Is Prepping Worth it? What if Nothing Happens? Is it all a Waste?
by Gaye Levy, Contributor
Activist Post
June 24, 2012
Myself, I like to think that I bring a very unique perspective to that particular time since, as an old COBOL programmer, I knew how the computer code of old would blow up with the turn of the millennium. I also know many people who were frantically involved in code conversions, and even I provided a bit of consulting to the telecommunications industry in that regard.
So why was Y2K a non-event? I would say that the diligent preparation on the part of governments and businesses played a huge role in insuring that utility companies continued to work, the ATM machines continued to function and that daily life continued without a hiccup. (That is not to say that I did not have $5,000 in small bills hidden under my mattress, however.)
Coming back in to the present, we have six more months for the Doomsday 2012 events to unfold. And now that the end of the Mayan calendar has pretty much been dispelled, what is left?
Well let me see:
- Hurricane season is coming up
- Wildfires are spreading in the South and Midwest
- Shoot-em-ups of innocent bystanders are occurring in our cities
- Underemployment and unemployment means more and more citizens are living below poverty
- Governments around the globe are facing bankruptcy and the potential for total collapse
So gee, have a nice day too, right?
But if a list of potential disasters and economic calamities is not worrisome and you – or more likely your friends and relatives – groan at the effort of prepping, let us ask the question: What if nothing happens?
Jeff, the Berkey Guy and his sidekick David articulate the answer well.
What if Nothing Happens?
That’s exactly the question I’ll ask you.
You, the prepared individual. You, the prepper who purchases food to have in the event your employment situation loses its revenue temporarily, or a minor movement of the earth closes local markets and grocers. You, the healthy student of nutrition. You, the responsible parent who works to provide the necessities of life for your children and grandchildren and works to secure those ongoing needs. You, the involved citizen who talks with your neighbors and cares about the safety of your neighborhood. You, the owner of a vehicle who pays auto insurance for security against an undesired vehicular event. You, the purchaser of health insurance for a family whose health is fundamental and essential. You, the ardent securer of water storage, just in case another 5-day boil-water-alert happens this month. You, the consumer who also produces constructively while others are socially-secure thanks to your payroll contributions. You, whose money is lent to banks whose bail-outs secured enormous pensions. You, whose income tax returns without interest.
What if not one thing happens this year to drastically – or even minimally- inconvenience your lifestyle?
In the event that your storage of food, water, medical, and other resources remains unmoved out of necessity, then count yourself fortunate. This is what we hope for, although we’d be willfully ignorant to discredit the vulnerabilities of our current environments, local and global!
If your application of primitive or pioneer skills finds use within recreational or standard homestead practices instead of emergent necessity, then continue enjoying their practice in peace. Please carry on and experience the following in your endeavors to be self-reliant:
- the joy of cultivating your plants and harvesting the literal fruits (& vegetables) of your labor
- the satisfaction of knowing basic skills to make many of the leisurely staples such as flour, pasta noodles, sausage, buttermilk, cheese, bread, and so much more
- the stewardship of slaughter & butchery
- the responsible care and maintenance of firearms and useful weapons/tools
- the autonomy of filtering and purifying water for all-things-related to its supply and use
- the comfort of attending to basic medical issues, affording you the avoidance of over-crowded emergency waiting rooms, and unnecessary exposure to other contagious pathogens
- the peace of mind that your food is not unnaturally grown and crammed intocompact living conditions
- the security that comes with protection against a failing economy and currency, through precious metals
- the integrity of enjoying life’s experience as a perpetual learner, an ever-studious pupil
- the unmatched fulfillment which attends precious family moments of teaching, learning, and sharing
- the limitless advantages of perpetual personal progress
Natural disasters are going to happen as part of life. Adverse events are somewhat out of our control, so we prepare for those things which we can control: having something rather than having nothing. Knowing-by-doing rather than not knowing and doing nothing.
And if nothing happens, we have the satisfaction of having prepared for when it does.
. . . David SafeWater at Directive 21
The Final Word
From time to time we all need to be reminded that all of our efforts to prepare are not a waste of time, money or energy. Both mother nature and human nature tend to send us curve balls — both large and small — all of the time. Some are bigger than others, but regardless of the magnitude, these burps in our lives and in our normal routine can be disruptive if not disastrous to those that do not prepare.
As so well said by David in his article, there is a certain inner peace and sense of satisfaction that comes from being self-reliant. As a prepper, you can stand with your head high and be proud: self-reliance is a grand adventure of the highest magnitude.
Spotlight: The article What If Nothing Happens? originally appeared on The Berkey Guy Blog in March 2012.
The Berkey Guy has been a sponsor of Backdoor Survival and Activist Post from almost the get go. He introduced me to the Royal Berkey water filter which I have to tell you is far far superior to any my old pitcher based Brita or refrigerator PUR system. The filters in the Berkey last a really long time making this an extremely economical source of healthy drinking water. According to my math, 6,000 gallons from two filters = less than 2 cents a gallon (this is exclusive of the cost of the unit itself).
For more information, visit Directive 21.
Read other articles by Gaye Levy here.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye Levy, the SurvivalWoman, grew up and attended school in the Greater Seattle area. After spending many years as an executive in the software industry, she started a specialized accounting practice offering contract CFO work to emerging high tech and service industries. She has now abandoned city life and moved to a serenely beautiful rural area on an island in NW Washington State. She lives and teaches the principles of a sustainable, self-reliant and stylish lifestyle through emergency preparation and disaster planning through her website at BackdoorSurvival.com. SurvivalWoman speaks her mind and delivers her message with optimism and grace, regardless of mayhem swirling around us.
Reality check: When the power grid goes down, all grid-tie solar systems will go down with it
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Natural News
June 16, 2012
(NaturalNews) A lot of people believe they are becoming “power independent” by installing grid-tie solar systems, but what many don’t realize is that virtually all such systems are designed to actively go offline when the power grid goes offline.
A “grid-tie” solar system is one that ties into the power grid, pulling electricity from the grid when needed, then pushing excess electricity back into the grid when the local customer isn’t using the full capacity being generated by PV panels (photovoltaic). As long as the grid stays up, it’s a clever solution because it reduces or even eliminates the customer’s electric bills while generating “clean” energy.
Because of the very fact that these systems are tied into the power grid, however, they all have a safety feature that disconnects them from the grid when the grid goes down. In other words, if the power grid goes offline, your entire grid-tie solar array becomes instantly useless and you can’t power a laptop computer even if you have $100,000 worth of solar panels sitting on your roof. In a grid-tie system, they all are instantly shut off.
Let me be clear, because some people reading this article seem to vastly misunderstand the issue: When the power grid goes down, your entire PV array is instantly disabled by your grid-tie inverters, and you cannot use your PV array for anything! Even if the sun is shining, you will have no power from it, period. Understand?
Some early comments to this story suggested that people could simply install a throw switch that would divert the PV array to local use only. This is NOT allowed by local electrical code! Such a system is very difficult to engineer in a safe manner and would almost certainly violate local codes in nearly all U.S. cities. It simply will NOT pass inspection and will not be allowed in most areas. I spoke with top solar consultants to confirm this. At best, such a system would exist in a “grey area” of regulatory approval, I was told.
Again, most people reading this story still do not understand what I’m saying here, and I’ve backed this up with conversations with top solar experts and equipment providers around the world. When the power grid goes down, virtually all grid-tie systems go down with it. Your solar panels are instantly rendered useless and cannot be used until the city power grid is restored.
It’s a “safety” feature
Four out of five people reading this will not believe this information because it is so counter-intuitive. I spoke with architects and engineers who didn’t even know this information. They were all proven wrong. If you install a grid-tie solar system, the entire system is immediately useless when the grid goes down. You will have zero power, even if the sun is shining. Your solar array only functions when grid power is up, get it? That’s the way grid-tie systems are hard-wired. There is no BYPASS function. Grid down = solar array down, period.
What’s the reason behind all this? Because if the main power grid is down, the assumption is that a power line worker may be working on the line somewhere. If a local solar customer is feeding electricity back up the line, that can be dangerous — even deadly — to a power line worker. Thus, all grid-tie solar equipment sold today includes the “safety feature” of automatically shutting down when the grid goes down.
Or at least that’s the official explanation from the solar power companies, because there’s no explanation as to why these inverters have to shut off the local supply of power from the PV panels. Why not let the homeowner continue to have electricity from their own solar panels even if the power grid is down?
Off-grid systems
“Off-grid” systems allow precisely that. These systems, which do not tie into the power grid, run on a combination of solar panels, batteries and often a backup generator running on gasoline, diesel or propane.
Off-grid systems are ridiculously expensive to own and operate, mostly due to the cost of batteries. Today’s battery technology remains stuck in the 1800’s, meaning that even so-called “deep cycle” batteries will still last only 5 – 10 years. If you do the math on the cost of batteries for a typical off-grid system running a household of four people, you’ll come to the surprising figure that batteries alone can cost you $500 / month, each and every month that you use an off-grid system (that’s the total cost of the batteries divided by the number of months they will last).
That’s why most people don’t go with off-grid systems. Grid-tie systems cost significantly less, especially with solar panels now at rock-bottom prices thanks to China dumping them onto the U.S. market below manufacturing cost. (Right now is a great time to buy solar panels, before new tariffs kick in.)
Batteries can be eliminated in such a system by having a standby generator. The solution I personally recommend, as I have researched this in considerable detail, is to purchase a 20kw Generac generator and acquire a 1,000-gallon propane tank to power it. If you practice some simple energy conservation techniques (such as limiting use of air conditioners or heaters), you can run a typical household for 2-3 months on 1,000 gallons of propane. And if you have solar panels to help along the way, that could be stretched to 4-6 months since you’d only be using the propane fuel at night or when the sun isn’t shining.
Only an off-grid system gives you true energy independence.
Many people who buy grid-tie systems mistakenly think they’re buying off-grid systems
The kicker in all this is that many people mistakenly think they’re buying one kind of system when, in reality, they’re buying the other kind. Solar installation companies that install grid-tie systems do not necessarily inform their customers that their systems will not function when the power grid goes down. So these customers, even after spending $20,000 to $80,000 or even more, end up with a system that’s 100% dependent on the power grid!
There’s going to be a rude awakening for these people when the power grid goes down and their solar systems refuse to function. Because, for most people installing solar systems today, the whole idea is to have power when the grid goes down.
And how likely is the grid to go down? Cyber security expert David Chalk says there is a “100 percent chance” that the grid will go down in the near future due to vulnerabilities to cyber terrorism. I recently interviewed him about this subject, and you can watch that interview at:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=81D036C326E439BFA82D0592925918C2
When I asked him how many months or year it might be before we suffer a catastrophic infrastructure failure of some kind, his reply was, “It’s more like a matter of days.”
His website is www.DavidChalkInc.com
Off-grid solar equipment is in short supply
As you probably suspected, the kind of solar equipment used to build off-grid systems — the kind that function without the power grid — is in very short supply. Manufacturers in Germany, Japan and China are backordered for months. Free inventory is virtually zero. Install times for new systems can now stretch out as long as six months in some cities.
If you want an off-grid solar system and you’re not already in the queue to get one, there’s very little chance you can have one in place before the prophecy date of December 21, 2012… if that even matters to you. I personally don’t put any special weight on that date, but I do believe our world is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Those who want to be safe, prepared and living with a source of electricity need to take steps now to install off-grid systems.
Don’t rely on solar installation companies to know what you want. In most cities, they automatically assume customers just want “grid-tie” systems to reduce their electric bills. So if you don’t insist on it, you’ll end up buying a grid-tie system that becomes a useless heap of dead electronics on the day the power grid dies.
Additional notes: Yes, even off-grid systems are vulnerable to solar flares and EMP attacks (dir/Technology/Solar-Panels-Sunlight-Energy.jpg). There’s no protecting fragile electronics from such events unless you keep a spare set of redundant equipment protected inside Faraday cages or wrapped in aluminum foil and stored inside galvanized aluminum trash cans. Even then, you’d have to figure out how to reinstall everything from the ground up, which would require an expert electrician.
Articles Related to This Article:
• Solar flare could unleash nuclear holocaust across planet Earth, forcing hundreds of nuclear power plants into total meltdowns
• Gore warns Americans over Bush lawlessness, tyranny
• Fukushima nuclear catastrophe forces world to rethink future of nuclear power
• The Top Ten Technologies: #5 High-Density Portable Power
• Product review: Power Immune anti-viral tincture from Fitura
• Top 10 things the TSA could do if its power is not sensibly limited
Health Ranger int. David Chalk on cyber-terrorism, potential collapse of power grid, June 2012 [audio]
Natural News
June 15, 2012
Join Mike Adams in this Health Ranger Report as he interviews technology expert David Chaulk about the cyber-technology threat that exists to our world due to viruses that have been engineered to take big power systems (like power grids) down. David recently wrote a piece warning the world that the entire power grid is vulnerable to catastrophic collapse if we continue to go in the route of automation and tying the grid together. David offers solutions to these threats in this informative interview.
Learn more at:
www.DavidChalkInc.com
FALLOUT FORECAST & ALERT FOR UK 6.22.2012 [video]
Rad Chick
June 22, 2012
I need a vacation, everything is starting to look like weather maps…lol
Alert from MET: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
Be back in a week…stay safe 🙂
TYPHOON GUCHOL ALERT TOKYO & FUKUSHIMA 6.17.2012 [video]
RadChick
June 17, 2012
Alert from the WeatherSpace.com
5/20/2012 — 6.0M earthquake in Europe and 6.0M earthquake in Japan = have a plan and be ready [video included]
ＤＵＴＣＨＳＩＮＳＥ = ＳＩＮＣＥＤＵＴＣＨ
May 20, 2012
watch the video here:
—————————————————-
May 20, 2012 — two notable earthquakes occurred over the past 24 hours — a 6.0M earthquake struck north Italy, and a 6.0M earthquake struck off the coast of Honshu Japan again.
—————————————————-
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb0009tk0.php
2012 May 20 02:03:52 UTC
Earthquake Details
- This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
| Magnitude | 6.0 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 44.800°N, 11.192°E |
| Depth | 5.1 km (3.2 miles) |
| Region | NORTHERN ITALY |
| Distances | 36 km (22 miles) NNW of Bologna, Italy 69 km (42 miles) E of Parma, Italy 72 km (44 miles) SSE of Verona, Italy 339 km (210 miles) NNW of ROME, Italy |
—————————————————-
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb0009tnt.php
2012 May 20 07:19:55 UTC
Earthquake Details
- This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
| Magnitude | 6.0 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 39.597°N, 143.242°E |
| Depth | 10 km (6.2 miles) |
| Region | OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN |
| Distances | 179 km (111 miles) E of Morioka, Honshu, Japan 181 km (112 miles) SE of Hachinohe, Honshu, Japan 251 km (155 miles) ESE of Aomori, Honshu, Japan 532 km (330 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan |
—————————————————-
The time to have a plan and be ready is NOW! Food , water, clothing, shelter, transportation, communications, and self defense….. all need to be pre-arranged. Make sure yourself, your loved ones, family , friends or co-workers know the plan and are able to enact it at a moments notice.
Use these links here to monitor earthquakes globally:
http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/11302011-list-of-earthquake-links-for-global-monitoring/
End the Lie Radio with Madison Ruppert – Episode 15 [audio]
End the Lie Radio with Madison Ruppert – Episode 15
May 7, 2012
End the Lie Radio with guest host, Jules sitting in for Madison Ruppert and special guest, Christina Consolo aka RadChick discussing Fukushima and the dangers of spent fuel pool 4, sheltering in place, preparing emergency food and water rations, building a fallout shelter and how you can begin to prepare mentally and physically to save your loved ones if spent fuel pool 4 collapses.
Christina Consolo is a former clinical researcher supervisor with NIH credentialing, a former Member-at-Large for the Board of Directors of the Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society, a peer reviewer for the Journal of Ophthalmic Photography. She has written, published, and contributed to numerous scientific research in retinal imaging and ophthalmology for the past 24 years. She is also an award-winning biomedical photographer and maintains several websites to teach people about radiation, mitigation, and other nuclear issues. She is also the host of “Nuked Radio” Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12:00 -1:00 PM EST on the OrionTalkRadio.com.
Christina’s article on EndtheLie.com – Which will collapse first, the economy or the spent fuel pool at Fukushima? – http://EndtheLie.com/2012/05/06/which-will-collapse-first-the-economy-or-the-…
For more Fukushima information, visit http://FukushimaFacts.com
Please help Christina purchase a spectrometer in order to get the most accurate radiation readings and thus get you the most precise information possible by shopping through her Amazon link or donate directly via PayPal to fukushimafacts@gmail.com. Keep in mind, this is expensive equipment and it is the only way that specific isotope readings can be obtained from food items.
PN 