression -- which will serve to depress the economic and social landscape of the US for decades into the future, unless Obama can be removed and his policies reversed.

The Obama Future Apocalyptic thinking is commonplace and growing.

Flip through the cable channels for long enough, and you'll inevitably find the apocalypse. On Discovery or National Geographic or History you'll find shows like MegaDisasters, Doomsday Preppers, or The Last Days on Earth chronicling, in an hour of programming, dozens of ways the world might end: a gamma ray burst from a nearby star peeling away the Earth's ozone layer like an onion; a mega-volcano erupting and plunging our planet into a new ice age; the magnetic poles reversing. Turn to a news channel, and the headlines appear equally apocalyptic, declaring that the "UN Warns of Rapid Decay in Environment" or that "Humanity's Very Survival" is at risk. On another station, you'll find people arguing that the true apocalyptic threat to our way of life is not the impending collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity but the collapse of the dollar as the world's global currency. Change the channel again, and you'll see still others insisting that malarial mosquitoes, drunk on West Nile virus, are the looming specter of apocalypse darkening our nation's horizon.

How to make sense of it all? After all, not every scenario can be an apocalyptic threat to our way of life -- can it? For many, the tendency is to dismiss all the potential crises we are facing as overblown: perhaps cap and trade is just a smoke screen designed to earn Al Gore billions from his clean-energy investments; perhaps terrorism is just an excuse to increase the power and reach of the government. For others, the panoply of potential disasters becomes overwhelming, leading to a distorted and paranoid vision of reality and the threats facing our world -- as seen on shows like Doomsday Preppers. Will an epidemic wipe out humanity, or could a meteor destroy all life on earth? By the time you're done watching Armageddon Week on the History Channel, even a rapid reversal of the world's magnetic poles might seem terrifyingly likely and imminent.

...Nothing inspires fear like the end of the world, and ever since Y2K, the media's tendency toward overwrought speculation has been increasingly married to the rhetoric of apocalypse. Today, nearly any event can be explained through apocalyptic language, from birds falling out of the sky (the Birdocalypse?) to a major nor'easter (Snowmageddon!) to a double-dip recession (Barackalypse! Obamageddon!). Armageddon is here at last -- and your local news team is live on the scene! We've seen the equivalent of grade inflation (A for Apocalypse!) for every social, political, or ecological challenge before us, an escalating game of one-upmanship to gain the public's attention. Why worry about global warming and rising sea levels when the collapse of the housing bubble has already put your mortgage underwater? Why worry that increasing droughts will threaten the supply of drinking water in America's major cities when a far greater threat lies in the possibility of an Arab terrorist poisoning that drinking supply, resulting in millions of casualties?

...This over-reliance on the apocalyptic narrative causes us to fear the wrong things and to mistakenly equate potential future events with current and observable trends. How to discern the difference between so many apocalyptic options?... _Atlantic

The Atlantic article above -- in true apocalyptic fashion -- concludes by warning that no matter how many false prophets there may have been, who profited from inflaming your fears, you can be sure that Al Gore, James Hansen, and Michael Mann are the real deal. You can trust the carbon hysteric orthodoxers of the apocalypse -- they are not like all the others who got rich from crying wolf. Heh.

As for Obama's dreams of doom, and the advantage he hopes to gain from the crises: There is hope in the idea that a narcissist's malignant dream can be overturned by unanticipated change in the real world.

The peak oil apocalypse was dealt a severe blow by the huge global shale oil & gas boom. As economies from North America to China to South America to Europe to the Levant, begin to sort through the new riches of shale energy, it becomes clear that something quite opposite to doom is taking place.

Faux environmentalist greens, accompanied by self-interested goons such as Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, etc. will screech against the shale bonanza at the top of their lungs, but the bottom line is more compelling than phony environmentalist fear-mongerings of doom and apocalypse.

If we had listened to the harbingers of doom 40 years ago, we would have expected that all of us would be dead by now. Likewise, the fashionable doomers of the media, academia, and politics proclaim the same litany of doom -- but displaced several decades into the future. When all you have to do is to re-cycle already failed predictions, the work of promoting the apocalypse is not really that hard.

Trade Goods in the Post-Apocalypse: Alcoholic Beverages

One of the most valuable trade items after the apocalypse will be alcoholic beverages. If you can provide consistently high quality wine, beer, and spirits, your livelihood will be assured long after the apocalyptic event fades in memory. But if you want to be ready to go into production at the appropriate time, you need to be prepared well in advance.

The most important lesson to learn as a producer of quality alcoholic beverages in the post-apocalyptic environment, is how to make alcohol out of whatever is convenient and at hand. Some kind of fruit is likely to be available, and anything with sugar (or starch) can be fermented with the appropriate pre-treatment and yeast.

This tutorial for home winemaking with fruit, provides guidelines for the use of a variety of fruit. Here is another short tutorial on making home wines from fruit.

Home Wine from Grapes
Cleanliness is paramount, to prevent contamination with environmental moulds and bacteria.

Once you have learned how to make beer and wine, you will want to learn to distill an alcholic mash or liquid into a distilled spirit or brandy. The following video will provide some information in that regard. Be sure to abide by local laws, at least until such laws are obviated by the apocalypse.

Home Distillation Tutorial w/ Cleavage

Keep Your Options Open

We like to think that things can continue on as they have done, generation after generation. Through good and bad, humans have muddled through and survived -- and even prospered in the more advanced parts of the world. But there is always a niggling of a doubt in the back of the mind: "What if this thing happens, or that? How would we survive the ultimate catastrophe?"

Abandoned Missile Silo Home
Certainly a nuclear war, a worldwide fatal contagion, or a global zombie apocalypse would all be difficult trials to endure. An ice age might push civilisation to the very brink. But Earth abides, and humans could too. In the near future, the only catastrophe that might require the complete abandonment of the planet, would be an extraterrestrial strike -- a comet, asteroid, or equivalent large scale impact.

A missile silo home such as the one above provides the convenience of an onsite rocket launch pad, with the added convenience of an on site airfield.

Space Station Fallback Option
Should a majour planetary catastrophe occur, one would certainly wish to have a convenient launch pad capable of carrying one's self and significant others. One would also need a destination in Earth orbit, where one could "freshen up" and restore one's natural sense of vigour and vitality.

A well equipped full-sized space station can make all the difference, should your home planet suddenly become uninhabitable.

Contour Crafting a Lunar HabitatBut you can bet that others will likely be thinking along the same lines of escape-to-orbit. Before long your space station could begin to look and smell like a regular refugee camp. Soon you will be thinking about moving on.

But since humans are much more comfortable on planetary surfaces anyway, you would probably already be thinking about relocating to Luna or Mars. The sooner the better, so as to claim the best real estate and avoid the land rush.

To assist your planetary habitat-building, special robotic apparatuses are being developed which will allow you to construct your Lunar or Martian habitat over a 24 hour period, using a robotic contour crafting robot.

Parenthetically, similar robotic contour crafters could also be used to build an underground missile silo home & retreat on planet Earth, if you cannot find a suitable one available. International treaties are causing such valuable properties to become scarce.

Regardless, try to keep all of your options open. Most types of apocalypse will allow you to continue to reside on the most beautiful and life-loving planet in the solar system. But some types of doom will not permit that.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Adapted from an earlier posting on Al Fin Potpourri

10 Acres w/Dome Home In Spectacular Setting: Only $74,000

Rio Grande River Valley Near Taos

Images via Zillow
Somewhere within 20 miles of Taos, New Mexico, sits a tiny 320 sq ft dome with a lovely view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Also nearby is the scenic Rio Grande River Gorge. Skies over the dome are almost always clear -- deep blue in the daytime and incredibly starry at night. The dome sits on 10 acres of land, all for $74,000. But you will need to get used to living off the grid.

“There’s quite a few people who are interested in building dome homes,” explained listing agent John Kejr of Dreamcatcher Real Estate. “There are a probably a couple of dozen different companies that have [the kits].”

Dennis Johnson of Natural Space Domes in Minnesota sells kits for building a dome home — either the entire pre-fabricated kit with framework and sheeting and interior panels or a basic kit, which just includes the metal connection brackets.

While a small dome home kit, like the one in Taos, costs somewhere under $5,000, three, four and five-bedroom plus homes can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000, and Johnson claims they’re relatively easy to build and someone without a lot of construction experience can build one.

“The dome is a connect-the-dots kind of thing, a very easy system,” he said. “It’s like a giant Tinkertoy set.”

...The home is near the Rio Grande river and has “spectacular views” of the mountains, Kejr said, but be prepared to use an all-wheel drive vehicle to access the property during heavy rainstorms due to muddy conditions. _Zillow

Hmmm. Remote location, off-grid, difficult to access in wet or wintry weather? Generally fine weather. Beautiful view of the Sangre de Cristos and relatively near access to the river gorge and to prime winter skiing?

Who could ask for a better location for surviving the next apocalypse?

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

Witch Doctors of England Place Curse Upon World's Oceans

Warning: This article is plagiaristic satire. The links are real, but the excerpted material has been altered for this article.

Wikipedia Witch Doctors of England
Update: Here is an example of a successful witch doctor environmental curse, literally sending almost an entire family in Argentina to its death (h/t M. Simon).

An organisation of British witch doctors -- the IPSO (International Programme on the Supernatural of the Occult) -- has placed a curse upon the oceans of the world as punishment for man's lack of faith in the authority of global witch doctors.

A new curse by the IPSO is affecting the ocean as a whole.

The bottom line? We're on course for a mass extinction that would include coral reefs and the menagerie of species that rely on them, as well as multiple species of fish consumed by people, and it will be worse than the "big five" extinctions of Earth's distant past due to an extra spin placed upon the curse by chief witch doctor Alex Rogers.

"We're bringing on a combination of symptoms that have been associated with large, past extinctions," says Alex Rogers, the head of IPSO. _NewScientist

Witch doctor skeptic Anthony Watts, proprietor of the skeptic blog Watts Up With That?!?!? assumed a naturally skeptical posture, when told of the IPSO curse.

Oh for goodness sake (parallels to IPCC 80% greenpeace renewables story)

The International Panel on the Supernatural of the Occult !!! IPSO – modest bunch – see mission statement (front page website)

The International Programme on the Supernatural of the Occult (IPSO) was established by witch doctors with the aim of cursing the Earth and all life on it.

Another Press release – Gets a shocking headline – the wait for the report (so that it can be checked) so that it is forgotten about and at the end – it is too early to say, but the trends are, etc,etc,etc

Maybe the Oceans are in a shocking state, I’m just getting too cynical to care…

BBC: World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline – Richard Black – 20th June 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479

“The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of witch doctors.”

“In a new report, they warn that ocean life will be cursed so as to“enter a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history. This is the least we can do to punish humans for their lack of faith and financial support”. _WUWT

Unflappable optimist Matt Ridley believes that the witch doctors are simply too pessimistic as a result of unhappy childhoods.

Today, infected by Malthusian ecology, the witch doctors relentlessly preaches millennial doom and technological risk: the climate is heading for catastrophe; resources are running out; population is growing too fast; farming cannot keep up; habitat is being destroyed; poverty, hunger, pollution, disease and greed are only going to get worse. A dramatic change in human stewardship of the planet is needed.

The evidence suggests that these predictions are likely to be wrong. _GWPF

Even mainstream scientists are braving the wrath of the witch doctors, and conducting actual scientific experiments on the ocean in order to determine its actual conditions:

The team showed that coccolithophores dispose of unwanted H+ by allowing them to exit cells through specialised protein pores, or ion channels, that are selectively permeable to H+. This process keeps the pH inside the cells at acceptable levels and allows coccolithophores to produce their calcium carbonate scales.

The team identified the gene that encodes for the H+ channel protein. "These H+ channels belong to a unique group of transport proteins that were discovered quite recently in certain types of animal cells that experience metabolic acidosis" explains Glen Wheeler, co-author of the study. "It turns out that H+ channel genes are also present in other groups of phytoplankton… [which] belong to groups that are not closely related to either plants or animals. Our discovery shows that H+ channels are more widespread than previously thought and that they serve a critical function in regulating cellular pH during a range of cellular processes in evolutionarily distant organisms" says Wheeler. _Physorg

So according to the study at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, the organisms of the ocean are finding ways to fight the witch doctors' curses of doom. And none too soon, as these witch doctors of the IPSO and affiliated organisation such as the IPCC are getting out of control, and scaring the children and science news media absolutely witless!

Witch doctors of doom and dieoff.orgiasts have been frequently idolised by gullible hack writers such as Rousseau and his more modern ilk. But there is nothing noble about extinction curses -- particularly when they are largely meant to frighten populations into giving more money to the IPSO, IPCC, and other witch doctor groups.

The oceans have dealt with far worse threats over the past billions of years than anything the witch doctors of England can throw at them. But the sycophancy and obeisance to witch doctors by media outlets such as New Scientist, the BBC, etc. may set back public faith in the media for decades or longer.

More: Oceans more resilient than we know

Beware the plastic apocalypse!

World's oceans and coral reefs feel better . . .

Tips for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse

Riverboat Zombie Survival Compound
The imaginative survival scheme pictured above should provide a creative boost to your survival planning efforts. Here are a number of things to keep in mind when planning for your apocalypse of choice:

Basic Considerations for Planning Survival Compounds

100 Items that Disappear from the Shelves First In a Panic

Homemade Fuels: PDF Handbook for Downdraft Gasifiers

FEMA PDF Plans for Homemade Stratified Downdraft Gasifier

PDF Ideas for making your own propane from bio-feedstocks PDF

More on biopropane from MIT Technology Review

You can run a gasoline generator, tractor, or automobile with gasifier-produced syngas, from wood chips etc.

Use your imagination to discover ways to provide the items most in demand in a crisis. You may have the kernel for a profitable business to see you through the apocalypse of choice. Accept only gold, silver, or high grade ammunition as payment.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

Beware the Plastic Apocalypse!!!

Enviros See Armageddon In Every Plastic Bag
We are told the oceans are covered with floating plastic debris, clogging the ocean food chains and destroying free-swimming wildlife. But solid evidence of this eco-catastrophe is quite thin. And ever since a Canadian high-schooler (and another in Taiwan) in 2009 discovered species of microbes that thrive on eating plastic, most informed observers have been somewhat less concerned.

Since then, scientists in Ireland have begun to put microbes to work digesting waste plastics, and UK scientists have discovered plastic-eating microbes in ocean waters.

Sargasso SeaThe latest story in the long-running ocean apocalypse saga, involves scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. Woods Hole scientists explored the Sargasso Sea, in search of plastic-eating bacteria.

Mincer and his colleagues examined bits of fishing line, a plastic bag and a plastic nurdle (a pre-production plastic pellet) fished out of the Sargasso Sea, an area of the North Atlantic where currents cause debris to accumulate. The region as a whole contains more than 1,100 tonnes of plastic1.

...Plastic-eating bacteria might help explain why the amount of debris in the ocean has levelled off, despite continued pollution. But researchers don't yet know whether the digestion produces harmless by-products, or whether it might introduce toxins into the food chain.

...Genetic analysis shows that the bacteria on the plastic differ from those in the surrounding seawater or on nearby seaweed, says microbiologist Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. So far, the DNA sequences obtained by her lab show that almost 25% of the bacteria on one polyethylene surface were vibrios, bacteria from the same group as the cholera bacterium.

...Amaral-Zettler and Mincer also found genetic and microscope evidence of eukaryotes — organisms with more complicated cells than bacteria — on the plastic. What she calls the "plastisphere" might contain complex living communities. "It may be a little world that we've created, for better or worse." _Nature_via_Impactlab

It is fascinating that particular ocean bacteria have adapted to using plastics as a food source. This is all quite reminiscent of the bacteria that have adapted to eating crude oil and methane gas around oil spills and and natural hydrocarbon seeps in the ocean floor.

To the bacteria, our discarded plastics are a feast and a windfall, allowing them to feed and reproduce to their microbial hearts' content. Of course the same phenomena occurs on land, except with a much wider range of microbes -- both prokaryotic and eukaryotic -- partaking of the cornucopian repast.

Environmentalists are concerned that the microbes may be releasing toxins into the seawater which will pollute larger sea creatures and perhaps get into the human food chain. A plastic apocalypse on the prowl, don't you see? And yet, in the middle of the ocean, nothing is wasted. If something can be seen as food, it will be used as food by something. That includes anything which humans may perceive as toxic.

Here is the amusing thing in all this: Waste plastics are increasingly being seen as valuable feedstocks in the production of synthetic fuels, chemicals, and other high-value substances. Gasification of solid wastes for production of power, process heat, and chemical/fuel feedstock is just getting started in the developed world. In the future, the only plastic wastes the oceans will see will be coming from places too primitive to know how to unlock their intrinsic value.

And no doubt there will be plenty of plastic-eating ocean microbes to take care of those remnants. Otherwise we will need to raise our seawalls quite high, to avoid the ocean plastic tsunamis that may come from Neptune, with a crashing vengeance.

Beware the plastic apocalypse.

More on plastic apocalypse 31March11: The death of the environment by plastic bags may have been exaggerated. (via Daily Bayonet)

If You're Feeling a Bit Down, This May Cheer You Up

via Impactlab

The reason why watching the Earth turned into a seething mass of flame may cheer you up is by comparing the way things are with how bad things could be. Things could always be worse.

This Japanese video has been on the web for years, but with a Japanese language narration. The National Film Board of Canada has kindly provided English language narration with expert commentary.

You might also think about how your local chapter of the Society for Creative Apocalyptology might plan ahead in order to survive such a disaster. For this exercise, you are not allowed to flee to an extraterrestrial refuge.

Electronic Armageddon on National Geographic Tuesday Night

Check out "Electronic Armageddon" Tuesday 15 June at 10 PM on National Geographic Channel. The 4 minute teaser above provides a brief introduction.

What do future presidents need to know about existential dangers this country could face? Explorer investigates the science behind the dangers of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, or HEMP. Picture an instantaneous deathblow to the vital engines that power our society, delivered by a nuclear weapon designed not to kill humans but to attack electronics. What could happen if an electromagnetic pulse surged to earth, crippling every aspect of modern society's infrastructure? _NG

It is fairly certain that if President Obama was unprepared for an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he is unlikely to be up to the challenge of an Electronic Armageddon. But then, maybe we'll be lucky, and it won't happen.

EMPACT America -- information clearing house on EMP attack

Nuclear weapon EMP effects from FAS

"One Second After" site -- web headquarters for William Forstchen's exciting novel graphically describing the effect of a surprise EMP attack against the US, from the perspective of one semi-rural community.

Links to a number of reports from the US EMP Commission

As Iran and North Korea hone their nuclear explosive and warhead delivery skills, the risk for an untraceable surprise EMP attack against Europe or the US is not subsiding at all. And with Hugo Chavez expressing a wish to join the nuclear club, the problem potential oozes ever closer to North America.

Up to 90% of the US population could be dead within 1 year of an effective EMP attack that destroyed large scale equipment underlying the US electrical grid, without massive outside aid. That is how much modern societies depend upon electricity for their survival. But how realistic would massive outside aid be, if the world was suddenly plunged into global war at the same time?

15June2010 More: The US Congress is working on bills to protect the US energy grid from an array of attacks -- including hacker attacks, and solar storm hazards. But there is no sign that their efforts are anywhere proportionate to the threat.

After the Breakdown

EnglishRussiaThe interesting thing about these images of a post-apocalyptic future, is how recognisable the cities remain. In the event of a complete breakdown of modern civilisation, how long could we expect these structures to remain standing?

Hellgate
According to The World Without Us and Life After People, many of humanity's best-known manmade landmarks would experience severe degradation after only a few decades.

PandemicDawnIt is the natural course of events for things to fall apart. That is true for physical structures, for biological organisms, and for dynamic processes such as solar systems, stars, galaxies, and universes. Why should humans expect their pitiful cities to last forever?

When the Power Goes, it Takes Civilisation With It

What happens when North America gets hit by either a nuclear EMP or a 110 year cycle solar flare? It would be the mother of all power surges, and everything would seem to go out at once. Power, water, refrigeration, gasoline pumps, food deliveries to supermarkets, virtually all communications and electronic entertainment, etc etc.

What could happen: Everything that would happen in the previous four scenarios, and then some. Forget clean water. Forget health care. Wipe out the last 20 years of recorded history, because most of it was stored digitally...

..."We'd feel it first in the economy and our financial institutions, where everything is digital. Markets will collapse," says Siciliano. "Where's everything backed up -- in a filing cabinet? The economy would collapse, the banks would lock their doors and keep whatever money they had in the vault, because the rest has evaporated into thin air. Once the money's gone, we're resetting the clock."

How long to recover: Unknown. According to a January 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, the effects of a severe geomagnetic storm would be felt for years, most acutely in societies that are the most dependent on technology. The U.S. could take from four to 10 years to bounce back, according to the NAS -- if it bounces back at all.

"It will take a tremendous amount of manpower to clean up the mess," adds Siciliano. "Something that catastrophic, the gas pumps won't be operating, so a guy who's supposed to take a part to repair a facility can't get there because he has no gas. It could literally throw us back to 1840. Suddenly we're a third-world country again." _Infoworld

It would take years for a full recovery, perhaps decades. Since the big power transformers are no longer made in the US, and require up to a year from order date to be delivered, it all depends upon the extent of the damage worldwide. It is likely that wars would spring up in the middle of the tumult, drawing away the only US force competent and capable enough to re-boot US society -- the US military. Up to 90% of the US population could be dead within 1 year of such a devastating power failure, according to some estimates.

It is also possible for computer hackers to bring down large sections of the North American power grid, but recovery from such an attack would probably take no longer than a few weeks. Of course, a large scale power outage of a week up to a few weeks could have fatal repercussions.

Like the grid itself, other failures tend to cascade when the lights go out. In 2003, landline and cellular phone systems still worked but were so overloaded with calls that they effectively shut down. Electric railways stopped in their tracks, flights were canceled, and gas pumps would no longer pump. Water supplies that relied on electric filtering systems got contaminated. Food and medicine got spoiled; looting occurred; people died. _Infoworld

If you do not have a backup power generator for your home, and several weeks worth of food and clean water, get to work. If you have an insulin requiring diabetic in your household, stock a few months worth of extra insulin, and rotate your stock to keep it fresh. And so on.

It's easy to assume that you can continue to go on depending upon large institutions for your power, fuel, food, medicines, and civil order in your neighborhood. But under the current US government, such assumptions are foolish. Start taking responsibility.
First published at abu al-fin

After Armageddon: X Meals from Total Anarchy

Things can fall apart for many reasons, and at astoundingly rapid speeds. Whether you are 3 meals from anarchy or 9, the distance between you and deadly threat is alarmingly small. Natural disaster, epidemic disease, power failure, terror attack, or outright warfare -- potential triggers are more numerous than you can imagine.

You won't be able to leave the city by freeway -- they will all be jammed by wrecked, abandoned, and burning vehicles. Better have several alternate routes and fallback plans. Is your bugout kit packed and ready? Does your bugout vehicle have a full tank of fuel and is it well maintained? Do you have a bugout destination?

I recommend the links and the postings at PreparednessPro.com. A good site for daily browsing is SurvivalBlog. Unfortunately, membership in the Society for Creative Apocalyptology is currently closed, but several online forums of a similar nature are available.

You have a much better chance of surviving a short, medium, and long-term catastrophe if you are a member of a cooperating group of survival-oriented individuals and families with complementary skills.

The Perfect Portable 25 MW Survival Reactor?

On Wednesday in Washington DC, and on Thursday in London, Hyperion Power Generation will unveil the design of its small modular 25 MWe portable nuclear reactor. Brian Wang reports on Hyperion's plans, and provides other details on the remarkable safety and portability of the small modular reactor.

Hyperion's 25 MWe reactor is factory built and factory fueled and re-fueled. It can be shipped by truck, train, or ship. It provides enough power for 20,000 modern homes. A single fueling is good for 5+ years. They are designed for burial underground, for additional safety. All for a mere $25 million -- or about $1,250 per household in a 20,000 home community. For over 5 years of baseload power and heat, a $1,250 investment is minimal.

Perhaps you think a 20,000 home community is too large for a survival refuge? It depends on the emergency. If you are living through a situation where the minimum viable population (MVP) comes into consideration, a 20,000 household community is very close to the proper size. Particularly when the community members are selected for their ability to contribute to the long term survival not only of the community, but of the science, technology, skill set, and cultural and philosophical wealth of the modern western world.

Every community built for survival, should have the skill and knowledge set to re-create a small modern university and a small advanced industrial town. These communities will need reliable baseload power for routine heat and electricity, as well as to power small industrial projects to promote survivability and sustainability.

Some extreme catastrophes may be resolved within a 5 year time period. A successful EMP attack, for example, would require between a year and 5 years for the central authority to re-assert control and to re-establish supply lines, power, transportation, and broadband communication to remote parts of a country. For such extended emergencies, the Hyperion reactor would see the community through the worst.

Other catastrophes would extend far beyond the Hyperion's designed lifetime. While the community might continue to extract heat and power from the reactor for several years beyond the designed re-fueling date, the output would decay rapidly after a certain point.

That is why a community containing relatively large numbers (thousands) of competent individuals is so important for long-term survival. And it is why it is so important that the community be provided a solid 5+ years of reliable baseload power and heat in the early stages of adjustment away from the former established order. Thousands of isolated and distressed individuals need reassurance and stability provided in as many ways as possible.

Under the current leadership of the large western nations, hard-won resources are being squandered at record rates. The earned leadership of the west is being abdicated by incompetent governments. Power abhors a vacuum. With the surrender of western power, other powers will rise.

The new powers will not be so squeamish about human rights, of course, but the new powers will be fragmented and at war between themselves. Large scale breakdown of order should be expected.

In the case of broad-scale anarchy and war, isolated nuclei of civilisation that can provide the nuclei of a re-coalescence of western liberalism may make all the difference in the course of the next thousand years of human history.

Versatile Ferrocement

Members in good standing of the Society for Creative Apocalyptology must demonstrate proficiency at a number of skills. One of the most important skills necessary for the creative survival of an apocalypse is the ability to design and build durable shelter. A number of construction techniques are taught, but one of the most useful construction methods is ferrocement.

Using ferrocement construction, a skilled craftsperson can build comfortable shelter, construct water storage over a large range of sizes, build air-tight food storage facilities flooded with CO2 or other inert gas for long-term storage, construct a sturdy boat or yacht, or carry out any number of other creative building projects.

Most forms of ferrocement construction involve the bending of steel rebar and the manual application of various types of cement. The larger the rebar required for the job, the more expensive and difficult the project will be. One variation of ferrocement construction -- the monolithic dome -- utilises an inflatable polymer form. A thickness of insulating foam is spray applied to the inflated form, then a layer of crossing steel rebar is constructed inside the foam. Then shot-crete (sprayed concrete) is applied over the steel rebar, contiguous with the foam, and forming the inner layer of the dome. (sometimes another layer of foam is applied to the inside for extra insulation)

Ferrocement houses -- particularly when dome shaped and / or earth sheltered -- survive hurricanes and tornadoes, when other forms of construction nearby have collapsed and disintegrated. Earth-sheltered and dome ferrocement are also considered relatively secure in earthquakes.

The monolithic dome style construction is typically used for dome-shaped homes, but can actually be utilised for any shape that is compatible with an inflated form. The monolithic technique can be used for storage buildings as well as homes, and can even be safely situated under 30 feet of earth, if dome shaped.

Shelter is a top priority. The ability to construct rapid improvised shelter is drilled into SCA trainees, of course, but serious members of the Society are in this for the long haul. Long term construction methods that are most likely to see a member through a difficult apocalypse (or even one not so difficult) are just another part of the training.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

The Society for Creative Apocalyptology is a wholly owned subsidiary of Al Fin Enterprises, which maintains all rights to the name, and copyrighted training materials.

The Reach of North Korean Missiles

Image SourceThanks to the miracle of modern missile technology, two-penny dictators like Kim Jong Il can now hold the Sword of Damocles over heads of state around the world. South America and Greenland appear to be fairly safe from a sneak attack from the diminutive cockroach (see Team America).

But then, how long before Venezuela's Hugo Chavez gets similar capability to wreak havoc on his foes? Paint similar red circles with their centers on Caracas. Do the same for Damascus, Tehran, Tripoli, Riyadh, Islamabad. Now you begin to understand the scope of the problem.

Nuclear technology and missile technology are out of the box, freely available to anyone who can pay. As the US loses its will and ability to restrain nuclear proliferation, two-penny dictators around the globe will almost certainly take the opportunity to nuke up.

Of course the danger from these tin-pot nuclear dictatorships is more to their neighbors, and to the global environment should large-scale fallout take place. But it only takes a small nuke or two to finish off LA, NYC, DC, or London. And a skillful EMP attack to finish the US as a modern economic force would require only a dozen or fewer well-placed nukes. A world without the US is a world on its way down.

China and Russia are not above arming a third party, in order to devastate their mutual enemy while retaining plausible deniability. This could never happen in the old order of things, when the US was strong and the anchor of the world economy -- necessary to the prosperity of all exporting nations.

Things are different now. China and Russia have significant economic problems now that world demand for their exports is way down. Political instability with a collapse of the current political order is not out of the question for either oppressive state, should things go badly with the world economy. Should either the CCP or Putin see such a thing coming to pass, neither would hesitate to set a plan in motion that they felt would reduce pressure on them from the outside.

In other words, if everything is going to hell anyway, why would Putin or the CCP pause before badly handicapping a long-time enemy -- as long as a third party will take the blame?

The world is nothing like it seems.

William R. Forstchen Discusses EMP Threat

William R. Forstchen is the author of the bestselling near-future thriller, "One Second After." In this Pajamas TV special, Forstchen discusses the threat from EMP to modern civilisations.

Try living without electricity for a week or two. Then imagine entire neighborhoods, communities, cities, and regions going without electrical power for weeks and months. How many would survive after a few months without power? Trauma victims and the critically ill would be the first to die. Then persons with renal failure, insulin dependent diabetes, heart failure, and other chronically ill persons dependent upon short supplies of medication would die. Treating infectious diseases would be a whole new ballgame without immunisations and antibiotics.

Grocery stores and department stores would be looted for supplies. Food supplies would run short due to a shortage of fuel and viable vehicles. Houses and buildings would burn in the absence of the ability to put out the flames. And so on.

Forstchen's book does a good job of describing the breakdown of civil order, and the abysmal death rates that would result from loss of electricity. Keep in mind that a lot of triggers could result in the same widespread death, violence, loss of cohesion. EMP is only one of many.

H/T Instapundit

The Mother of All EMP Armageddons

First to go - immediately for some people - is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.

....supermarket shelves would empty very quickly - delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.

Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites - but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare. _NewScientist

It has happened before, and it will happen again. A severe solar storm strong enough to destroy huge areas of electric power across a continent such as North America. In 1859, the Carrington Event provided eight days of severe solar storms. Should anything like that happen these days, large parts of the Earth might be without power for several months or longer.

According to the NAS report, a severe space weather event in the US could induce ground currents that would knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds, cutting off the power for more than 130 million people (see map). From that moment, the clock is ticking for America.

...The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. "From the surveys I've done, you might have a few spare transformers around, but installing a new one takes a well-trained crew a week or more," says Kappenman. "A major electrical utility might have one suitably trained crew, maybe two."

Within a month, then, the handful of spare transformers would be used up. The rest will have to be built to order, something that can take up to 12 months.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep reserves to last 30 days, but with no transport systems running to bring more fuel, there will be no electricity in the second month.
30 days of coal left

Nuclear power stations wouldn't fare much better. They are programmed to shut down in the event of serious grid problems and are not allowed to restart until the power grid is up and running.

With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US. Perishable medications such as insulin will soon be in short supply. "In the US alone there are a million people with diabetes," Kappenman says. "Shut down production, distribution and storage and you put all those lives at risk in very short order."

Help is not coming any time soon, either. If it is dark from the eastern seaboard to Chicago, some affected areas are hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away from anyone who might help. And those willing to help are likely to be ill-equipped to deal with the sheer scale of the disaster. "If a Carrington event happened now, it would be like a hurricane Katrina, but 10 times worse," says Paul Kintner, a plasma physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In reality, it would be much worse than that. Hurricane Katrina's societal and economic impact has been measured at $81 billion to $125 billion. According to the NAS report, the impact of what it terms a "severe geomagnetic storm scenario" could be as high as $2 trillion. And that's just the first year after the storm. The NAS puts the recovery time at four to 10 years. It is questionable whether the US would ever bounce back. _NewScientist

It is partly our dependency on technology that makes us vulnerable to natural disasters such as severe space weather, a supervolcano, or a large space rock crashing half a world away. Anything that would interfere with electrical power, transportation, or electronic communication, has the potential to lead to millions of deaths inside even the most advanced countries.

A mere 15 minutes of warning would be too short a time to do anything to prevent cascading power failures and power infrastructure burnout from a severe geomagnetic storm.

The good thing about an electromagnetic apocalypse -- as opposed to a space rock or supervolcano apocalypse -- is that geomagnetic storms will not significantly change the weather to prevent the growth of food crops. Those who can plant, cultivate, and harvest their crops should survive for the most part. After a supervolcano or space rock collision, the Earth might go several seasons before the climate returns to normal, for purposes of agriculture.

Being able to live "off the grid" would provide a distinct advantage, should Earth suffer an extended string of severe solar storm exposure. After such a run of violent space weather, PV panels would be worth their weight in gold.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Nano-Weapons of the Near Future

Nano-weapons are coming soon. No one knows exactly when, but you can be sure that they will see you before you see them!

Nano-Weaponry – Testing the Limits

Here are just some of the possibilities:

1.) Nano-Scouts – Using technologies that effectively “lives on” and controls live insects, the proverbial “fly on the wall” may have literally hundreds or even thousands of parasitic nano-scouts living on its exterior....

2.) Nano-Poisons – Most people instantly think of poison as a tool for killing someone. But nanotechnology, with its ability to trigger specific brain functions, will provide a whole new menu of poison options. As an example, a liar-poison will make it impossible for someone to tell the truth. A kleptomaniac poison will make it impossible for the person to stop stealing things. An alcoholic poison will make a person unable to stop drinking alcohol. The obesity poison will cause a person to eat themselves to death. And my favorite - - we’ll call it the “frontal lobotomy poison,” - - will make a person incapable of being angry or mean.

3.) Nano Force Fields – Any field powerful enough to keep the bad guys out is also capable of keeping the bad guys in....

4.) Nano Mind Erasers – Neutralizing a person’s memory can often be a more powerful defense than killing them. Micro fields flaring up in a succession of unnoticeable tiny brain bursts may wipe sections of a brain clean without anyone ever noticing. Alzheimer’s in a can.

5.) Nano Needles – Invisible to the human eye, nano diameter needles will be shot like clusters of bullets from great distances to “pin” people to a wall or freeze their physical movement. Nano needles, because of their tiny diameter, will be the ultimate non-lethal weapon, leaving no visible wounds and causing no permanent damage.

6.) Water Bullets – As a different kind of non-lethal weapon, self-contained water balls, formed around an elevated surface tension containment system, will be used to knock people down, temporarily rendering them harmless.

7.) Desynchronized Energy Fields – Binary power, created by the intersection of two otherwise harmless beams, has the ability to disrupt the energy fields in an individual. A person with desynchronized energy fields will feel extremely fatigued, and pushed to a more extreme level, will drop unconsciously to the ground. A new form of stun-gun.

8.) Nano Heart-Stoppers and Stroke Inducers – ... nano-blood flow restrictors that induce excruciating pain and reduce the victim to a fraction of who they once were, over a long period of time, have the side benefit of telling the world “don’t mess with me” or you’ll end up like this guy. __FS__via__FutureScanner

A future of nano-dust spies, sentinels, assassins, and defensive weapons, is one that most of the world's military specialists are unprepared for--to say nothing of the average world citizen. Yet most of these weapons are far closer and easier to devise and build, than the molecular nano-assembler--the horn of plenty that most people think of when they think of a nanotechnological future.

Nano-weapons combined with bio-weapons, chemical weapons, and genetic weapons, provide the budding world religious or ideological dictator with far more ultimate power than a few nuclear weapons.

Of course, every measure has a counter-measure. But not everyone will have the resources to obtain counter-measures, when the means of deadly attack becomes nearly ubiquitous. Have you thought lately about what I said regarding minimum viable population?

The Sky Is Falling: Gregg Easterbrook / Atlantic

Here is the video linked to at the preceding post. 10 minutes to contemplate the end of the world. Remember: the US Congress is in charge of the NASA budget and the NASA mission. Blaming NASA is infantile. Blame the source: the US Congress.