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Thoughtful Food Storage: Fruit

Posted by thesurvivalmom on Jun 17, 2010

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/06/17/thoughtful-food-storage-fruit/

Guest post by Debbie Cee.

Feeding and storing food for six takes a fair amount of space and a lot of thought. Since four of us are still growing, nutrition is a top priority for me. I organize my food storage by food groups, with each group presenting different challenges. This post is about how I am handling fruit.
fruit Thoughtful Food Storage: Fruit

Fruit is important for its vitamin C, which our bodies cannot make, for its fiber and even for its sweet taste. Life seems a little easier with sweets, doesn’t it? Hand a piece of fruit or some raisins to a child, and you have a happy child. Jam on your toast is appreciated by all ages. Fruit can be both a treat and an energy boost. For all these reasons, I have a good sized stock of fruit.

You can store canned, frozen, dehydrated or freeze dried fruit, and then, of course, there is jam. I have ended up with a bit of each in my stores. Between having six to feed and having a growing cooking skill, I go for a variety of foods whenever possible.

I have a large shelf in my basement filled with canned fruit in fruit juice and applesauce. In my climate controlled basement in the Northeast, cans and jars are good for several years. Although I have to be space conscious, I’m willing to use cans and jars because the juice is also food. There is no wasted liquid; every bit is Vitamin C laden goodness.

I also have about twenty jars of homemade jam. We go to u-pick places and pick away. My kids have a huge amount of fun, and I get fresh picked fruit to work with. I have made strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and cherry jams so far. I consider jam a very good storage item. High calorie and sweet, mine is made within two days of getting picked. If I didn’t make it, I’d be buying jam from the stores, and paying a good amount of money to get jam with only fruit, sugar and pectin in it.

Making jam is surprisingly easy and lots of fun. You boil the fruit and sugar together, add a bit of pectin, and then pour it into jars. The jars get boiled in a water bath pot and there you are. All home canning supplies can be purchased in one quick trip to Wal-Mart. If you live near a u-pick place with good prices, look into it. Your jam will taste better than Smucker’s. My jam does, and I’ve only been making it for two years.

The fruit we pick also gets frozen and dehydrated. Freezers are great for storing food. Just remember to not count on them completely. If the power goes out, you will have to work at it to keep food frozen. I keep some old blankets near my freezer, just in case. Wrapping the freezer with blankets if the power goes out will give you more time before your food starts to thaw. A battery powered temperature alarm for your freezer is also money well spent. I got one from Cabella’s for about $15.
jam Thoughtful Food Storage: Fruit

Raisins, craisins, dates and prunes will store for a good six months unless packaged for longer-term storage. Check the expiration date to be sure you are buying fairly new product. A handful of these dried fruits will give you a good energy boost. They make a bowl of oatmeal even more delicious, and don’t forget, they are good in cookies.

I have some freeze dried fruit that I bought on sale, and some commercially dehydrated apples waiting to go into a bucket. Watch for sales on long-term storage foods. 10% off is a very good deal for freeze dried foods nowadays. Long term storage is very convenient in that you buy it, stash it in a corner and don’t have to worry about it again. I work much more on my weekly groceries and my medium range larder stores then I ever have to for long-term storage.

Having a variety of foods is always a good idea. I seldom have home dehydrated fruit around. It seems to disappear almost as quickly as I make it. If you don’t have children hovering over your dehydrator, go for it. Just remember the fruit is probably not good for more than six months. Use it in your medium range stores

Another source of fruit is home-grown. I planted two apple trees in our yard two years ago; I’m seeing small apples on them now. Fruit trees and berry bushes give you very good value for their price and the space they take. It used to be very common for yards to have fruit trees and berry bushes.

With all the choices for fruits, you can have an easy time picking what you like best. I strongly recommend not having just cans or just dehydrated or just freeze dried. Having both light weight and heavy fruit could make packing for a bug out situation much easier, for example. Having canned fruit as part of your rotating stocks could make a loss of income easier on your children if fresh fruit ever became too expensive. They will already be accustomed to canned fruit and not be stressing about new food items. An apple tree or strawberry patch in your yard is a little bit of self reliance out there, making you smile and feel powerful as it grows food for you.

This post sponsored by Ready Made Resources.

Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US

Published on Energy Bulletin (http://www.energybulletin.net)

Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US
Published Mon, 12/04/2006 - 08:00
by Energy Bulletin



Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.

My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the "Collapse Gap" – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.




Slide [2] The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet.

And this next one certainly has me intrigued. From what I've seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won't be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use.





Slide [3] I anticipate that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination – but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results – each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.




Slide [4] The USA and the USSR were evenly matched in many categories, but let me just mention four.

The Soviet manned space program is alive and well under Russian management, and now offers first-ever space charters. The Americans have been hitching rides on the Soyuz while their remaining spaceships sit in the shop.

The arms race has not produced a clear winner, and that is excellent news, because Mutual Assured Destruction remains in effect. Russia still has more nuclear warheads than the US, and has supersonic cruise missile technology that can penetrate any missile shield, especially a nonexistent one.

The Jails Race once showed the Soviets with a decisive lead, thanks to their innovative GULAG program. But they gradually fell behind, and in the end the Jails Race has been won by the Americans, with the highest percentage of people in jail ever.

The Hated Evil Empire Race is also finally being won by the Americans. It's easy now that they don't have anyone to compete against.






Slide [5] Continuing with our list of superpower similarities, many of the problems that sunk the Soviet Union are now endangering the United States as well. Such as a huge, well-equipped, very expensive military, with no clear mission, bogged down in fighting Muslim insurgents. Such as energy shortfalls linked to peaking oil production. Such as a persistently unfavorable trade balance, resulting in runaway foreign debt. Add to that a delusional self-image, an inflexible ideology, and an unresponsive political system.






Slide [6] An economic collapse is amazing to observe, and very interesting if described accurately and in detail. A general description tends to fall short of the mark, but let me try. An economic arrangement can continue for quite some time after it becomes untenable, through sheer inertia. But at some point a tide of broken promises and invalidated assumptions sweeps it all out to sea. One such untenable arrangement rests on the notion that it is possible to perpetually borrow more and more money from abroad, to pay for more and more energy imports, while the price of these imports continues to double every few years. Free money with which to buy energy equals free energy, and free energy does not occur in nature. This must therefore be a transient condition. When the flow of energy snaps back toward equilibrium, much of the US economy will be forced to shut down.




Slide [7] I've described what happened to Russia in some detail in one of my articles, which is available on SurvivingPeakOil.com. I don't see why what happens to the United States should be entirely dissimilar, at least in general terms. The specifics will be different, and we will get to them in a moment. We should certainly expect shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and countless consumer items, outages of electricity, gas, and water, breakdowns in transportation systems and other infrastructure, hyperinflation, widespread shutdowns and mass layoffs, along with a lot of despair, confusion, violence, and lawlessness. We definitely should not expect any grand rescue plans, innovative technology programs, or miracles of social cohesion.





Slide [8] When faced with such developments, some people are quick to realize what it is they have to do to survive, and start doing these things, generally without anyone's permission. A sort of economy emerges, completely informal, and often semi-criminal. It revolves around liquidating, and recycling, the remains of the old economy. It is based on direct access to resources, and the threat of force, rather than ownership or legal authority. People who have a problem with this way of doing things, quickly find themselves out of the game.

These are the generalities. Now let's look at some specifics.






Slide [9] One important element of collapse-preparedness is making sure that you don't need a functioning economy to keep a roof over your head. In the Soviet Union, all housing belonged to the government, which made it available directly to the people. Since all housing was also built by the government, it was only built in places that the government could service using public transportation. After the collapse, almost everyone managed to keep their place.

In the United States, very few people own their place of residence free and clear, and even they need an income to pay real estate taxes. People without an income face homelessness. When the economy collapses, very few people will continue to have an income, so homelessness will become rampant. Add to that the car-dependent nature of most suburbs, and what you will get is mass migrations of homeless people toward city centers.






Slide [10] Soviet public transportation was more or less all there was, but there was plenty of it. There were also a few private cars, but so few that gasoline rationing and shortages were mostly inconsequential. All of this public infrastructure was designed to be almost infinitely maintainable, and continued to run even as the rest of the economy collapsed.

The population of the United States is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of the population will find itself stranded.






Slide [11] Economic collapse affects public sector employment almost as much as private sector employment, eventually. Because government bureaucracies tend to be slow to act, they collapse more slowly. Also, because state-owned enterprises tend to be inefficient, and stockpile inventory, there is plenty of it left over, for the employees to take home, and use in barter. Most Soviet employment was in the public sector, and this gave people some time to think of what to do next.

Private enterprises tend to be much more efficient at many things. Such laying off their people, shutting their doors, and liquidating their assets. Since most employment in the United States is in the private sector, we should expect the transition to permanent unemployment to be quite abrupt for most people.





Slide [12] When confronting hardship, people usually fall back on their families for support. The Soviet Union experienced chronic housing shortages, which often resulted in three generations living together under one roof. This didn't make them happy, but at least they were used to each other. The usual expectation was that they would stick it out together, come what may.

In the United States, families tend to be atomized, spread out over several states. They sometimes have trouble tolerating each other when they come together for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, even during the best of times. They might find it difficult to get along, in bad times. There is already too much loneliness in this country, and I doubt that economic collapse will cure it.





Slide [13] To keep evil at bay, Americans require money. In an economic collapse, there is usually hyperinflation, which wipes out savings. There is also rampant unemployment, which wipes out incomes. The result is a population that is largely penniless.

In the Soviet Union, very little could be obtained for money. It was treated as tokens rather than as wealth, and was shared among friends. Many things – housing and transportation among them – were either free or almost free.






Slide [14] Soviet consumer products were always an object of derision – refrigerators that kept the house warm – and the food, and so on. You'd be lucky if you got one at all, and it would be up to you to make it work once you got it home. But once you got it to work, it would become a priceless family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation, sturdy, and almost infinitely maintainable.

In the United States, you often hear that something "is not worth fixing." This is enough to make a Russian see red. I once heard of an elderly Russian who became irate when a hardware store in Boston wouldn't sell him replacement bedsprings: "People are throwing away perfectly good mattresses, how am I supposed to fix them?"

Economic collapse tends to shut down both local production and imports, and so it is vitally important that anything you own wears out slowly, and that you can fix it yourself if it breaks. Soviet-made stuff generally wore incredibly hard. The Chinese-made stuff you can get around here – much less so.






Slide [15] The Soviet agricultural sector was notoriously inefficient. Many people grew and gathered their own food even in relatively prosperous times. There were food warehouses in every city, stocked according to a government allocation scheme. There were very few restaurants, and most families cooked and ate at home. Shopping was rather labor-intensive, and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting – stalking that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter. So the people were well-prepared for what came next.

In the United States, most people get their food from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel trucks. Many people don't even bother to shop and just eat fast food. When people do cook, they rarely cook from scratch. This is all very unhealthy, and the effect on the nation's girth, is visible, clear across the parking lot. A lot of the people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for what comes next. If they suddenly had to start living like the Russians, they would blow out their knees.






Slide [16] The Soviet government threw resources at immunization programs, infectious disease control, and basic care. It directly operated a system of state-owned clinics, hospitals, and sanatoriums. People with fatal ailments or chronic conditions often had reason to complain, and had to pay for private care – if they had the money.

In the United States, medicine is for profit. People seems to think nothing of this fact. There are really very few fields of endeavor to which Americans would deny the profit motive. The problem is, once the economy is removed, so is the profit, along with the services it once helped to motivate.







Slide [17] The Soviet education system was generally quite excellent. It produced an overwhelmingly literate population and many great specialists. The education was free at all levels, but higher education sometimes paid a stipend, and often provided room and board. The educational system held together quite well after the economy collapsed. The problem was that the graduates had no jobs to look forward to upon graduation. Many of them lost their way.

The higher education system in the United States is good at many things – government and industrial research, team sports, vocational training... Primary and secondary education fails to achieve in 12 years what Soviet schools generally achieved in 8. The massive scale and expense of maintaining these institutions is likely to prove too much for the post-collapse environment. Illiteracy is already a problem in the United States, and we should expect it to get a lot worse.








Slide [18] The Soviet Union did not need to import energy. The production and distribution system faltered, but never collapsed. Price controls kept the lights on even as hyperinflation raged.

The term "market failure" seems to fit the energy situation in the United States. Free markets develop some pernicious characteristics when there are shortages of key commodities. During World War II, the United States government understood this, and successfully rationed many things, from gasoline to bicycle parts. But that was a long time ago. Since then, the inviolability of free markets has become an article of faith.





Slide [19] My conclusion is that the Soviet Union was much better-prepared for economic collapse than the United States is.

I have left out two important superpower asymmetries, because they don't have anything to do with collapse-preparedness. Some countries are simply luckier than others. But I will mention them, for the sake of completeness.

In terms of racial and ethnic composition, the United States resembles Yugoslavia more than it resembles Russia, so we shouldn't expect it to be as peaceful as Russia was, following the collapse. Ethnically mixed societies are fragile and have a tendency to explode.

In terms of religion, the Soviet Union was relatively free of apocalyptic doomsday cults. Very few people there wished for a planet-sized atomic fireball to herald the second coming of their savior. This was indeed a blessing.






Slide [20] One area in which I cannot discern any Collapse Gap is national politics. The ideologies may be different, but the blind adherence to them couldn't be more similar.

It is certainly more fun to watch two Capitalist parties go at each other than just having the one Communist party to vote for. The things they fight over in public are generally symbolic little tokens of social policy, chosen for ease of public posturing. The Communist party offered just one bitter pill. The two Capitalist parties offer a choice of two placebos. The latest innovation is the photo finish election, where each party buys 50% of the vote, and the result is pulled out of statistical noise, like a rabbit out of a hat.

The American way of dealing with dissent and with protest is certainly more advanced: why imprison dissidents when you can just let them shout into the wind to their heart's content?

The American approach to bookkeeping is more subtle and nuanced than the Soviet. Why make a state secret of some statistic, when you can just distort it, in obscure ways? Here's a simple example: inflation is "controlled" by substituting hamburger for steak, in order to minimize increases to Social Security payments.






Slide [21] Many people expend a lot of energy protesting against their irresponsible, unresponsive government. It seems like a terrible waste of time, considering how ineffectual their protests are. Is it enough of a consolation for them to be able to read about their efforts in the foreign press? I think that they would feel better if they tuned out the politicians, the way the politicians tune them out. It's as easy as turning off the television set. If they try it, they will probably observe that nothing about their lives has changed, nothing at all, except maybe their mood has improved. They might also find that they have more time and energy to devote to more important things.






Slide [22] I will now sketch out some approaches, realistic and otherwise, to closing the Collapse Gap. My little list of approaches might seem a bit glib, but keep in mind that this is a very difficult problem. In fact, it's important to keep in mind that not all problems have solutions. I can promise you that we will not solve this problem tonight. What I will try to do is to shed some light on it from several angles.






Slide [23] Many people rail against the unresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the government. They often say things like "What is needed is..." plus the name of some big, successful government project from the glorious past – the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program. But there is nothing in the history books about a government preparing for collapse. Gorbachev's "Perestroika" is an example of a government trying to avert or delay collapse. It probably helped speed it along.






Slide [24] There are some things that I would like the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas – abandoning one's soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops repatriated. I'd like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So, you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do get done, I would consider it a miracle.






Slide [25] A private sector solution is not impossible; just very, very unlikely. Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy. They kept to this arrangement even after they were privatized. They drove Western management consultants mad, with their endless kindergartens, retirement homes, laundries, and free clinics. These weren't part of their core competency, you see. They needed to divest and to streamline their operations. The Western management gurus overlooked the most important thing: the core competency of these enterprises lay in their ability to survive economic collapse. Maybe the young geniuses at Google can wrap their heads around this one, but I doubt that their stockholders will.





Slide [26] It's important to understand that the Soviet Union achieved collapse-preparedness inadvertently, and not because of the success of some crash program. Economic collapse has a way of turning economic negatives into positives. The last thing we want is a perfectly functioning, growing, prosperous economy that suddenly collapses one day, and leaves everybody in the lurch. It is not necessary for us to embrace the tenets of command economy and central planning to match the Soviet lackluster performance in this area. We have our own methods, that are working almost as well. I call them "boondoggles." They are solutions to problems that cause more problems than they solve.

Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely pushing us all down. If it pushes us down far enough, then economic collapse, when it arrives, will be like falling out of a ground floor window. We just have to help this process along, or at least not interfere with it. So if somebody comes to you and says "I want to make a boondoggle that runs on hydrogen" – by all means encourage him! It's not as good as a boondoggle that burns money directly, but it's a step in the right direction.




Slide [27] Certain types of mainstream economic behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself incredibly busy, and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in rough shape.

Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.

If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away. You can cultivate an attitude of studied indifference, but it has to be more than just a conceit. You have to develop the lifestyle and the habits and the physical stamina to back it up. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live.





Slide [28] I hope that I didn't make it sound as if the Soviet collapse was a walk in the park, because it was really quite awful in many ways. The point that I do want to stress is that when this economy collapses, it is bound to be much worse. Another point I would like to stress is that collapse here is likely to be permanent. The factors that allowed Russia and the other former Soviet republics to recover are not present here.

In spite of all this, I believe that in every age and circumstance, people can sometimes find not just a means and a reason to survive, but enlightenment, fulfillment, and freedom. If we can find them even after the economy collapses, then why not start looking for them now?

Thank you.
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Energy Bulletin is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities.
Source URL: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

Links:
[1] http://survivingpeakoil.com/article.php?id=soviet_lessons

Undercurrent of Anti-Semetism in America

I cannot help but create this posting relating to current events which sheds some light on a deeply disturbing phenomenon in the United States. The undercurrent of anti-semitism that has been unleashed due to the recent Flotilla attack in Israel and the firing of Helen Thomas over a statement made to Rabbi David Nesenoff should not be overlooked. Here is some information for those that care. (what we do with it is the real question!)



http://www.rabbilive.com/RabbiLIVE/Home.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/09/rabbi-receives-death-threats-helen-thomas-video/

http://www.breitbart.tv/rabbi-who-caught-helen-thomas-on-video-re-evaluating-his-liberal-politics/

SEMPER PARATUS

NASA Warns Of Solar Storm; May Wreak Havoc On GPS, Air Travel, Power Grids

NASA Warns Of Solar Storm; May Wreak Havoc On GPS, Air Travel, Power Grids
(Monday, June 7th, 2010)

Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that’s new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about:

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”
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The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in ’safe mode’ and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

“Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we’re making rapid progress,” says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. “NASA’s fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what’s happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment.”

Among dozens of NASA spacecraft, he notes three of special significance: STEREO, SDO and ACE.

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a pair of spacecraft stationed on opposite sides of the sun with a combined view of 90% of the stellar surface. In the past, active sunspots could hide out on the sun’s farside, invisible from Earth, and then suddenly emerge over the limb spitting flares and CMEs. STEREO makes such surprise attacks impossible.

SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is the newest addition to NASA’s fleet. Just launched in February, it is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Researchers can now study eruptions in exquisite detail, raising hopes that they will learn how flares work and how to predict them. SDO also monitors the sun’s extreme UV output, which controls the response of Earth’s atmosphere to solar variability.

Bogdan’s favorite NASA satellite, however, is an old one: the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) launched in 1997. “Where would we be without it?” he wonders. ACE is a solar wind monitor. It sits upstream between the sun and Earth, detecting solar wind gusts, billion-ton CMEs, and radiation storms as much as 30 minutes before they hit our planet.

“ACE is our best early warning system,” says Bogdan. “It allows us to notify utility and satellite operators when a storm is about to hit.”

NASA spacecraft were not originally intended for operational forecasting—”but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses,” notes Fisher. “This is a good example of space science supporting modern society.”

2010 marks the 4th year in a row that policymakers, researchers, legislators and reporters have gathered in Washington DC to share ideas about space weather. This year, forum organizers plan to sharpen the focus on critical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, mitigate, and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

“I believe we’re on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.” Fisher concludes. “We take this very seriously indeed.”

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Space Weather Enterprise Forum home page at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html.

(Source: NASA)

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/61137/NASA+Warns+Of+Solar+Storm;+May+Wreak+Havoc+On+GPS,+Air+Travel,+Power+Grids.html

The Prepper Movement -- a Growing Network Preparing for the World's End

http://www.asylum.com/2010/05/19/preppers-a-growing-network-preparing-for-world-destruction/


May 19th 2010 By Wendy Rose Gould


The Prepper Movement -- a Growing Network Preparing for the World's End




If the proverbial you-know-what hit the global fan, would you be prepared? The answer to that question is most likely a big, fat no.

After all, it's hard to develop life skills (e.g., growing/storing your own food, filtering water) while playing myriad video games or scrounging the Internet for funny videos to post on Facebook.

Turns out, though, that while you may not be concerned about mass chaos and world destruction, a growing number of people are.

Meet the Preppers
Asylum readers, there is a posse of self-sufficient men and women out there who make it their goal to be prepared when disaster strikes. They call themselves "preppers."

From natural catastrophes to economic meltdowns to nuclear blowouts, the preppers' collective goal is quite simple: to carry on as usual, even when catastrophe strikes. Think backyard fallout shelters of the 1950s or Y2K shenanigans -- only circa 2010.

The whole prepper movement may seem pretty zany. So zany, in fact, that you'd think only a miniscule amount of people would actually be partaking in it. Wrong.

Over recent years, a huge community of preppers has developed. Perform a simple Google search and you'll turn up plenty of prepper-related stuff, including the Web television portal Prepper TV, survival blogs, podcasts (such as DoctorPrepper and PrepperPodcast), and forums that cover everything from a woman's perspective to recycling to how to handle dead bodies.

There's even a rash of YouTube videos offering tutorials on such topics as how to construct your own nuclear bomb shelter, what firearms you should own, and how to earthquake-proof your stored food.

The Potential for Disaster
"People are waking up to the fact that they cannot always rely on outside sources for their personal safety and survival," Tom Martin, CEO of the American Preppers Network, tells Asylum.

"A 'sh** hit the fan' scenario happens to just about everyone sometime in their life," he says. "Preparing and having a 'prepper' mindset will lessen the impact of whatever disaster it may be that you might experience in your life."

Fair enough. But is it really necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on packaged emergency food -- like this $999, one-year supply of freeze-dried "food" sold at Costco? According to customers who have purchased this product and others like it, it's completely worth all your hard-earned dinero.

"No one can predict the future, but our economy sure isn't what it used to be," explains Stephen Bedford (pictured, above). His wife runs the website The Survival Mom, and both are committed preppers. "We can't afford to live like it's still 2005."

Don't Make an "Unwise Decision"
"Some things like food, we use all the time and then replace them, because it is the lifestyle we choose," Gary Hartley, who runs the United States Prepper Networks, tells Asylum. "I would be extremely happy if some of my preps never got used. I'd pass them on to my son and be even happier if he never had to use them."

"Remember this," he continued. "It is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Not prepping is an unwise decision."

The Prepper Mindset
As with any group, the prepper clan is made up a variety of mindsets. While some opt to stock up on pre-packaged products, others, like Martin, invest their time and money other ways.

"I spend more time learning skills, tips and ideas than I do money on equipment," he tells Asylum. "Survival is an instinct; preparedness is not. Preparedness has to be learned."

Hartley agrees. "In my opinion, it is more about taking personal responsibility for yourself and your family and being more self-reliant and less dependent on outside sources in an emergency," he tells us.

And there you have it. Preppers get off on learning life skills, storing away massive amounts of long-lasting food, and talking about the end of the world as we know it.

It all begs this question, loyal readers: To prep or not to prep?

Americans stock up to be ready for end of the world

Americans stock up to be ready for end of the world

Recession and the constant threat of terrorist attacks have given new life to the ingrained survivalist instinct


Tess Pennington, 33, is a mother of three children, and lives in the sprawling outskirts of Houston, Texas. But she is not taking the happy safety of her suburban existence lightly.

Like a growing army of fellow Americans, Pennington is learning how to grow her own food, has stored emergency rations in her home and is taking courses on treating sickness with medicinal herbs.

"I feel safe and more secure. I have taken personal responsibility for the safety of myself and of my family," Pennington said. "We have decided to be prepared. There all kinds of disasters that can happen, natural and man-made."

Pennington is a "prepper", a growing social movement that has been dubbed Survivalism Lite. Preppers believe that it is better to be safe than sorry and that preparing for disaster – be it a hurricane or the end of civilisation – makes sense.

Unlike the 1990s survivalists, preppers come from all backgrounds and live all over America. They are just as likely to be found in a suburb or downtown loft as a remote ranch in the mountains. Prepping networks, which have sprung up all over the country in the past few years, provide advice on how to prepare food reserves, how to grow crops in your garden, how to hunt and how to defend yourself. There are prepping books, online shops, radio shows, countless blogs, prepping courses and prepping conferences.

John Milandred runs a website called Pioneer Living, which is one of the main forums for discussing prepping. It provides a range of advice for those who just want to store extra food in case of a power cut, to those who want to embrace the "off the grid" lifestyle of America's western pioneers. "We get inquiries from people from all walks of life. We had a principal from a school asking us to talk to their children. We have doctors and firemen and lawyers," he said.

Milandred lives in Oklahoma and, should society collapse around him, he is well placed to flourish. Indeed, he might not notice that much. His house has a hand-dug well that gives him fresh water. He grows his own food. He has built an oven that needs neither gas nor electricity. He can hunt for meat. "If something happened, it really would not affect us," he said.

There are several reasons for the rise of prepping. The first is that, in the post-9/11 world, mass terror attacks have become a fear for many Americans. At a time when US diplomacy is focused on preventing Iran getting nuclear weapons and terror experts continue to warn of "dirty bombs" on American soil, it is no surprise that many Americans feel threatened. Added to that paranoia has come the recession. Suddenly, millions of Americans have been losing their jobs and their homes, reinforcing a feeling that society is not as stable as it once seemed.

Hollywood has caught on. A succession of films, such as 2012, The Road, The Book of Eli and Legion, have tapped into an American Zeitgeist that is worried about the end of civilisation.

"Prepping masks a wide range of stances and ideologies. But the more people are prepared, the more they are likely to have an apocalyptic way of thinking," said Professor Barry Brummett, of the University of Texas-Austin.

Even government officials have accepted that the financial crisis posed a threat to social order. In recent testimony before Congress, treasury secretary Tim Geithner admitted that top-level talks had been held on whether the US could enforce law and order in the wake of a collapse of the financial system.

Certainly, Tom Martin agrees. He runs the American Preppers Network, which helps provide a wide range of resources. Martin, a truck driver who lives in Idaho, believes that more and more people will become preppers. "Millions of people now have the mindset that they want to be prepared for something, but don't know what to call it," he said.

That rings true with Pennington. In the 1990s, survivalism was the province of anti-government militiamen or loners in the woods. But preppers are more concerned with stocking up on food and water and relearning skills so that they can fend for themselves.

To that end, Pennington has set up a website called Ready Nutrition, which teaches basic food skills to prepare for a time when pre-packaged goods at a supermarket might not be available: "Prepping is not taboo, like survivalism. There is no negative connotation to it. We are not rednecks. In many ways, our ancestors were preppers. So were the Native Americans. It is just going back to being able to look after yourself."


* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010