Events outside of our control are leading to drastic changes in the way and quality of life for everybody we know and everybody they know.
We are fortunate enough to have lived during a time when society was at a peak. That peak is behind us and we're now bearing witness to our society's decline and fall; a fall which is accelerating rapidly.
The causes of this decline do not rest on one particular race, political party, monetary system, government, nationality or ideology and the collapse is not being orchestrated by a small group of powerful elites.
If you're truly interested in understanding the root of the issue please begin by researching a biophysical economics term called: EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested).
The first thing to realize about the situation we're in is that it doesn't present us with a problem. What we're facing is a predicament.
The difference was best described by John Michael Greer,
"...a problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether one can be found and made to work, and once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses. Those responses may succeed, they may fail, or they may fall somewhere in between, but none of them 'solves' the predicament, in the sense that none of them makes it go away."
Enough time has been wasted attempting to solve or ignore this predicament and those attempts, by and large, have only made the issues bigger.
So how do we respond?
Before any response can be imagined or implemented we have to first set our expectations of what the future is likely to hold for us.
We’re not going to see a Hollywood Movie style collapse where most of the country is destroyed in a few short days, months or years.
The next century will consist of long stretches of slow but terminal decline punctuated by periods of violent upheaval.
We will need to cultivate sustainable expectations if we’re to survive the former and resilient spirits to hold tight through the latter.
So what can we expect?
Expect Less Direct Energy
Gasoline, Diesel Fuel and Natural Gas will all become prohibitively expensive and may become unavailable for any price due to shortages, production declines or outages.
Expect Less Indirect Energy
The production of most of the things we consume requires immense amounts of resources and energy. That is how energy is consumed indirectly.
Thankfully it is easy to determine whether a consumable is one that consumes a lot of indirect energy.
• Anything you can purchase with a credit card, debit card, EBT card or cash.
That is pretty much it. Anything you commonly spend your money on now is likely to become unavailable. Here the word, "unavailable," could mean simply being unable to pay for the consumable because you lack the money to do so.
Those that can continue to pay will be paying a lot more for a lot less. The following is a list of products that will be or have already been hit especially hard.
• Coffee
• Meat and all Factory Farmed food
• Chocolate
• Prescription Drugs and Healthcare
• Internet
• Credit
• Reliable Electric Power Grids
• Clean Running Tap Water
What steps can I take?
Make a list of the things you believe you actually need. Clean water, food, shelter and community should be the first four items on the list. Any step you take acquiring the things you need using as little money as possible is a step in the right direction. Easy examples:
• Growing/Preserving Your Own Food
• Harvesting Rain and Grey Water
• Insulating Your Home
• Meeting Your Neighbors
These actions won’t prevent collapse but they will help make the way down much less jarring.