Reading about the EU’s Preparedness advice and it’s interesting how it links to some work I’m helping out with on community LifeHouses.
There has been a shift in reactions to the climate crisis to collapse awareness. That prepping is necessary at political and communal levels.
This diagram came out of talking to activists in Oxfordshire about their attitude to Beyond Net Zero and work on solving of mitigating climate changes. They had already moved on from that, given the news on global temperature rises. The balance of ‘something can be done’ by institutions or corporations tipping to nothing can or will be done by them. Thus preparedness is the coherent strategy.
Why place fear on families?
What is problematic about the EU advice is how it places the fear and action onto individual and families. This is similar to how recycling was framed as a personal responsibility.
As pointed out by Greta Thunberg, that was an error. It allowed corporations and institutions to keep on going: without changing, without investing, without responsibility.
Systemic power avoids taking action and making decisions by flipping all of that onto millions of individuals. It’s not trying to use personal capacity and energy, it’s trying to dissipate its own responsibilities and avoid change by using its capabilities.
Preparing as a community?
Preparedness is something that is systemic too.
It should not be about who can afford to buy and store supplies in their own home. It should not be about such privilege and opportunity. The bunker’ism of billionaires or the violent individualism of American preppers.
It should be about communities and neighbourhoods. About parishes and local councils in alliance with churches and local groups. Building capability thru shared capacities.
This the work that is ongoing locally to me and it is the kind of work that needs to be done across many places. Linking together communities of action is a starting point.
Addition
There is also an Economist article on this issue – A Continent of Preppers.