With the current U.S. president making threats like “a whole civilization will die tonight,” while dropping F-bombs from the marble throne of his Lincoln bathroom, and with the IEA announcing “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” you might be wondering if it’s finally time to buy an electric vehicle (among other things). You might be wondering if you can afford one. You might be wondering if there’s any hidden downsides.

Let’s jump right into it.

Yes, it makes a lot of sense to get an EV for a lot of different reasons, wars and oil crises notwithstanding. It makes even more sense to get one along with solar panels, as I wrote a couple of months ago. If I can be honest, EVs have struck me as a luxury asset for a long time. But that’s because I didn’t know much about them. My tune has changed over the last few days, as I started putting together the pieces of all the different analyses of the Iran war, its long-term repercussions, and the bigger picture in terms of the climate crisis. We own an EV now.

It felt like a straightforward decision. Will it turn out to be a mistake? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Like all other things, time will tell.

But I don’t regret any of my other preps.

First, even before the war with Iran, the climate crisis has been making life unpredictable everywhere. A climate disaster could strike your city at any time, and they’re getting worse. Energy scarcity and grid erosion alone drive up your risk of blackouts 100x by 2030. Just look at the last few years…

This year, experts are predicting an historic super El Niño to drop by the fall. In fact, they’re predicting “the strongest El Nino event in 140 years.” That means more than worse droughts, floods, and storms. It means new global temperature records. It means weather events that nobody alive has seen. It means, well, we don’t know how bad things could get. That’s the most disturbing part.

Nobody has seen it before.

My family came to our senses a few days ago. For years, we’ve struggled to stock and rotate gasoline for emergencies. It was a real pain. Even with fuel stabilizers, gasoline boasts a relatively short shelf life of 1-3 years. You have to cycle your supply. It smells. The fumes aren’t safe. We could never find a truly “spill-proof” container. And who wants to store large quantities of a flammable liquid?

Not me, thanks…

From a prepping standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to get solar panels and then get an electric vehicle. You enjoy a reliable form of transportation that might meet your needs better than a bicycle or a horse, and certainly better than a gasoline-powered car, especially during a disaster. No more gas storage. No more fretting about shortages and panic buying. Need to get somewhere?

Charge it up and go.

Let’s face it, someone trying to raise a family in the middle of a suburban sprawl faces systemic disadvantages and constraints that pretty much force us to own an automobile of some kind. I wish it didn’t. It would be nice if we could all live in more pedestrian environments, but many of us are stuck where we are. Not everyone can move somewhere else. It’s just reality.

The case for an EV has changed a lot over the last year.

Before:

Believe it or not, experts were predicting gasoline prices to drop over the next several years. Ironically, they cited widespread EV adoption as a key factor, driving down demand for gas. They also cited increased production from oil companies in the U.S., and worldwide, resulting in a supply glut. We could talk oil and geopolitics all day, but in the end: While oil companies surging production means terrible things for us, including more disasters to prepare for, you wouldn’t have had to worry about a general lack of availability for a while. Of course, that’s assuming you made it through the next 5-10 years with no disasters or emergencies.

Trump has upended all of these trajectories.

First, he axed tax credits for EVs. Second, he upended the global economy with tariff schemes. Now he’s doing more damage through this reckless war with Iran, which threatens longterm destruction to oil and natural gas production. It’s safe to say we have no idea what’s really going to happen with gasoline and diesel prices, except now they’re going verticle. While it might seem relatively calm in the U.S., panic buying “reminiscent of an apocalypse film” is breaking out in other parts of the world, and countries are starting to ration gasoline. Energy experts in Britain expect gasoline rationing and bare shelves “within weeks.”

Recently, Trump released roughly 40 percent of the country’s strategic reserves. That alone counts as the second-largest release in history, just after Biden’s in 2022, driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Worldwide, we’re seeing something widely regarded as the largest strategic release in history. According to this piece in The Conversation, it’s pretty much a drop in the bucket.

It’s going to blunt oil prices for a few months (or weeks).

If the war continues, if Iran has to keep the Straight of Hormuz closed, if oil and natural gas production facilities keep blowing up, we’re looking at a severe and arguably permanent disruption to the world’s energy supply. That spills over into all kinds of economic and logistic consequences, including food shortages. And let’s remember that Iran is fighting an asymmetric war, using the only tools it has to fend off a megalomanical lunatic threatening to destroy their entire civilization. Do you think they’re perhaps justified here? Perhaps, perhaps.

Consider the longterm picture here. In the most optimistic case, Trump chickens out and the world starts to recover. In the more pessimistic scenario, one that considers collapse economics and politics, we’re entering a new era where endless war and severe supply chain disruptions become the norm. Look at the last few years. We’ve seen more wars with deeper implications, not fewer. If that holds true, then an EV suddenly becomes a much more attractive option.

Climate doomers like me see the world devolving into war as nations like the U.S., Russia, and China compete for dwindling resources and influence. That’s been behind the moves in Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, and now Iran. The powers are dividing up the world into fiefdoms, and things are getting messy.

In short, it won’t get better—only worse.

An EV might become the only way you can get to work, the only way you can pick up groceries, the only way you can go somewhere to get seeds or gardening tools, the only way you can travel to see family, the only way you can arrange play dates for your children. That’s the situation we foresee.

How expensive is an EV?

As of now, you can buy something like an Ioniq 5 for about the cost of a nice new car. Many dealerships are running special discounts now (probably because of tax season). The deals going on now rival the tax credits we would’ve gotten. That plus trade-ins make it doable. Regardless of what you buy, you don’t have to drop $50,000 on a new car. We’re talking more like mid $30Ks. You can buy used EVs for even less, but that brings risks. You could wind up with a degraded or damaged battery. Even if the used EV comes with the original warranties, it’s a considerable headache. So, exercise your own judgment there.

What’s the range?

EVs enjoy a decent range now, around 300 miles on a full charge. That’s about a tank of gas for a smaller car. We’ll take it.

If you get folding solar panels and a portable generator, you can charge your car on the road without having to pull into a charging station.

It’s doable.

How long do the batteries last?

An EV battery lasts 15 years, even 20 with good care. Many EVs come with a 10-year warranty for the battery. You can even buy extended warranties that cover every part of the vehicle for 10 years.

Do they require more maintenance?

EVs require less maintenance than a standard car, but they come with their own hassles. You have to rotate the tires a little more often. The increased weight also puts more strain on them. Your first set of tires will likely have foam, and they’ll probably last 15-20K miles. After that, though, you can replace them with EV-compatible tires that get more mileage, more in the neighborhood of 25-50K.

How do you charge them?

You can use a level 1, 2, or 3 charger. A level 1 charger plugs straight into your wall outlet. It charges super slow, but it charges. If you don’t drive a huge amount, you can probably get away with charging at home from your solar panels. You’ll just need to keep it plugged in all the time. Your battery management system will prevent any overcharging, so don’t worry too much about that.

If you need to charge it up fast, take it to a charging station. More gas stations are installing them. You can even install a level 2 charger in your garage, but installation costs start around $2,000. (So I’ve read.)

Is it a scam?

No, they work. They’re reliable. They give you some independence from the grid, but they’re not magic. They require maintenance and upkeep like everything else, and they can break. There’s a principle at work here. It’s about reducing your exposure to risk and uncertainty. An EV will do that. It will do that without requiring you to adopt a completely different lifestyle.

Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe you can’t afford one. It’s smart to get an EV, but it’s also smart not to overstretch your finances.

So, that’s my take. We’ve already gone EV. It brings peace of mind. From the most immediate, practical standpoint, we’re a little less worried about what stupid things our president does. We have a vehicle that puts us in a better position to take care of ourselves, but also our family and friends. We can run errands for them. We can travel to see them during an emergency.

We don’t have to sit up at night wondering what we’ll do if we see panic buying because of a war, a cyber attack, a hurricane, or any other reason. It doesn’t eliminate our risks, but it reduces them. It’s one less thing to worry about.

And one less thing to worry about is…

One less thing to worry about.

Odds are, when you read this, we’ll still be living under a fascist regime.

The vast majority of us don’t support anything that’s going on. We despise it. We talk and talk. We analyze. We contextualize. We put words together. We resist.

The bad things happen anyway.

It took millions of armed soldiers from all over the world to bring down Hitler. And then there’s you. With your phone. Up against flying killbots.

Feeling a little outmatched?

It weighs on you. The futility. Then there’s the judgment. Every day, you hear about your complicity in a broken system. You watch your supposed failures trotted out, over and over. You were supposed to vote. You weren’t supposed to vote. You were supposed to convince your dad to break blue. You were supposed to protest more. You were supposed to call your representatives more. You were supposed to help organize a general strike, even though you can’t afford a week without pay. You were supposed to go out there and get murdered by goons, even if you’re trying to raise a family. You were supposed to be a martyr for your cause, or an executioner. Whatever you did, it wasn’t enough, and it’s your fault.

When you point out how bad things are, someone rolls their eyes and tells you things have always been bad. But what if you already knew that? Does that mean you shouldn’t say anything? Should you just… do what, exactly?

They tell you to change the system, but they don’t say how.

That’s because they don’t know.

They want you to figure out how to change the system, but that’s just it. Nobody knows how to change the system without risking everything they’ve got. And that’s where we are now. If we want to change the system, we have to risk everything. At the very least, we need millions of people willing to give up more than a few brunches. We need millions of people willing to risk a few nights in jail, a few bruises, a few broken bones. But I’m not willing to risk that, for several reasons. And… look around. How many people do you see willing to risk everything, and why would you risk everything if you’re just going to wind up in the news for a couple of weeks, and maybe you get turned into a meme, and nothing changes?

And if you protest the wrong thing, at the wrong time…

Anyway, I’ve got a confession to make.

Today, I didn’t bring down any fascist regimes. I didn’t stop any big oil companies from destroying the planet. I didn’t rescue anyone from poverty, war, or genocide. I didn’t bust any billionaire pedophile rings.

I didn’t stop any bad guys from doing anything.

I just lived.

It’s okay to just live. Most days, you’re just living. You’re just trying to survive. Sometimes, you put words together to try and make a difference. Sometimes the words help. Sometimes, they don’t.

For most of my adult life, I worked in education. There were many, many days when it felt like a complete wash. I left, and that feeling didn’t magically go away. Those days happen regardless of what you’re doing.

Sometimes, the most you can do is make life suck a little less for someone else. You can’t save them. You can just give them one more day. You can help them along. We underestimate how much that matters.

It’s important to try. It’s important to give a shit. In the end, you have to remember something. You’re just one person crawling through history. You have limits, and you’re surrounded by a lot of people who aren’t going to take up your cause, whatever that is. You can’t make them care. You don’t get to decide how much your actions matter. You don’t get to decide how important you are. Sometimes, you just have to focus on living, even if you feel like you haven’t done anything to deserve any sense of peace or comfort at all.

So when you feel like that, maybe it helps to remember. You can’t bring down fascist regimes by yourself. You can’t stop wars with your breath. You’re one person, with limits, and one life to give. Sometimes, the only point is to let someone else know that they’re not the only person angry about something, they’re not the only person struggling, they’re not the only person trying.

It’s okay if you didn’t bring down any fascist regimes today.

None of us did.

Every day, it gets more unhinged.

From tech giants pushing AI at the expense of humanity to military commanders bracing U.S. troops for the return of Jesus as the Middle East unravels, I don’t know how much more evidence we need that our government no longer cares about us, if they ever did. In fact, it looks more and more like they’re trying to ignite some kind of apocalypse. They want to start doomsday early. We have enough receipts.

With that, I’d like to announce a few things. First, you can go here and order the beta version of our illustrated survival guide.

It’s printed and spiral-bound.

Before you order:

Survival Book Layout

81.2MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

That’s the most recent version of the guide. I’ve added a table of contents and a few other important things, including a Creative Commons license.

I’m doing this for several reasons. First, printing costs have gone up significantly. So if you want to take this guide somewhere to have it printed and bound, you should be able to do that under this license. You officially have my permission.

I just ask one thing in return:

If you haven’t, please support my work.

You might be able to find a way to print this guide cheaper than ordering it online. And btw, I only make a couple of bucks for each hard copy anyway. So it really doesn’t matter to me at this point what you do. I’m not interested in becoming a millionaire bestselling author (not anymore). That’s not my path. I’m interested in making a living, and surviving, and for me, it has always worked best when I give first.

Another reason:

A few publishers have come to me asking to collaborate on this project. They’re international, based in Canada, Europe, and the UK. Many readers outside the U.S. have wanted a more internationalized version, and I can’t think of a better way than to let these small publishers build their own teams to adapt this guide for international contexts. The best and most expedient way for us to do that, I think, is to put this guide under creative commons and let the world have at it.

(Just give me due credit.)

I’m following up with publishers this week. If you’re a small, independent publisher and you want to start a Survival Illustrated project, tell me. I’ll send you the InDesign file. You can support me back however you want.

There’s another reason I’m doing this:

You know, back in November, I had no idea what I was going to do next. I figured I would preside over the slow demise of this newsletter and try to find some kind of job to keep things afloat. Then I got the idea for this guide, and readers stepped up with support. And then the AKET Fund stepped in, and it made a huge difference. That tells me my future lies in that direction, giving first.

Like millions of others, I’ve certainly struggled over the last few years, but one thing has held true. Enough people have come together to help me that I’m doing okay. When I offer my work to the world, the world has generally paid it back and paid it forward. There’s no shortage of selfish jerks out there, and I encounter them every week. But they’re not the majority. That’s what matters.

I’ve wondered if I’m rushing it, and I don’t think so. Like I said, the work continues no matter how many versions we publish. I’ve been doing the research for this guide for almost two years now. It took me nearly three years to learn Blender, the main design software I’ve been using. I mean, look at this thing:

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished here, and it’s going to keep going. It doesn’t matter if I become an electrician in the process. It doesn’t matter what batsheet crazy wars our government starts next. We’re going to keep at it.

As long as we can.

Let me know what you think.

Take care,

Jessica

Many of us have spent our entire lives trusting a public health infrastructure that cared about people. Now, it’s falling apart. The head of that infrastructure now humble-brags about snorting cocaine off toilet seats, explaining how he’s not scared of germs because there’s worse things out there. In fact, it’s not really falling apart. It’s getting ripped apart, with astonishing speed. Meanwhile, celebrities go on latenight talkshows and joke about spreading infections.

Of course, what we’re witnessing is a decade in the making. Now we’re just as likely to catch a deadly, debilitating disease from any healthcare setting as we are to get any kind of treatment, assuming we can afford it.

Sadly, this problem will only get worse.

Anyone who studies collapse, prepping, or survival should know that illness and disease pose an even bigger threat than disasters. In fact, disasters like storms and floods are so deadly because they introduce disease. They make it incredibly difficult to get proper medical help, even from a functional system. So we’ve really got multiple problems converging: more disasters, and a government structure that is neither capable nor interested in helping most of us.

So, what can we do?

There’s good news.

For the last week, I’ve been digging deeper into wild plants, weeds, and herbal medicine. I’ve written about this topic before, but I’ve been astonished at what else I’ve discovered. We have all kinds of plants at our disposal that can treat viral and bacterial infections. They can treat chronic conditions. They can help manage high blood pressure, even diabetes. They can help reduce brain inflammation, even regenerate nerve cells. Some of them can treat wounds, even help slow or stop bleeding. This isn’t woo. This isn’t Dr. Oz miracle cure nonsense. It’s steeped in traditions thousands of years old.

It’s often backed by science.

We’re going to get the most we can out of what little remains of our healthcare system and the institutions of medical science. Maybe one day, we’ll get to rebuild them. For now, I think it’s awfully smart to put our smug attitudes aside and learn all we can about the remarkable plants in front of us. And I don’t have to sell you any supplements. You can forage this stuff yourself. You can plant and grow it yourself. You can make it yourself, for little or no money.

Herbalists and herbal enthusiasts are easily written off for a variety of reasons. As great as medical science has been, it has a major blind spot when it comes to plant-based medicine. It’s ironic, given that many of our prescription medicines are actually derived from… plants.

Any community or unit of survival would be lucky to have a dedicated herbalist, someone who studies, grows, and prepares these herbs. Some of them take years to grow, so I would get on that now. I’ll be updating and expanding this part of the guide before the final print version, but I’ve got a lot done, and I’m going to share it. If you have information, please feel free to add what you know.

This knowledge exists, but it’s scattered. Even some of the best books out there can still be confusing at times, and they don’t explain everything. So I’m trying to gather, compile, synthesize, and simplify. This won’t teach everyone everything about herbs, but it’s a great place to start, and it will (I hope) help people.

What you’re seeing is a draft, but it’s not bad.

Here you go:

Survival Illustrated focuses on practical topics, because outrage won’t save us. You can offer one-time support here.

Did you like this post?

Whew, boy.

So last week, the Supreme Court struck down the majority of Trump’s tariffs. As many of us know by now, it was smart to wait a few minutes before breaking out the champagne. Because things have gone sideways... again... as usual. Trump has spent the last several days throwing tantrums online while his goons find new laws and loopholes for him to keep his tariff racket going. Well, big surprise.

War with Iran looms over us again.

If that weren’t enough, a record blizzard has knocked out power to more than 600,000 in the northeast and made travel almost impossible. It’s another sign that the climate crisis doesn’t just mean “warmer weather,” but more chaos.

Honestly, it’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, Minneapolis and Greenland were the main stories. Now, they feel like distant memories. This is life in collapse. Every few weeks, a fresh batch of crises rises up. In the midst of all this, some agency or organization always releases a new report telling us the world has entered a state of water bankruptcy, or that we’re breaking more temperature records...

However, some things don’t change.

Some things stay the same.

Our need for food, clothing, water, and shelter... That stays the same, more or less. The strategies and plans we develop for emergencies... those evolve, but we decide them. Plans offer stability, even comfort. It doesn’t really matter whether shortages are caused by a disaster, or by disastrous trade policies. Either way, you’re ready. You can take in the news and process the headlines, with a little less anxiety.

You can work as fast or slow as you like.

In the end, just knowing what to do and how to do it, that means a lot. That’s what I keep remembering as I work on the guide.

This week, I’ve focused on solar food dehydrators. If you plan on any kind of homestead, it’s essential to have multiple ways to preserve food. It’s great if you have a dehydrator oven, but those require electricity. They use a good bit.

Solar dehydrators work without reliable power, and that’s a major plus. The tricky part is figuring out how to make your own. I looked at several guides.

Here’s the result:

Let me know your thoughts. If you’ve made a solar dehydrator before, feel free to share what you’ve learned.

I’m uploading the latest version of the guide. This one looks a lot cleaner. From here, I’ll be stepping on the gas a little and adding several pages that are primarily informational, that don’t need as much detailed illustration. I’m planning to finish a lot of that work this week. When that’s done, it’ll free me up to focus more on electrical wiring. A more robust solar panel system with several outlets will enable us to do more work with aquaponics and other items that pretty much require electricity.

Survival Illustrated 2026 Feb

70.2MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

We’re not far from having a print version of the guide ready.

Survival Illustrated focuses on practical topics, because outrage won’t save us. You can offer one-time support here.

It was quite a week.

Not because the stock market crashed. Not because I watched another video predicting the collapse of our food system. Not because more articles predicted 2-3C of global warming by the 2050s or sooner. Not because meteorologists and climate scientists have said we’re heading into an El Nino that will shatter yet more global temperature records, overheat the oceans, roast our cities, and unleash powerful storms across the planet. Not because some agency released more documents confirming what we already knew, or at least suspected, about the most powerful people on earth.

All of this has happened, but that doesn’t make a week special anymore. That’s just the background against which our lives play out now. We’re not ignoring that. We’re just used to it, and while that deserves commentary, it’s just the truth. Our brains register the depth and scope of the danger, but our nervous systems no longer react quite the same. It reminds me of the time, back in 2023, when a tornado was literally churning through my neighborhood, the local weather forecasters all panicked and screaming prayers to each other on live television, and I was just in that moment.

So, why was it a big week?

This week, I finished a big section of my illustrated survival guide. I started my electrical wiring course. I caught up with some old friends. The friends who previously fell silent about the climate crisis? They’re talking about trying to develop some community resilience. More of their friends are doing something new.

They’re starting to homestead...

Not out in the country...

Where they are.

I’ve figured out how to talk about collapse without talking about collapse. I’m not talking about famines and pandemics. I’m talking about figuring out how to do things. I’m talking about growing food. I’m talking about installing solar panels or natural gas generators or transfer switches. I’m talking about avoiding illness.

Something struck me the other day.

I’m not mourning my old future anymore. I’m not mourning the career I gave up. I’m not mourning the loss of old routines and comforts.

I don’t have time or space for it anymore.

My life is filled with new purpose, and it has been for a while. Recently, I’ve just been letting it rise to the top. More of us are learning:

There’s a future for us. It doesn’t look like the one we were promised, but that’s the one we’ve got. Every minute we spend wallowing in our doom is a minute we spend not living that future, not getting ready for it, not adapting.

Maybe some people will call this giving up, but here’s the thing. You can’t change a system if you’re dead. You have to stay alive. Some of us are going to have to build the systems and networks we want to see.

When we build it, they will come.

I’m living in two realities now. On the one hand, I’m starting to sketch out a little bit of the community I’d like to live in. On the other, I’m still a bit of a lone wolf. I’m not going to make myself completely vulnerable. I’m not going to share everything. That’s how we have to live now. We have to be of both minds.

My friends and family react very differently to the version of me that’s talking about growing food and building solar cookers. They don’t need to hear me explain the reasons why I’m doing it, because they know. These days, I don’t have to warn them about anything. They’ve already seen it happen.

I don’t have to explain to my in-laws why I’m prepping. They lived through the worst of Hurricane Helene. They get it. More and more, people are seeing. It might be late, but then again, it’s never too late, until you’re dead.

We’re not going to stop the collapse, and maybe we shouldn’t even try. This corrupt system has to end. And it will end. It’s already ending. Either way you slice it, this thing won’t last. It would take a generation to change all this, but in a generation, it’s not going to exist anymore anyway. As one of my readers said, our job is now to make a soft landing for as many people as we can. It’s to make it through the collapse, and to try our best to preserve something that might make it through the end of this century.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a number of posts and articles talking about how nothing feels normal anymore, or how much we miss the twenty teens. Those emotions have swept over me, too, but I’m sooo over them.

I’ve been over them for longer than I realized.

I don’t miss the feelings from those old, feel-good, Hamilton-era movies and TV shows. I don’t miss those Tony Stark vibes. I don’t miss the old comfort of Netflix and chill after a long week at work. There’s a lot I don’t miss about that decade.

It’s clear now.

All that comfort, that sense of security, that sense of hope that our world leaders would figure out our problems... All those commercials, all that PR from the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Bill Gates... All that nonsense about hustling your way to a better life. It was all predicated on lies. The entire time, these people were flying private jets from one ranch or private island to another, committing unspeakable crimes, hurting innocent people, even killing them with impunity. They were always going to destroy the planet and our futures for their own selfish motives. Now they’re just being honest about it. And we’ve woken up.

If you never believed any of this, you’re all that much better off. Me? I’m not sure I ever believed it, but I also remember just existing in that bubble, thinking that I could change the world in my thankless role as a teacher. Then I realized that even the system of higher education that I was participating in was rotten to the core.

It might not feel “good” to live in this new reality, but it doesn’t feel strange anymore. I find myself yearning for that sense of “normal” less and less.

Honestly, I feel more like I did in my 20s. Back then, I lived on the edge. Life didn’t feel safe. It felt dangerous. It was full of uncertainty.

But it was honest.

I’ll take it.

Here’s the guide. For the next few weeks, you’re going to see some more “under construction” pages and a few formatting glitches here and there. That’s because we’re getting close to another major milestone.

Survival Illustrated 2026 Feb

68.4MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Survival Illustrated focuses on practical topics, because outrage won’t save us. You can offer one-time support here.

There’s a little plaque on a shelf in my room. It’s an outstanding research award, from one of the top organizations in my former field (education). I was thinking about it today, specifically how hard it was to publish the article that won the award. Journals didn’t want it. Job search committees laughed in my face about it.

I almost gave up on the whole thing.

That’s the real point of an award. It’s not just a glorified paperweight. It’s something to look at when you feel overwhelmed and defeated. It’s something that says everyone has doubted you before, and you overcame all the obstacles and the self-doubts that come with the territory. It reminds you that, sometimes, nobody will see any value in an idea until you polish it harder than a diamond, and that’s the kind of work that eventually wins the highest forms of recognition and contributes the most. It’s something that someone like Donald Trump wouldn’t understand, even when someone else like Maria Machado gives him the Nobel Prize he’s always wanted. Some people will die before they ever understand what it feels like to earn anything. Many of those people go on to enjoy positions of extreme wealth and power, and that’s the world we live in.

It’s a little insane that we’re letting people who have no clue how to actually accomplish or achieve anything dictate the terms of our reality.

Isn’t it?

Last week, someone asked me how they can keep living in this world, one run by a cabal more depraved and corrupt than our darkest conspiracy theories could outline, with many of our darkest fears about the planet coming true in real time, years if not decades ahead of schedule. Well, I guess you do it by adapting. You decide the terms you live on, and it starts with how you engage a collapsing world.

On that note, I’ve decided that I’m leaving the strange limbo land I’ve inhabited since leaving my job as a tenured professor two years ago.

I’m studying to become an electrician.

Let me explain why...

For all practical purposes, we’re living in a 1.5C world. Climate scientists have gotten quite comfortable declaring the world’s ambitious targets, goals, promises, pledges, whatever you want to call them, dead as a dust bowl over the last year, with all those conferences and summits increasingly overrun by grifters and fossil fuel lobbyists. You can’t prevent something that’s already happening. Meanwhile, the current regime has officially rejected the basic grounding principle that greenhouse gases and carbon emissions drive climate change, leaving agencies like the EPA with no mandate or mechanism to regulate much of... anything.

When the head of public health goes on a podcast and brags about snorting cocaine off toilet seats as a response to an unprecedented resurgence of airborne diseases, in the middle of the worst flu season in 20-30 years, you know nobody is coming to save you. I mean, they couldn’t be saying it much louder.

That’s how things will go for the rest of this decade. In the best case scenario, the U.S. resumes a less suicidal climate policy in 2029, at the end of the decade that every expert has described as our last real chance to save the planet. With any luck, the AI bubble will pop soon and shut down all those data center plans. But as many experts have predicted, the early 2030s will bring the big pain: the bread basket failures, the severe droughts and water shortages, the scorching heatwaves, the famines. Those are baked in, and the best we can do is prepare and mitigate.

If you thought the Biden years were marked by a bizarre retreat into Barbenheimer vibes, imagine what a Gavin Newsom presidency is going to look like in 2030. And that, sadly, is one of the better deals on the table.

So, now what?

It’s so easy to look at that future and collapse into a heap of doom on your couch, or to go shower yourself in the same vibes that draped 2024. Both reactions lead to the same place, passive acceptance. Despair convinces you to do nothing because we’re already screwed, but hopium convinces you to keep drinking out of paper straws and driving around in your EV, as if that’s going to help.

What you do now depends on your worldview. Protest. Rebel. Prep. Give up. Some of us have decided to hang on as long as we can.

Personally, I’ve decided to take another big step in my journey. I’ve been working on making myself useful to my family and my community. That’s one of the reasons I started working on this illustrated guide.

Toward that end, I’ve started studying to become a licensed electrician. I’m enrolling in a course and planning to enter an apprenticeship later this year. My spouse is going to keep working on our backyard homestead. Between the two of us, we stand a chance at raising a child with real skills and a real foundation.

This feels like real prepping.

This is not playing homestead on YouTube with family land and money. This is not talking about giving up electricity while continuing to live in a house with lights, internet, and running water. This is not shouting into the void.

My reasoning:

I’ve been interested in this topic for a while. I’ve wanted to know how electricity works, in every possible way. When all the DIY solar folks stop and tell you to hire a certified electrician, I want to be that electrician.

Many of us don’t have the luxury of simply escaping from the grid. We can’t go off grid. We’re stuck. Even the hardest homesteaders are forced to admit it. I’m not sure there’s any logical path back to the 1800s short of becoming Amish. As one homesteader finally admitted on his channel, the grid has a way of following you everywhere, even to your farms and bugout cabins. It just won’t leave you alone.

Besides, electricity isn’t inherently evil. It runs schools. It runs grocery stores. It runs hospitals. The problem is reckless consumption. Maybe we shouldn’t have built a society dependent on it, but now, simply cutting it off would condemn billions of people to suffering and death. I would like to try to keep some of them alive.

Meanwhile, a collapsing civilization is going to leave behind plenty of scraps for us to work with. They won’t save the planet, but maybe we can figure out how to use them, to build something of a bridge to whatever comes next. Engineers and electricians will be doing that work, and I think that’s where I belong.

Everything we need to live, including the water that comes into our homes, needs electricity to get there. I can either spend thousands retrofitting my home to live like a pioneer in the middle of the suburbs, or I can adopt a trade that works with the systems we already have in place, to help keep them going. I can learn a skill that I can share with others, and deploy in emergencies. Maybe one day I can even volunteer weekends to build solar power setups for people. I can trade on it.

That would be nice.

No doubt, some people will call this idea pointless and doomed. One person recently told me nothing matters anyway, so why bother?

I have no answer for that.

All I can say is that, for me, someone who wants to live, someone who can’t join the Amish, someone who can’t move to a farm, someone who can’t spend the next twenty years hiding in their house and waiting for the militias to come, this path makes the most sense. It’s the best approach to the world in front of me.

There’s running from collapse, and there’s leaning into it. There’s stockpiling beans, there’s doomscrolling on your couch, there’s sitting back and thinking you can simply vote or organize your way to a better future, and there’s this. There’s forging the life that you’re going to need if you even want to try and survive. I think this counts as leaning into it. You don’t have to become an electrician. You could become a plumber. You could become an EMT. You could scale up your homestead. Now is the time. If you can’t, you can support someone who is. For a while now, I’ve been talking about big decisions. Hard decisions. Necessary decisions. In times of doubt, I’ve got a few little tokens to remind me that I’ve done hard things before, and they tended to work out.

Time to start following through.

Time to be a student again.

Survival Illustrated is a reader-supported project. It also receives funding from organizations like the Alfred Kobacker and Elizabeth Trimbach Fund, which focuses on individuals driving meaningful change.

Survival Illustrated focuses on practical topics, because outrage won’t save us. You can offer one-time support here.

Subscribe now

Not many people talked about a report the Department of Energy released last July. It predicts that blackouts will increase 100x by 2030. The current regime is using the report as an excuse to surge investments in fossil fuel projects. Meanwhile, clean energy advocates call the risk “exaggerated.”

We know better by now, don’t we?

In truth, data center growth alone has already started driving blackouts and brownouts across the U.S. Combined with heatwaves and storms, they pose a significant risk to the grid. In some areas of the country, people are snatching up solar panels as fast as they can. They’re terrified of facing a future where the U.S. has not only maxed out its grid, but isolated itself economically with tariffs and trade wars. There’s a certain “now or never” vibe in the air, and they’re not wrong.

Hey, don’t panic yet.

People have been asking me if I plan to dive into bigger systems in the guide. Some of them have very good reasons for wanting a solar and backup system. It’s easy to judge rooftop solar owners as fragile little suburbanites who can’t go a weekend without their wifi. But some of the people coming to me are talking about medical equipment and fridges that store their medication. So, ya know, it’s legit.

Also, imagine living in a place like Arizona, or even Louisiana, and having to endure a grid outage in the summer, after a storm.

That’s life-threatening.

So, I’ve been diving into larger solar power systems again. The deeper I get, the clearer it looks. The average person probably shouldn’t be messing with big systems and trying to connect them to their home electrical panels.

It’s easy to talk about ditching electricity altogether, but a lot of people can’t. If you have a medical condition, or you’re taking care of a vulnerable person, or you have pets, or a small child, then you’re not exactly in that position.

Yes, you can find DIY kits online. Companies promise to give you clear instructions, along with all the parts you need, all appropriately sized and compatible, saving you all the hassle and headache. In reality, customers often tell a different story. They report damaged parts, missing or incomplete instructions, and terrible support.

So, what can you do?

Well, you can become a licensed electrician.

Or...

Turns out, you don’t have to spend a fortune on a professional installation. You don’t have to add solar power to your entire house. You can do it almost à la carte. If and when you speak to a professional installer, tell them you only want to power critical loads. For example, you only want enough panels and a big enough battery to power your air conditioner and HVAC system, or you only need enough to power one room in your house. Maybe you don’t need the washer and dryer, or you don’t need the dishwasher. Then you don’t have to worry about it.

If you study your electrical panel, you can decide exactly what you want placed on a backup battery. It can save you a lot of money.

It’s a lot less stress, and it’s much safer than DIY for a home.

Another thing:

Practically every prepper channel on the internet wants to sell you panels and batteries through their affiliate links. Don’t do it. Talk to a professional solar installer, and let them help you choose the batteries and panels. They know the brands, and they offer warranties. They’re going to choose the best equipment because they don’t want a bunch of service calls with unhappy customers.

It’s great if you have the time and motivation to figure out a full solar install yourself. I’ve watched DIY videos where experienced folks do it, and it still takes them weeks, even months. They still make mistakes, and they still spend a lot of money. Some of them are getting their panels and batteries for free, in exchange for the publicity.

I’m just trying to be real. It might sound privileged to buy rooftop solar at this point, but it’s not such a privilege if you’re doing it to protect someone in your family from blackouts driven by the data center bubble. It’s not such a privilege if you’re financing them. But if we’re honest, many of us just won’t have the time or bandwidth to do a big job like this properly, without burning down our house or running afoul of local codes. And it’s not like the blackouts will wait until 2030. As we’ve learned by now, almost all of these reports are, if anything, underreporting the actual danger.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a year to become an electrician, given the stakes. And I don’t want to risk burning down my house. That’s sort of the opposite of prepping. So, don’t judge yourself if you decide to just pay to have someone install it. There’s a smart way to do it, without spending a fortune.

I’ve put all of this in the guide.

I’ll have another big update on the guide soon. In the meantime, I hope this info helps some people make some decisions.

Let me know...

Survival Illustrated focuses on practical topics, because outrage won’t save us. You can offer one-time support here.

I found this helpful

I hated it

If you’re into prepping, maybe you remember how it felt at first.

Maybe you wanted to keep it a secret.

You were embarrassed.

Maybe you remember how your family reacted when you started talking about bugout bags and rain barrels. Maybe you remember the look on their face and the sound of their voice, like you were confessing to a crime. Maybe your friends and relatives suggested therapy, as if you were wrong to worry about the state of the world and your family’s future. Slowly, time proved you right.

My evolution as a prepper went a lot like this, starting about five years ago. I’ve done a lot right, but I’ve also made a lot of mistakes. My mistakes weren’t spending too much or making bad purchases. They go deeper.

Here’s what I mean:

Doubting yourself

It’s easy to judge yourself for prepping when everyone around you thinks you’re a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Alas, look around.

The whole time, the worst conspiracy theories out there were all true. You were right. I was right. From private islands to underground bunkers, the richest and most powerful people in the world never cared about us.

They couldn’t be bothered to save the planet or protect human rights, because they were too busy destroying the planet and preying on our children. They weren’t just negligent. They weren’t just careless. They weren’t just lazy or ignorant. They were the ones causing all the death and destruction.

They’re still doing it.

There was never anything wrong with taking steps to protect yourself from these monsters and the fallout from their actions. That’s what you’ve been doing. In a nutshell, that’s what prepping is. It’s about protecting yourself and the people you love, so they can continue living.

Obviously, we have to make decisions with care. We have to plan. We can’t just cut a hole in our wall on a whim or buy a pallet of food with no idea where to put it. But wondering if you’re overreacting isn’t planning.

It’s simply self-doubt.

When you doubt yourself, you waste time. You waste energy. You waste resources. You spend a lot of that lying awake at night, wondering if you should be doing something instead of just doing it. I’ve been there, and I’ve done it.

I’ve stopped.

Taking half measures

If you don’t trust yourself, you take half-measures.

They’re expensive.

Looking back, my biggest mistake was trying to prep without looking or feeling too much like a prepper. It’s fine to start out small. It’s even a good thing. But eventually, we’re all going to have to make bigger decisions than keeping a deep pantry. We’re going to have to make some hard calls.

Should you get solar? Should you install a composting toilet? Should you get a water generator? Should you build a rain harvesting system? Should you actually start trying to grow some of your own food? Should you try to start learning how to do home repairs yourself, even if that’s harder? Should you have that difficult conversation with your spouse, your neighbor, or your best friend?

Or should you just keep buying little pieces of gear and hoping they save you? Should you just keep hiding canned goods around the house? Should you just keep browsing Zillow for the perfect bugout location you’ll never afford?

We all have different goals and different resources. We’re all going to make different decisions about what’s best for us in a collapsing world. Some of us will get that cabin with 20 acres of land. Some of us will make plans for staying in the suburbs. Whatever decisions we make, we have to make them with care.

But simply deferring them doesn’t help us.

It only hurts.

Not committing to a plan

If you don’t trust yourself, and you take half-measures, then you never commit to any real plan for a future that many are scared to face.

A plan doesn’t have to mean moving out to the country. It doesn’t have to mean building a utopian collapse community.

It just has to be a plan. It just has to exist. The plan can change. It often means deciding what you’re not going to do. So, you’re not going to build a bunker in your back yard. You’re not going to stockpile food buckets and ammo. So, what are you going to do? What can you do? How? When?

That’s a plan.

Only prepping from a sense of urgency.

Prepping got a lot of attention after Hurricane Helene, and Trump’s election. Suddenly, everyone wanted to learn how to grow their own food. They wanted to know how to fortify their homes against storms. They wanted to know about water purification and bugout bags. Now, it seems, not so much.

Of course, there will be more Helenes.

And more fascists…

It’s easy to prep from a place of urgency. Fear motivates us. But when you only prep when you’re scared, that’s not prepping. That’s panicking. It’s not wrong to feel a sense of panic. Fear is a valuable emotion.

What you do with it, that matters. Panic-buying supplies and then letting them collect dust in your closet, that’s a mistake.

You have to prep when you’re not scared. You have to gather the supplies. You have to build the systems. You have to grow the food. You have to learn the skills. You have to do it without all the fear in the background.

You have to do it when everything feels fine.

Prepping should be calm.

Not chaos.

Feeling guilty

Not everyone has the time, resources, or ability to do the same things you can do. And vice versa. Does that mean you shouldn’t prep?

No, it doesn’t.

You shouldn’t feel guilty about building a food stockpile. In the U.S., we throw away 100 billion pounds of food every year, up to 40 percent of our entire food supply. It’s absolutely nuts. That food could be preserved. It could be stored. Our government and their billionaire donors could end food waste and hunger at the same time, two birds with one stone, with better planning.

The problem isn’t resources.

It’s a lack of will.

Why don’t they do it? As we discussed, they’ve been too busy flying private jets to private islands to prey on our children. They’ve been too busy running international crime rings, maxing out profits, accumulating wealth, and running genocides. That’s why they don’t do it. They don’t benefit.

When you store some rice and dried goods with care, preserve it to last years, with plans to either eat it yourself or share it with someone during a time of crisis, you’re not doing anything wrong.

You’re doing something great.

Sure, you can make practical mistakes when it comes to prepping. You can store the wrong kinds of food, in the wrong place, with a bad rotation system. But the idea of storing food, water, and supplies comes from a place of logic and wisdom. Civilizations have been doing it for thousands of years. It’s not wrong. Our leaders should be doing it. But they’re only storing enough for themselves. Like so many other things, the burden has fallen to you and me.

When billionaires hoard wealth and resources, filling bunkers with gold and gas masks, the media says, “Do they know something we don’t?” But when you do it, they call you a doomer and a hoarder…?

Gimme a break.

Over/underestimating your preps

There’s only so much we can do.

No, we probably can’t stockpile enough food to survive a famine that lasts for years. We probably can’t fight off every militia that comes to our door. Eventually, things could get so bad, they become unsurvivable.

There’s middle ground here.

Your preps don’t have to guarantee your survival through every disaster for the next two decades. If they can’t, that doesn’t make prepping futile. If your preps help you live a few more years, isn’t that worth it?

If they help you survive one disaster, didn’t they do their job?

What are you living for, anyway?

Who are you living for?

Some of us want to stay alive as long as possible, because every day of life is another day with our friends, our families, our children, another chance to do something we love, or at least find meaningful.

That’s the point.

Forgetting to live

There’s nothing wrong with prepping, but you can go overboard. It’s not about the time you invest in it. It’s not about the money, either.

It’s the mindset.

Pop culture has conditioned us to see prepping as something we do out of fear. Maybe that’s how it starts, but think for a minute.

The fear tells you something.

It means you have things, people, and purpose in your life that you value. You don’t want to lose them. You want to protect them for as long as possible. So when you prep, focus on that. You’re doing it from a place of love and purpose. You can protect all of those things. And you can enjoy them. That’s the whole point. Some things are guaranteed. We age. Our children grow up. Things end.

You don’t want to spend your life protecting something you never experience. You don’t want to protect family members you never spend any time with. You don’t want to save a life you don’t find any meaning in.

You could prep for ten hours a day, and you could do it in a way that makes your family feel loved and appreciated, not scared. You can do it while taking breaks to spend time with them, while telling jokes, while listening to them talk about all the things they enjoy. You can prep, and you can live.

Don’t forget to enjoy it.

Giving up

Prepping is hard. It takes time, and patience. You’ll make mistakes, little mistakes. You’ll miscalculate something. You’ll get the wrong tool. Your crops will die. It’ll make you feel like the whole thing was a waste.

You’ll downplay the good decisions.

You’ll fixate on the bad ones. You’ll feel like quitting, when you should’ve just taken a break and tried again later.

Don’t.

Prep with purpose

Imagine spending countless hours thinking about all the reasons you can’t do something. Millions of people out there do just that. They don’t want to prep because they don’t want to dwell on the negative. But they dwell on it anyway. They just do it in secret, and they stuff it all down under a fake smile.

There’s no shortage of obstacles. Maybe you live in an apartment. Maybe you have an HOA. Maybe you work all the time.

Whether it’s prepping or something else, we’ve all had those nights where we couldn’t sleep. We were thinking about doing something. Well, some of us just got out of bed and started doing them. We turned the anxieties and uncertainties into action. I mean, we weren’t going to sleep anyway.

Were we?

A few months ago, I started working on an illustrated guide about survival, homesteading, and prepping. My goal has been to simplify and demystify the process of planning for short-term and long-term disasters. It’s been to make prepping something accessible and affordable. It’s also a nice way for us to channel all of the anxiety that comes with the daily news these days.

Prepping and survival aren’t about hiding in a bunker with a stockpile of beans. It’s also not about pining for the perfect bugout cabin or doomsday ranch. It’s about getting ready for the future where you are, and seeing that future in the present. It’s about taking control of your situation, as much as you can, and building something.

I’ve been researching these topics for years now, and I’ve found it calms me down. There’s no sense in letting dark thoughts keep you up at night, because it’s been like that for years now. There’s also no sense in stuffing your feelings down and pretending everything’s normal when it’s not. Despite everything, we can still do something productive, even fun.

I’m learning more as I go, and sharing my imperfect guide so people can offer their own knowledge and insights. That’s the point.

We’re well over 100 pages now. Since my last update, I’ve added pages on canning and hydroponics. I’ve expanded other sections, and I’m about to work up a page or two on portable DIY solar cookers.

Here’s the full PDF where it stands now.

Survival Illustrated 2026 Feb

65.1MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Next up, I’m working on a quick guide to solar cookers.

Every week, we see more signs of stress in the system. Civil unrest. State violence. Record storms. Power outages. You name it. More and more people are trying to prepare for disasters and emergencies, but they don’t know where to start. That’s why I keep working on the illustrated survival guide. I‘ve added several pages that cover important topics like dew harvesting and heatwave mitigation. I’m trying to cover a range of living situations. There’s no such thing as the perfect prep, but we’re better off with information than without it.

Survival Illustrated Jan 2026

60.1MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

I’ve also revised and expanded other pages based on recommendations from readers. All of this is leading toward a print edition.

Your support and feedback mean a lot.

Take a look:

Every news cycle reminds us now: We’re not nuts for prepping. The preps we made were never too much. If anything, they weren’t enough. But every single thing we do helps our families, and it puts us in a better position to help others. So that’s why we do it. We have a long way to go before collapse gets so bad that it renders prepping pointless. Until then, I think many of us are interested in staying alive a little longer. That’s why I’m working on the guide.

We’re getting fewer breaks between disasters, and they’re getting shorter. It feels like we’re in crisis mode all the time. Frankly, it’s felt like that for a while. Those of us who can, we’re adapting. We’re getting used to it. We’re finding ways to recover and restore ourselves. We’re rising to the challenge. We’re becoming more resilient, not less. Of course, let’s be honest. It’s because we don’t have a choice. We either make it another day, or we break. That’s the choice now.

Some of you will scoff and say it’s always been like this for some of us. Yeah, I know. My entire life has been one long disaster, since childhood. I didn’t have much of a mom. At age 14, I became a caretaker the minute she got us lost (with my brother) on the highway during a schizophrenic episode, and I had to take over driving, with no experience behind the wheel at all. It was terrifying, but I got us home. There was no comfort or safety waiting there either, just an angry dad who yelled at us and went to bed. That was life, trying to squeeze out some joy or meaning between all the violence and chaos. Now, all of us are in that same situation. Instead of a schizophrenic mom, we have a violent autocratic government.

Those of us who’ve been living with disaster from birth, along with all the Cassandras, I guess we have two choices. We can sit back and say I told ya so. I’ve been tempted to do a lot of this, but it doesn’t bring about quite the vindication you’d expect. It’s also not very helpful. The other choice is to step up and become the leaders people need, in whatever ways we can, in whatever ways they’ll accept.

As we’re seeing in Minneapolis, it matters to have a deep pantry. It matters to have stockpiles of food and medical supplies. It matters to have knowledge and skills to deploy during times of crisis.

I haven’t always known how to fuse batteries, but I’ve been a prepper for a long time, out of necessity. I just didn’t know it. Maybe you’re the same way.

So, here’s the latest version:

Survival Illustrated Jan 2026

55.4MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Since the last update, I’ve added a few pages on emergency toilets and battery hookups. I also made a quick guide on cold-weather gear based on some prior articles. Take a look. A couple of electricians have said this looks all right, but more feedback is welcome (please keep it respectful).

We’re almost at 100 pages, but there’s a lot more to come. Not everyone can do everything, and that’s not the point. Everyone can do something in this guide, some can do more than others, and it all counts.

We’ve officially crossed 90 pages on Survival Illustrated. I’ve added more information on seed saving, pest management, and other topics. I’ve also formalized the layout in InDesign, which makes spellchecking much easier. This version also looks a little neater (in my opinion), since InDesign offers much more control over alignment and font size, etc. This was always the plan once I got a feel for how it was going to look. A formal layout also takes care of the margin and gutter issues, once we start getting ready to print.

Eventually, I’m going to add even more detail on the topics covered so far, including more crops and more information on batteries. For now, I’m moving into sanitation and other topics. If you have any suggestions for what we should cover next, tell me in the comments.

I’m also finally able to convert the files to a usable PDF. So, here’s everything in one useful package. Feel free to let me know about any typos or errors.

Survival Illustrated Jan 2026

12.8MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

I’m going to be adding a dedication page. If you supported or contributed to the project and you want your name included, let me know.

At this rate, we might have a micro-guide ready for print by April or May. On the one hand, I don’t want to rush things. On the other hand, I suspect at least a few people might want to have a print version of a micro guide sooner rather than later (about 150 pages), given the trajectory we’re on. The micro guide would cover planting, foraging, rain harvesting, food storage and preservation, emergency sanitation, and basic solar setups with panels and batteries. I’m considering releasing a new print edition every year or so, with the intention of putting out the very best of what I can do on a regular schedule. Feel free to share your thoughts here. You could get the micro guide if you think you’ll need it, or wait for the full first edition later this year, probably in early fall.

That’s it for now.

Well, every week seems to bring more confirmation that if you’re prepping, you’re doing the right thing. I’m sharing a few more pages from the guide. I’ve circled back around to growing food, this time with an emphasis on what you can do if you live in a smaller space, like an apartment.

It might sound silly to try and grow microgreens or herbs in a small living space, but it’s not. Even the simplest herbs come packed with nutrients, and they can add a lot to pantry staples. I’ve also been looking into flexible solar panels and grow closets, to help in more urban environments. I’ll be adding some more detailed information about herb harvesting, etc, in the final version.

Take a look:

If you’re installing planters on railing and window sills, watch out for the weight of your containers. You don’t want to overload them. Drip pans and spill mats also matter a lot, since they keep water off surfaces. You don’t want still water growing mold and germs in your grow spaces.

That’s it for now. If you have any ideas on this front, feel free to share them. In the meantime, I hope everyone is staying sane.

Survival Illustrated is a reader-supported publication that also receives funding from organizations like the Alfred Kobacker and Elizabeth Trimbach Fund. You can offer one-time support here. To receive new posts and support this work on a more regular basis, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Over the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about food shortages and famine. And of course, fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t getting any cheaper. We’ve heard a little bit about foraging. As it turns out, you can eat a relatively wide variety of common weeds. Most of them aren’t super high in calories, but they do contain a lot of nutrients. They could boost any kind of diet considerably during a longterm emergency. They can save lives, or just lower your grocery bill. So, I’ve been digging in.

The guide I’m working on will feature even more information, including more plants and their medicinal value.

I’m sharing what I’ve got now, because it won’t be long before it’s time to start preparing seedlings for spring. You can forage for weeds, but you can also grow them. I’m working with a couple of different experts, but feel free to share your input. You can also go here, here, and here for full online guides.

For now, this feels like enough.

You probably don’t need anyone to list out all the reasons for investing in some kind of emergency solar option. Even the most hardcore, off-grid homesteaders still use technology, even if they wish they didn’t. And yet, rooftop solar remains a big commitment. They’re expensive to install. If you’re doing it yourself, it’s time-consuming and potentially dangerous.

There’s another option.

I’ve figured out a way to rig a portable setup with folding panels and a solar generator for a home or apartment. Compared to a rooftop system, it’s more affordable and gives you more options, and it’s much safer for beginners. I’m sharing the first part of the guide now. In the next version, I’ll talk about slightly more elaborate setups with LifePO4 batteries. All of this will go into the final version of the guide, which you can read about on this Substack page.

You can support it here.

One extra thing: When you wire panels in parallel, you also make each panel function independently. So if one fails, it doesn’t affect the others. In that sense, it’s better than series wiring, where one failure can cascade.

In the next update, I’ll share work I’m doing on edible weeds.

Let me know your thoughts.

Last month, I started working on an illustrated guide that would cover a range of important topics to prepare for a changing world. Since then, we’ve now produced 50 pages. It has real life now. People are excited about this project, and support is coming in. I’ll have more good news to share next week. For now, we’re heading out of town for a few days.

Here’s an overview. Feel free to share this post around and to send me your ideas. You can read more about the project here.

Last month, I started working on an illustrated guide to survival. It’s going to be a big book with a print edition. Today, we crossed the 40-page mark.

I’ve been making a lot of progress. Now, we have a chunk of the food gardening guide done. These pages cover the basics. From there, I’ll be filling in the fruit and vegetable profiles. They’re not done, but I included a few so you see where it’s all headed. I’m also going to add another page or two about setting up solar-powered and manual pumps to get water moving through a garden if the existing pressure doesn’t do the job. Once that’s done, I’m going to slide into more urban gardening methods and strategies.

Here it is so far:

This weekend, I got to work on the bugout guide. It’s something approachable, and yet it’s something many people avoid. Packing is hard enough for a normal trip. It can get overwhelming when you start to think about all the things you’ll need during an emergency. Even for someone who’s been doing it for a while, the list of items can start to get out of control. For me at least, the task became easier to wrap my head around with a visual list of items, organized into loose groups.

This guide also starts to address some other questions, like what you can do without carrying a lot of weight. Camel packs, fanny packs, and vests can still hold a lot of items without adding a lot. Then there’s rolling suitcases...

Bugging out doesn’t always mean heading into the woods. In fact, I suspect many of us will be throwing stuff in a car and heading for another city, in which case you might not always need sleeping bags or tents. Until doing this dive, I’d seriously underestimated the value of camel/hydration packs. One of the most important things to take with you during a bugout isn’t just a water purifier, it’s water, and hydration packs make it a lot easier than lugging aquatainers, if you’re in a big hurry.

I’m going to add one or two more pages going into more detail on lightweight bugout options. Let me know about your bugout plans and what you would add. And... we have a new version of Cassandra. She has a companion.

For the next section, I’m trying to decide if I should dive into food growing, or if I should do an illustrated version of my plan for sickness that includes plant-based antivirals and HOCl. Let me know your thoughts.