I always sang along on the “live by the river” part, but I never actually knew what the rest said until I saw it written out.

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
‘Cause London is drowning and I live by the river

Joe Strummer & Mick Jones
The Clash, “London Calling,” London Calling, (1979)

Don’t Panic. That’s what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says. During my first semester of doctoral classes, I reminded myself often, Don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic. I’m reminding myself again.

The information available on emergency and disaster preparedness is overwhelming, which is exactly why I intend to play out my own reasonable take on what one should do to prepare for 10,000 emergencies that seem to face us.

But, where do I start? I know I need to prepare for

• winter
• power outage
• drought
• earthquake
• peak oil
• post-carbon world
• climate change
• fascism
• war

There is surely more I have missed.

How far do I go? Where am I going? I’m not going to join an Amish community (as if they’d have me), but I’m sure I can learn from them. I suspect the future will look more like the solutions Cubans have found to the passing of peak oil. Community is important in every solution. I also need to make sure I am prepared to help rather than be helped in an emergency. So, I am going to start by focusing on just a few areas.

1. Learn about what has worked for others faced with crisis.
2. Reach out to my neighbors and larger community frequently.
3. Continue to gather and sort my list of necessary disaster and emergency preparations.
4. Prepare my family, house, and car for winter (though global warming has made that less an issue in the past few years).

Book Wish List

I have about 800 books on my wishlist. I’m not sure I have time left in my life to read 800 books, but I intend to try.

One of the highest books on that list is Albert Bate’s Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook. Amazon does not yet have the book, but publisher New Society does. “This book,” they tell me, “is about having your catastrophe and eating it too.”

One of the reviewers called it a post-petroleum Whole Earth Catalogue. All of the reviewers say that the book approaches the situation with good humor and optimism.

Topics covered include:

• Rebuilding civilization
• Changing your needs
• Water and waste disposal
• Energy and transportation
• Equipment and Tools
• Food storage and First Aid

I’ve added this to my emergency preparedness shopping list.

To follow yesterday’s idea of Homeland Security through eating local, the US Department of Agriculture is playing a little 1984 Big Brother doublespeak mind game with “hunger” by renaming it “very low food security.” Twelve percent of Americans (35 million people) suffer from this condition. TWELVE PERCENT. They way the Department of Agriculture redefines the issue, “very low food security” is a result of lack of money to buy food. These Americans just have “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” “Hunger,” on the other hand, is a more serious condition “beyond the usual uneasiness.” Usual? Usual to those writing the report? Usual as in, they’re used to it so don’t worry?

The annual USDA report used to be released in October. One presidential candidate from Texas in 1999 said he believed the report was fabricated and aimed at his candidacy. This year the report was released mid-November, just before Thanksgiving–and a week after mid-term elections.

I wonder how much money was spent as the Committee on National Statistic of the National Academies to “to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households’ access — or lack of access — to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound.” Not everyone is happy about the latest addition to US doublespeak.

So, if you hear the words “food security,” it might not mean what you think it does.

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday this week, several guests talked about How Food Finds Its Way to Your Plate. After an interesting discussion of processed foods in our diets (particularly corn and soy), they talked about local foods.

“What about terrorism?”

[This is 38.5 minutes in, if you want to listen to this section.]

Concentrated corporate agriculture, the guest says, leaves our system more a target. The Department of Homeland Security ran a war simulation on how the U.S. would respond to an act of agricultural terrorism. Officials concluded that intense concentration of agriculture and long-distance shipping make us quite vulnerable to both malicious and accidental food contamination. Eating local decentralizes that target.

Then, one guest mentions a poster she has in her office from the New York Farm Bureau:

Homeland Security. Buy local. It matters.

Apparently farmers aren’t all that impressed by the security of imported agricultural products. Earlier this Fall, in the New York Farm Bureau’s newsletter Grassroots, an author wrote in Talking Points:

“homeland security.”

Actually, it’s a great idea. Maybe we should try it.

Yes, wouldn’t that be a good idea. Better yet, let’s you and I buy local, encourage our local economies, and make this less an issue.

Print your own “Homeland Security - Buy Local” poster from the New York Farm Bureau.

When I go to the National Flood Insurance Program site (which I found by clicking on a Google Ad Sense ad), I can find the risk of flood in my exact location.

The five types of flood risk they mention are:

• tropical storm,
• dams and levees,
• new development,
• flash flood, and
• snow melt.

Despite my being at no risk of tropical storm, dams / levees, or new development and the extreme unlikelihood of my house meeting flash flood or snow melt, given that I live on a slightly high hill, I am returned with an assessment of “Low to Moderate Risk” and told it would be a good idea to get flood insurance.

Then, I can follow a link to view my flood risk map at FEMA. COME ON! Who trusts them? The interactive map didn’t work for me, but it’s an interesting idea. I’ll bet they sell some insurance this way.  I bet I won’t be buying any.