A COLLECTIVE GUIDE TO SURVIVING CLIMATE COLLAPSE

Dixie Fire, California on July 24, 2021. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

Let’s be honest with each other. There is no realistic path where society turns the ship of climate chaos around. Too much mayhem is already baked in. Tipping points have started falling. Some still believe in grand-scale interventions. Good luck to them. But I see only one viable path: radically local action, taken by a few. That’s what this sticky post is about.

Over the coming year I am pulling together what I’ve written (on Substack) about climate adaptation and survival strategies, along with content from other excellent writers. I’m presenting it here in a structured list, as a growing resource. I will only list free content. This page WON’T promote pay-walled information. I will try to systematically address the gaps either on my own or by reaching out to others.

If this is what you are looking for, read on.

The Near Future: No Rebuild. No Help. No Relocation.

1. Units of Survival: It Will Be So Much Worse Than We Think, by Climate Revolution Now: It’s gonna get medieval up in here. Probably sooner than we think. Let’s get ready.

2. 25 Truths From the Edge of Climate Chaos, by Radically Local: 25 truths for the climate chaos reckoning

3. Common Threads in Societies That Collapse (Collapse Series), by The Collapse Curriculum: Three part series introduction to collapse

4. Wake While You Still Can, by Radically Local: A plea to start building the life that will carry you through while there’s still time to protect what remains.

5. The Fire Is Here. So We Build What Comes After, by Anarcaspar: This isn’t about returning to the land in some naïve way. It’s about reclaiming control of life’s necessities from the machinery of profit.

Accepting That No One Is Coming—And What That Means.

1. Total Resistance Series, by The Collapse Curriculum: Series on guerrilla warfare, collapse survival, and decentralized resistance for the end of empire

2. A Collapse Curriculum, by The Collapse Curriculum: Free downloadable syllabus on some foundational skills for dealing with collapse or disruption

3. Listen to the Doers, by Radically Local: It will not be the cleverest writers who feed you. It will be the doers.

4. Building a Better World: A Blueprint for Action, by J. Dunn, Kaz, and Rose

Cultivating Mental Fortitude.

1. First-Responder Trauma: A New Framework for Activists, by Biocentric: Effective movements to transform our world will emerge from cultures that integrate both resistance and healing.

Understanding Your Community.

1. Who is Your Community?, by Radically Local: Avoiding idyllic notions of community connections

2. Reclaiming Our Ties: The Imperative of Rediscovering Community in an Era of Disconnection, by The Collapse Curriculum: What Covid taught about collapse

3. The Underground Economy Your Neighbors Are Already Building, by The People's Paper: How mutual aid pods and decentralized economics create real alternatives

Building Real Connections That Matter.

1. Buckets, Biceps, and Belonging, by Radically Local: Building community for survival

2. Rooted in Reality, by Radically Local: Building community for survival

3. Breaking it Down-“Upstream Alliance”, by Meandering Muse: A blueprint. A battle map. Something to slice through that paralyzing feeling of "Where the fuck do we even start?"

Your Future Disaster Is Already Written.

1. Essays coming. Suggestions welcome. DM me.

Grow and Store: The Non-Negotiables.

1. Where to Dig, by Radically Local: Forging a collapse-aware grower community in the city, suburb, or country

2. Roadmap to Scale Small Farms Series, by Growing is only HALF the battle: series on scaling growing, especially in urban areas. We don’t just need more farms. We need more farmers.

3. Carrots Are Hard, by Radically Local: Cultivating grower skills before it is too late

Water: The Lifeline You Can’t Ignore.

1. Water Whispering: by Radically Local: When the rains falter and the pipes run dry, survival belongs to the water whisperers

Cementing Communications for When the Grid Fails.

1. Building Autonomous, Off-Grid, Encrypted, and Solar Powered Communications Infrastructure, by Sunshine and Seedlings: A Newsletter by HydroponicTrash: A guide on building autonomous communication networks with LoRa

2. Recipes For An Off-Grid ‘Internet’, by Sunshine and Seedlings: A Newsletter by HydroponicTrash: How to make an off-grid micro 'internet' that can run off solar power

3. Reviving Chromebooks with Ubuntu: Autonomous Servers, Planned Obsolescence, and Permacomputing, by Sunshine and Seedlings: A Newsletter by HydroponicTrash: How to make autonomous servers, and why we need to rethink computing in the age of climate collapse.

4. Off Grid Internet Use Cases, by Sunshine and Seedlings: A Newsletter by HydroponicTrash: The ways that autonomous and community controlled networking and power generation can lead to change

Powering Survival—When the Plug Gets Pulled.

1. Building micro-grids, by Living Energy Farm: LEF has assembled a crew of people who can teach and install DC microgrids

2. Living Without Fossil Fuels, by Living Energy Farm (interview with Nate Hagens): A peek into the Farm’s innovative systems for using electricity and technology in ways that are far less consumptive than the average American

3. DIY Off-Grid Solar Primer, by Sunshine and Seedlings: A Newsletter by HydroponicTrash: Build autonomy, a safety net and community support with your own solar power.

The Dirt on Sanitation—Because Shit Gets Real.

1. Rooted in Reality, by Radically Local: Building community for survival

Skilled Labour: Who’s Useful When It All Breaks Down?

1. Food + Water = well, Poop!, by Radically Local: A post-collapse primer for managing without magic pipes or municipal grace.

2. Plant Encyclopedia, by The Nettle Witch, MD: An ER doctor find herself writing about herbalism, the earth, spirituality, and culture

Mobility and Moving Stuff.

1. Essays coming. Suggestions welcome. DM me.

Mental Health and Social Cohesion—Because Loners Don’t Last.

1. Some Psychology for Responding To a World in Chaos, by The Collapse Curriculum: Using Internal Family Systems (IFS) and parts mapping to improve response

When There’s No One Left to Pick Up the Pieces.

1. Creating a Bioregional Community Response Group Series, by The Collapse Curriculum: Four part series on the importance of and the process of building Bioregional Community Response Groups

2. What Might Post Collapse Look Like?, by The Collapse Curriculum: A Case Study of the Fall of the Mayan Civilization

This list isn’t everything. There’s a hell of a lot more to figure out. Every community will have its own challenges—your community will need to address much more, but that’s your journey to take. I hope this compilation of information helps you on that voyage.
Good luck!

Solidarity & Soil

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If you know of an author who writes in this lane (no climate hopium, please), let me know in the comments. I will reach out to add their content.

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I walked away from the algorithm’s chokehold to work where it counts: hands in soil, words on the page, shoulder to shoulder with those adapting to climate collapse. This means fire-and-flood writing—scorched, storm-beaten, and stubborn. If this piece moved you, pass it on like a sandbag in rising water. I rely on readers to carry this work to those still trapped in the algorithm’s distortion field.