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15 Feb ’12
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Pretty interesting article on what would happen in a shtf scenario and people tried to rebuild
Imagine that the world as we know it ends tomorrow. There’s a global catastrophe: a pandemic virus, an asteroid strike, or perhaps a nuclear holocaust. The vast majority of the human race perishes. Our civilisation collapses. The post-apocalyptic survivors find themselves in a devastated world of decaying, deserted cities and roving gangs of bandits looting and taking by force.
Bad as things sound, that’s not the end for humanity. We bounce back. Sooner or later, peace and order emerge again, just as they have time and again through history. Stable communities take shape. They begin the agonising process of rebuilding their technological base from scratch. But here’s the question: how far could such a society rebuild? Is there any chance, for instance, that a post-apocalyptic society could reboot a technological civilisation?
Let’s make the basis of this thought experiment a little more specific. Today, we have already consumed the most easily drainable crude oil and, particularly in Britain, much of the shallowest, most readily mined deposits of coal. Fossil fuels are central to the organisation of modern industrial society, just as they were central to its development. Those, by the way, are distinct roles: even if we could somehow do without fossil fuels now (which we can’t, quite), it’s a different question whether we could have got to where we are without ever having had them.
So, would a society starting over on a planet stripped of its fossil fuel deposits have the chance to progress through its own Industrial Revolution? Or to phrase it another way, what might have happened if, for whatever reason, the Earth had never acquired its extensive underground deposits of coal and oil in the first place? Would our progress necessarily have halted in the 18th century, in a pre-industrial state?
more https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels
6 Oct ’15
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Well...Fossil Fuels mean energy to manufacture on a large scale (could be technology, solar panels, food, medicines, steel beams, cars).
Would we even be able to build a nuclear power plant without fossil fuel energy? We would need heavy equipment to mine ore for radioactive fuel, we would need concrete batch plants, we would need trucks to bring in construction materials of all kinds, we need to feed workers...)
I think we would be reduced to basic small scale hydro and wind mill energy.
Of course, some of the more inventive up-cyclers would be able to find generators or solar set ups and make them work...but nothing to support a decent size power grid.
No energy (like we are used to) would be a complete game changer.
Variables that would change how things play out:
1) Is the majority of the planets population wiped out? and why?
... large meteor or super volcano may put us in a small Ice age by blocking out the sun with ash/debris...colder and tougher to grow food in many areas.
... Nuclear holocaust?...is everything dead electrically, radioactivity hot zones and fall out...what a mess there.
... Pandemic? Has it run it's course or not? Can we manufacture medicine still?
2) Think about the brain drain we could have with millions and millions dying. Then again if we have enough people dye we would need less natural resources.
3) What kind of Gov't/Law/Rule would there be...'might is right' most likely.
4) Does the 'world' have the basic tools to farm? to heat a home with wood? the knowledge to make things by hand?
I think it would be a mess...again, all depends on how bad it was...I don't see how the 'urban folks' could handle it.
15 Feb ’12
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I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a city, that's for sure.
6 Oct ’15
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I agree...the only good news is that most city folk can't survive for long outside the city...but they have the numbers.
15 Feb ’12
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you ever read summer of the apocalypse? Kind of deals with the brain drain thing, pretty decent read.
6 Oct ’15
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I will have to check that out...sounds interesting.
We have lost a lot of knowledge on how to do things by hand.
Can you imagine cutting all your firewood by hand?
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