[Cid_Yama]

After Armageddon

In this documentary, the initiating cause is a highly viral, fast moving pandemic, but the progression, regardless of the trigger, is the same.

[Hawkcreek]

Didn't like it. The main characters were shown as total idiots, and left me with no feeling of empathy. They deserved extinction.
But many people think they will never need emergency supplies, never need to defend themselves, or never need real insurance for unforeseen circumstances, I suppose. They are idiots too, in my book.
Just another armageddon flick, stating the obvious.

[Tanada]

Thanx for he link, put it in my Que to watch as soon as I can dedicate an hour and a half.

[jedrider]

STUCK in Traffic! You DON'T have to wait for Armageddon for that to happen.

I think it will be slow and starvation and lack of fuel will be the problems.

If the transition is even slower, then it will be poverty WITHOUT food stamps and LAWLESSNESS.

Cops will SHOOT first and ask questions later. WAIT, they already do that!

[GHung]

I saw this when it first aired. Sometimes I go back to watch these things just to light a fire under my preps; already living most of those.

Anyway, today's prep experiment is a project I had planned for our root cellar. Even though it's buried in the ground behind our kitchen storeroom (3 sides) this summer saw the temps in the cellar rise to 70 degrees; sort of warm for storing dry and canned goods long-term. A while back someone gave me one of those small air conditioners (heat pump really; looks like R2D2), so I installed it in the root cellar and vented it out of the existing vents. Our batteries were fully charged about 2 PM and I can run it for a few more hours off of surplus PV output. Should do nicely for bringing the temp and humidity down in there.

We also store our extra meds in there including extra antibiotics and first aid stuff. I always keep plenty of the topical antibiotics and livestock antibiotics ("dose as for swine"), and replace as they get dated. Goes to the end of the show when the guy gets an infection. Cheap insurance. One little tube of Neosporin would have likely prevented that guy's demise; generally long shelf life if kept in a cool/dry/dark place. Every go-bag should have a small first-aid kit including antibiotics and spare prescription meds.

[Cid_Yama]

After 22

Here is another one. It's like someone interviewing/documenting people from the movie The Road. Pretty grim.

[Cid_Yama]

Yes Hawkcreek, I thought these people shouldn't have survived the first few days. (After Armageddon) But they were trying to portray the average city dweller and the types of decisions they would make and did a good job of it. But to have a documentary, they had to survive long enough to show everything they wanted to show. So they were just extremely lucky, if stupid. And it did allow the survival experts the opportunity to tell you what you should be doing in those situations.

[Cid_Yama]

In both, the key event was the power going off and not coming back on again. It was what they all dated the collapse from. Followed by no water coming out of the faucets.

Also, it seems suicide was the preferred method of adaptation.

[KaiserJeep]

What is wrong with both of those videos is the assumption of fast crash. Fast crash is just a non-starter as an idea. There are the elites, the paid political toadies of the elites, and the energy industry itself, all kicking the can for as many times as they can, until the can disintegrates or their legs quit working. Then there are large industrial consumers of energy like big agriculture, the automobile industry, and the transport industry, all kicking as well. Just about everybody everywhere, all kicking. Because what else could they possibly do?

I still need to make this point over and over: the oil peak is a long, drawn out emergency, not an event. Conventional petroleum (and I understand that is a very vague term) peaked around 2008, for practical purposes. Which for Americans, was a good 40 years after the effects of limited energy resources started to effect our economy - simply because oil consumption was slowing the rate of increase before the peak.

Now we are past the peak, and for at least another century, oil will be in tighter and tighter supply, then it will be gone. I remember $0.189/gallon gasoline in the MidWest in 1969. They were having a "gas war" at a time when gasoline was regularly $0.229/gallon. Granted, the dollars were worth more then - but the point is, "The Long Emergency" began in the 1960's, less all the short term political BS, wars in the ME, and the greed of the energy czars such as the Koch brothers.

The world collapses around us, ever so slowly, and the collapse began not quite 50 years ago. So don't hold your breath, forget models of the economics of the oil peak, and think things through. YOU don't actually need a doomstead, and your kids might (about a 50% probability), and your grandkids almost certainly will face grim choices.

It is a Darwinian opportunity. You can act in ways that preserve your genes, or not. But the nature of The Long Emergency is decades of quietly increasing desperation. Your descendants will need the skills and the knowledge and the resources that are in plentiful demand today, and won't be available at any price then.

[SumYunGai]

What is wrong with both of those videos is the assumption of fast crash.

A fast crash is inevitable. All scenarios eventually end there.

Fast crash is just a non-starter as an idea. There are the elites, the paid political toadies of the elites, and the energy industry itself, all kicking the can for as many times as they can, until the can disintegrates or their legs quit working.

And then we will have a fast crash. There is no other possible way it can end. Think about it.

Then there are large industrial consumers of energy like big agriculture, the automobile industry, and the transport industry, all kicking as well. Just about everybody everywhere, all kicking. Because what else could they possibly do?

Exactly. Everyone everywhere is already kicking the poor can to death because there is no other choice. When these efforts to propel the can down the road fail, we will have a rapid collapse. How could it be otherwise?

Have you read the Korowicz paper?

[drwater]

Nice to see Kevin Reeve in the film.

At the end of the day, you only need food, water, and some way to keep warm and dry. There is so much extra junk in our lives that we could do without if we had to as long as the essentials were still there. Staying put in a big city would not be smart unless you had certain access to those essentials.

[Hawkcreek]

What is wrong with both of those videos is the assumption of fast crash. Fast crash is just a non-starter as an idea.

Did you watch the video?
When 100 million people die in the USA from a pandemic, within just a few months, , that would be a fast crash, no matter what you think.

[KaiserJeep]

You haven't made any cohesive or convincing argument for a fast crash. Both supposed "documentaries" amount to people making dire predictions about the future. Armageddon itself originated in the Christian Bible around 1800 years ago. If you want to understand the rationale of the slow crash, then read Kunstler's The Long Emergency, which can be found online in pdf.

The ultimate fast crash proponent was Michael Ruppert. Although I now believe he was a borderline nut job and to some degree mentally ill, I give him credit for drawing attention to the oil peak with his film Collapse. Then Ruppert lived for a little more than a decade after confidently predicting the impending end of the world several times. When he was repeatedly proved wrong, he then took his own life.

The best argument for slow crash versus fast crash is the one I made above. To anyone familiar with current events, slow crash began in the late 1960's and will continue for some decades. Note that the signs are all around you today. However, the nature of the oil peak is that half of the oil remains to be consumed, at higher and higher prices. The first half took about 150 years or so to consume. The second half will take less because of our overshoot population and the increased demand for energy. The other factor is that as EROEI lessens, the hundreds of thousands of oil sources will get abandoned one by one. But exactly how much less than 150 years is hard to predict.

It will indeed be a gut-wrenching, distressful time when we run out of cheap energy. It will kill most of the people on Earth. It will be recorded in bit-perfect digital media files, and will be an abject example of the consequences of unchecked primate behaviors - and a lesson available forever after.

As for the idea that 100 million Americans - a third of us - will die in a pandemic, that is the stuff of disaster movies and zombie tales. There has never been a pandemic in a country with modern medicine, pandemics occur in 3rd world countries. The average American spends today about 5.7% of their income on food, rather more on transportation. So when energy grows expensive, you will probably eat less (a good thing) and pay more (an inconvenience). But the difference between intensive mechanized agriculture we use today and whatever shadow of that is possible after cheap oil ends, is unlikely to be as high as 10X. Even if it increases to 10 X 5.7% or 57% of your income, the choice is still whether you want to buy food or starve. (I don't claim to know what you will do, but I'll choose to eat still.)

I watched less than an hour of both videos, before I lost patience. These are not documentaries, they are rank speculation by devotees of doom. There is no evidence of anything to be found in either video. There exists nobody on Earth who knows what will happen tomorrow. The only thing you can be sure of is that tomorrow will greatly resemble today. The inertia of 7+ Billion humans all working to preserve BAU dwarfs the no-doubt-sincere-opinions of however many "fast crash" doomies exist at PO.com.

[Cid_Yama]

The only thing you can be sure of is that tomorrow will greatly resemble today.

There's your problem, When you build your psyche on an a priori assumption such as this, you defend it as if you yourself are under attack, as in a sense, you are.

When such a foundational pillar is knocked out from under you, the rest will crumble, and you will be forced to reorganize your psyche on a more realistic assumption.

During that reorganization, you will lose functionality, at a time when you are going to need your wits about you. (His wife in the documentary).

Dissociation is one of the most primitive defense mechanisms, and a dangerous state to be in. Intended to protect the psyche, it endangers the rest of you.

Think of it as a long reboot while your system attempts to repair itself.

[Tanada]

KaiserJeep, FYI around 170 AD the Roman Empire was swept by a plague in two waves, probably Smallpox, that killed 1 in 4 of the population. As a result of this 'Antonine' plague the western Roman Empire went into steep decline and within 150 years was suffering repeated waves of invasions from Germanic tribes.

Don't underestimate the effects of a depopulating event on a culture.

In the late middle ages the Black Death swept through Europe two to three times and lost around a third of the population. This completely destroyed the existing culture and opened the door to the Renaissance period when the Catholic Church lost its moral authority over the crown heads of Europe.

Don't underestimate the effects of a depopulating event on a culture.

[KaiserJeep]

Tanada, I did not say that the world had never experienced pandemics. I said that no country with modern medicine has ever experienced a pandemic. The Spanish flu pandemic is as close as we came, and that was before antibiotics, microscopes capable of resolving viruses, IV fluid systems, and the manufacturing of antiviral agents.

Even today, pandemics such as Ebola start in the African jungle, and are resolved when modern medicine arrives on the scene.

I believe that you have swallowed the fast crash scenario. If civilization crashed and modern medicine ends, yes pandemics would be a concern. But there is just no way - short of nuclear warfare - that the momentum of modern civilization can go away overnight. But a nuclear war, or a mega-volcano, or a 1-mile diameter asteroid strike on the planet, are all scenarios that make peak hydrocarbons small in comparison. The only way anybody survives such disasters is to have the 20-20 foresight to be a long ways away from such conniptions when they happen. Let me know about that when you have it figured out - maybe some of the Greek philosophers would help you there.

Nor do I believe that two smallpox pandemics ended the Roman Empire, although I have heard the theory before. Hubris did in the Romans.

[ennui2]

I'm with KJ on this one.

I know Monte used to push the pandemic idea and it's been popularized via zombie movies or the planet of the apes reboot, however, we're better able to cure and/or contain these things than at any time in human history.

This narrative is attractive as it sets the stage for a die-off event that could happen at any time and isn't contingent on oil supply or AGW. In other words, it's porn for doomers.

[Cid_Yama]

World Health Organization Director Dr. Margaret Chan said today in her opening remarks. "The emergence of bacterial resistance is outpacing the world’s capacity for antibiotic discovery. ... With few replacement products in the pipeline, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era in which common infections, especially those caused by gram-negative bacteria, will once again kill."

"We’re hanging on to a cliff with our fingers and our fingers are falling off one by one," Dr. Frank Esper, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital who was not involved with the study, told ABC News today. "For some germs, there is nothing, and it’s not uncommon for us to find ourselves in a situation where we’re looking at a germ that’s extremely resistant [to current antibiotics]."

link

For several decades, clinicians have relied on the use of carbapenem antimicrobials to treat infections caused by resistant organisms. The development of resistance to broad-spectrum antimicrobials and the prevalence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in the United States have increased over the past 20 years.

CRE infections pose a serious threat to public health due to high mortality rates, resistance to commonly used antibiotics, limited treatment options, and the potential for widespread dissemination. Mortality rates of 40% to 50% have been reported. In 2012, the CDC concluded that 4.6% of acute-care hospitals performing surveillance reported at least one CRE healthcare-associated infection.

According to the Meropenem Yearly Susceptibility Test Information Collection Program, meropenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae increased from 0.6% in 2004 to 5.6% in 2008. Carbapenem resistance has been cited in up to 4.0% of Escherichia coli and 10.8% of K pneumoniae isolates reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network.

link


Carbapenems are the antibiotic of last resort when all other antibiotics fail. There is now emergent Carbapenem-resistance.

With the high mortality rates, it's only a matter of time.

[Tanada]

Tanada, I did not say that the world had never experienced pandemics. I said that no country with modern medicine has ever experienced a pandemic. The Spanish flu pandemic is as close as we came, and that was before antibiotics, microscopes capable of resolving viruses, IV fluid systems, and the manufacturing of antiviral agents.

Even today, pandemics such as Ebola start in the African jungle, and are resolved when modern medicine arrives on the scene.

I believe that you have swallowed the fast crash scenario. If civilization crashed and modern medicine ends, yes pandemics would be a concern. But there is just no way - short of nuclear warfare - that the momentum of modern civilization can go away overnight. But a nuclear war, or a mega-volcano, or a 1-mile diameter asteroid strike on the planet, are all scenarios that make peak hydrocarbons small in comparison. The only way anybody survives such disasters is to have the 20-20 foresight to be a long ways away from such conniptions when they happen. Let me know about that when you have it figured out - maybe some of the Greek philosophers would help you there.

Nor do I believe that two smallpox pandemics ended the Roman Empire, although I have heard the theory before. Hubris did in the Romans.

As most people around here know I live near Toledo, Ohio. Summer 2014 there was a serious Microsystin contamination of the city water treatment system that shut down the water network for the entire county and adjoining suburbs over the county line. Patients from the Toledo area hospitals had to be moved or turned away because the hospitals did not have water stores or RO capability to purify the water in their own plumbing. This lead me to ask a lot of questions and the upshot of what I learned was a bit unnerving. The supply of antibiotics, anti-viral agents, sterile dressings, IV fluid container bags and on and on are only stored in quantities that can be used before they expire, or much less. IV solution is easy to make, 9 grams of table salt in 1 liter of distilled water does the trick. But hospitals stopped making IV solution 25 years ago when they switched from glass bottles to pre filled plastic bags. Everything is delivered in a 'just in time' system from three or four bottling facilities around the country. The same is true of all the other items used by a hospital to treat patients for everything from accidents to illness. Now add in the fact that nearly all medical facilities have a limited number of physicians and nurses on the staff even if they call everyone in and cancel all vacations. So here is your outbreak, 50 people show up sick from Mystery Illness. The next day while they are all still in the hospital 75 more show up. Then another 100 the third day and WHAM the hospital is full up, every bed is occupied and every staff member is working 7/12 hour shifts a week from then until the outbreak burns itself out. Even worse the stock of IV solution is intended to take care of 'average' needs because it is premixed in a different location and shipped in usually once a week.

If your pandemic is in a small contained locality you can bring in supplies and medical professionals from around the country and take the best possible care of everyone. However if the outbreak is NOT of limited geographic area in a very short period of time you can more patients than the system can handle because we no longer store large quantities of anything within the system. We don't even have the old glass IV bottles and reusable lines that were commonplace through the early 1980's but that have long since been discarded as wasting storage space that could be used for some other purpose.

You say that there has never been a pandemic in a country with a modern health care system. I would argue that the hospitals in the large African cities are as good as the hospitals in any western country in terms of treating patients with a disease like Ebola. With drastic measures to slow and then stop the spread those hospitals still lost THOUSANDS of patients before the outbreak in 2014 that began in February and lasted about a year. Nigeria has some world class hospitals because of its oil wealth. They still needed a lot of assistance from doctors without borders, the Red Cross and Crescent and other international aid organizations.

Oh and BTW I did not say the Antoine plague destroyed the Western Roman Empire, I said its effect on the culture was large and unpredictable and is often cite as the beginning of the decline of Rome.

Our system is set up economically to operate under average load with spikes now and then being dealt with through outside assistance. A real pandemic event rapidly exceeds that limited capacity and what happens after that is unpredictable. Maybe communities pull together and the maximum number possible are supported and most survive. Maybe there is a strict quarantine of everyone in their own home and if you get sick you are on your own and many more die. There is no way to tell in advance and no reason that two communities separated by a few miles might not have opposite reactions.

[ennui2]

With the high mortality rates, it's only a matter of time.

Cid, I thought you were busy telling us that the earth's gonna flip to hothouse mode in only a few years and we'll all be dead because of it?

When you move from obsessing over one fast-crash to another it really hurts any individual case you want to make and it falls back into "end is nigh"(TM) mode.