Who peed in his Wheaties?

For the first post here on Survive the Apocalypse I guess I should lay down the basic premise for this blog and maybe tell you a bit about myself and my lovely wife, with whom I will be writing this blog.

I am currently a city-dwelling young professional. Some may even call me a yuppie. They'd be wrong, but I can see where they'd get the impression. I am fairly young, I do live in a city (urban), and I work in IT (professional).

I used to blog many, many moons ago back when it was called "keeping an online journal." I would write in my journal every day back in 1999, 2000, and 2001. I was separated from my first wife and I had all of the time and angst in the world to fuel my rantings.

My lovely wife, apocalypsegal, was also an early "blogger" back before it was called blogging. We actually met through our journals.

Shortly after meeting my current (and last!) wife things were just too groovy. The list of things I was pissed off about got smaller and smaller. My need to vent and to vent every damned day diminished and then went away. I stopped posting and eventually my domain name registration lapsed.

I don't think I even have backups of my old entries anymore.

Then came the explosion of blogs and I thought, "Well, I'll never do that again. I mean - how passe can you be?"

But here I am. Here we are, my wife and I.

"Why?", you ask.

Well, I'm putting on this little dog and pony show for you for a few reasons:

1. It's free now! Thanks to blogspot I even get a decent URL for nothing!
2. I need to vent again. More on that later...
3. It's a great way to store my thoughts.
4. I can't lose this data because I misplaced a CD or a hard drive burned out.
5. This allows me to share with you, the general public, information and concerns I feel very strongly about.

So now you know why I started this blog. Now what's it about?

Simply put: Everything is going to Hell. You know it and I do, too.

The dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Just this week the Canadian dollar surpassed the dollar in value. No offense to Canada, but if their currency is worth more than America's, then America has been managed very poorly.

The dollar's lack of value is indicative of many other problems. As a nation we are in debt. Mainly so we could fight a war that has nothing to do with anything but oil. Here's a little factoid that literally turns my stomach:

"Based on the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) recently determined that the Iraq war costs $720 million per day, $500,000 per minute – enough to provide homes for nearly 6,500 families, or health care for 423,529 children in just one day."

I got the above quote from one of the RSS feeds to which I subscribe. I'll credit it if I can remember where I got it.

So instead of investing in our nation we invest in bullets and bombs that can only be used once. Meanwhile bridges collapse, children go without health care, our nation's streets serve as the only home many Americans know.

Instead of enriching the entire nation we enrich a few defense contractor CEOs. We enrich Exxon and Chevron while our education system is in decline and our health care system is a nightmare.

We have money to kill, but not to grow. We have money for bombs but not for books or housing. We have money for destruction but not for dignity.

Our priorities are all wrong.

Global warming, impending oil shortages, and possible global shortages in water supplies are just some of the environmental issues that confront humanity as a whole.

As Americans the rise of China's industrial might is something that should have us much more concerned than we are. The rapid rise of America's industrial capacity precipitated our rise as a major global power. Of course it will do the same for China.

With an entire Damocles Armory hanging over the head of society, it isn't too far-fetched a notion that our way of life may change very soon. Whose life will change? I fear every one's life will take a turn for the worse. Nowhere will this be more true than in America.

By any objective measure, Americans live a gluttonous lifestyle. We are five percent of the world's population and we consume 20-25% of the world's energy. We get everything prepackaged and ready to eat from a store.

We in America are, per capita, the most polluting nation on Earth as well. How many sparkling clean SUVs with a single occupant do you see driving down any stretch of the road at any given time? I bet the answer is "a lot."

How many of us live right next door to people we don't know? I don't know most of my neighbors. Our increasing isolation is very, very bad for us as a social species. It is much easier to stand idly by as a complete stranger is mistreated. It's much easier to not be outraged when someone you don't know is laid off or has medical bills that ruin them. It's much easier to stand idly by as the authorities abuse their power when you aren't the one being abused ("First they came for them, but I was not one of them, so I said nothing...")

So I am writing this blog in order to prepare. I am preparing for a change. The good news is that what we will learn together on this journey will be beneficial for not only you, but your environment, your local economy, and yes, young patriots - probably even your nation (whichever nation that is).

There doesn't have to be an Apocalypse in order for you to reap these benefits. The purpose of this blog is to document my family's transition from gluttonous American waster-consumers into a family that lives in more harmony with their environment and their neighbors.

If none of the worst case scenarios come to pass (global climate change, world economic depression brought about by a collapse of the oil-economy, etc) it will be because people took actions like the ones we will discuss. Actions that fall into these two basic categories:

1. Reducing environmental impact
2. Increasing local involvement

Topics for future posts will range from Mad Max to Einstein (not really) to Julia Child. We will discuss preparation for emergencies, cooking healthy, renewable energy and energy efficiency (two topics that cannot be discussed separately).

As I read more books I will include them in the Required Reading section on the right hand side of the page. At this stage I have read Wilderness Survival by Tom Brown and I am just starting The Renewable Energy Handbook by William H. Kemp.