Ah, I see the issue now. I implied that there was a greatest strength when the point I wanted to get across was that I think we have many strengths. I never would have thought of that actually, so thank you.

Truly if we are to survive we must be willing to cooperate. Hostility isn’t great when conditions are bad and anything we can do to reduce such a thing is worth looking into. Perhaps we can soft mold our psychology into being less confrontational? That might produce unwanted side effects though.

It sounds like your grandparents would have been a great resource for this kind of thing. I have wondered for a long time why we don’t at least document the lives and thoughts of people who are older so that we have those thoughts when they’re gone. Typically a family just morns and moves in and might have a few pictures. No one asks grandpa what he thinks the meaning of life is on his death bed.

Being from a rural area I know a bit about farming and I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, but livestock is beyond me. I think that generally knowledge of farming comes proportionally with proximity to rural areas. It doesn’t help that by definition urban areas are highly populated.

You said you were 72. I suppose if we can’t get your grandparents perspective, we could get yours, and I suppose we already have. If you have anything to add it could help however. What experiences have you learned from that could help us rebuild after something like this?

And what if you are still alive? I suppose if you have no hope then there’s no point in going on anyway. Regardless that sounds more like an excuse for not doing anything. Of course, it’s an excuse I can’t say is wrong.

So a call to action? Maybe that is necessary. I guess the question now is what to do after that.

You seemed to have missed my point. Sane people don’t “deny climate change”. This is a false label/accusation because they are skeptical about the causes NOT the blatant reality that temperatures are changes and have changed. It is a means to label anyone who questions them as idiotic and something like flatearthers.

Secondly, I was not proposing that nations should get together and sort out these problems. You misunderstood my statement of fact for one of opinion. There are a number of goals set out by the international community and many of these have and are being reached. I do “assume” that humans generally don’t want to kill each other and care about their fellows (not all obviously).

The number one most productive means of dealing with the worlds problems is to education young women in poorer nations. This has increased exponentially over the past few decades.

Funds are best put to use where they do the most good. Pumping money into most climate programs gives almost nothing back in the way of results; some are merely a gamble at best.

I will do what I can but that isn't much and I'm okay with that.

that’s the spirit, you can’t do anymore than what you can do after all. If that isn’t good enough then we’re doomed anyway so we might as well try.

This one is interesting. — TogetherTurtle

So, nothing for me...yet ?
How very disappointing :sad:

My apologies amity. I didn’t mean to leave you out, it just looked like your responses were aimed more at others. I’m not at home right now so I’ll give your writing a good reading when I am. I’m sure it’s just as interesting.

it just looked like your responses were aimed more at others — TogetherTurtle

You are right. I was responding to others as part of the discussion.
I just thought you might have picked up a little something and responded to it, even if to say it was irrelevant.

Someone (James Howard Kunstler) provides a reasonably good picture of post-apocalypse life and skills. In his 4 part A World Made by Hand series (novels, more or less) Kunstler depicts life in an upstate New York town after some sort of collapse. The electrical grid is gone, no radio/TV/telephone, no gasoline, no gas powered machines, no central government, etc.

People struggle, work very hard, pool and use whatever knowledge they have, to put together a much simpler life. As one would expect, people who are severely injured or get very sick die. There are food shortages. There is conflict. A much reduced community forms and survives--not only in this one town, but in various places around the country. Recovery is spotty and fragile.

Kunstler writes about environmental issues; his books include The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century; Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation.

One can OD on converging catastrophes. I fully believe they are on the way BUT in the mean time there is no advantage in going crazy with all the bad news out there. The World Made by Hand is uplifting without being even slightly pollyanna-ish.

If you like post-apocalyptic fiction, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, is a 1949 post-apocalypse classic. 99.9% of everybody dies in a plague. That's disposed of very quickly. The rest of the novel is about how a tiny remnant carry on. 1949 was pre-global warming (as an issue); TV had hardly made an appearance in '49. The freeway system hadn't been built yet. ETC. It's interesting to compare Earth Abides to A World Made By Hand.

This seems like some good stuff, thank you. It’ll take me some time to look into it but I’ll try and get back to you.

One can OD on converging catastrophes. I fully believe they are on the way BUT in the mean time there is no advantage in going crazy with all the bad news out there — Bitter Crank

It is true we can overdo the sense of catastrophe overtaking the world.
Not just on the way but already here. Fish boiling.

Some journalists try to tell or sell us the way forward. Here is one:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/cars-killing-us-driving-environment-phase-out

""...In this age of multiple emergencies – climate chaos, pollution, social alienation – we should remember that technologies exist to serve us, not to dominate us. It is time to drive the car out of our lives."

So, how not to OD and go overboard...get rid of all media. Fake news. Uh--huh.
Read fiction as a distraction or to be uplifted.
Balance with the real.

What experiences have you learned from that could help us rebuild after something like this? — TogetherTurtle

Not many helpful experiences, myself. The main thing would be that one can travel a long way on a bicycle, especially if the weather is nice. Like, 50 to 100 miles. I do short errands on the bike in winter if it's not too cold, and if the streets are passable.

I don't know too much about them, but I'd recommend looking at the traditional Amish. The Amish are not, apparently, against all machinery. Some Amish woodworkers use small steam engines to power air compressors which supply their tools with power. So I have heard.

and reading about horsepower -- actual horse power. Horses could provide power for boats, for instance. No, they did not swim and pull the boat. They walked on a treadmill in the middle of the boat and the treadmill turned the propeller. The same approach could be used to pump water, for instance, or run a coarse cut saw. Horses were used to move big houses--using the leverage of pulleys, not by simple brute strength. The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the 19th Century by McShane and Tarr, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Or, Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America, by Greene. Harvard U. Press, 2008. Try ABE Books or Alibris for a used copy.

I like the Guardian 85% of the time; I always like the comments section when they are opened below an editorial. The Guardian readership seems to be quite insightful, and often display a nice casual cleverness:

Guy Hubbard

Hydrogen cats

Notfamousanymore ---> Guy Hubbard

Realistically we need to start with hybrid cats, then move onto electric cats. Hydrogen cats would be a bit too lightweight. I'm sticking with my traditional cats for now though.

Not deep but at least civilized.

We really do need to get rid of the car -- but I don't see it happening before the last barrel of oil gets sucked out of the earth.

No, they did not swim and pull the boat. — Bitter Crank

One of the things I love about advice from elders is that they add stuff like this. Of course, I love the practical applications too. I think that spreading some kind of awareness that these skills might be needed would be useful. Nobody needs to take too much time out of their day to understand how to plant a seed or milk a cow or repair a bike. Of course, they won't be a master when they need to do it for the first time, but they will at least have a step up from no knowledge at all. I would say a sizable portion of the population really only knows where certain foods come from and not much else.

There is a natural feeling of what is right and wrong. This can be the source of further examination.
I don't know how much of that is included in the curriculum or even as a way to inform individual or group discussion. However, the earlier we become aware of both internal and external factors related to wellbeingness, the better - in my opinion. — Amity

Feeling that things are right or wrong is natural, but how do we decide what is right or wrong? We are socialized into it. In one culture you can eat a pig and it is very encouraged. In another, you might be shunned for it. To these groups, their respective actions feel right.

Thanks for response.
We are in agreement. I also said:

The answer to what should we do - depends on complex and interacting factors.
We should start by concentrating on the present. Look at evidence and use reason. Educate. — Amity

So, I am not focusing on some hypothetical future catastrophe but on the here and now, as per Guardian article:

..In this age of multiple emergencies – climate chaos, pollution, social alienation – we should remember that technologies exist to serve us, not to dominate us...." — Amity

So do you think we should create an artificial culture to keep people from creating problems? Most cultures waste things and its par for the course. You could try to build this culture on reason but a lot of people disagree on what that is. It truly is complicated.

I think that you could have a general set of rules to prepare for anything, but specifics are really up to the disaster. Rationing food, for example, is something that would be needed regardless of the degree or type of disaster. It would also be nice to have some sort of central authority on this kind of stuff. I don't know about you but I don't count the UN. They aren't great about the whole "authority" thing. I think that's why most discussions about regulating industrial waste don't go anywhere. — TogetherTurtle

Ok. I get where you are going now. So things like the seed bank in Iceland are along the lines of what you are talking about?

I am going to have to put some thought into this. It was so much easier to just pick apart a partial hypothetical, hehe.

I will keep reading and try to contribute if I come up with any solid ideas. But, for now I will just cast a vote for @Bitter Crank to be king of the new world. He seems to have a good grasp on all the factors (beer and coffee keep the gears lubricated), and it will likely take a while before democracy is tenable again.

I think it is impossible to establish such fundament on a global scale without unified transcendent or totalitarian power. — Aleksander

I entirely agree...unfortunately...

To solve global problems countries have to co-operate to do a lot of difficult and extremely disruptive and expensive things. They won't do that, not all at once in a sufficiently co-ordinated way. It's too disparate and competitive. — bert1

I agree with this also, which suggests disaster will have to strike BEFORE any global commitment will be likely. We need a pathetic (if it is not pathetic, they will win) alien invasion to unite us before the world kicks us out. - just saw that @emancipatealready covered this.

I was just being a smartass due to you asking "what is the greatest strength of the human mind," whereupon you listed a handful of things and then said "All of the above." — Terrapin Station

Haha, I assumed that was joke, but couldn't quite pin it down. Thanks for the explanation :grin: I actually consider myself decent at analyzing grammar, but missed that one.

I am going to have to put some thought into this. It was so much easier to just pick apart a partial hypothetical, hehe. — ZhouBoTong

I don't blame you for wanting to do that. It seems our minds take the path of least resistance and most fun and I most certainly would have done the same thing. Take your time.