S1E45 - Margaret and Casandra on "How To Get Started Prepping...Or Getting Prepared"

Episode Notes

Episode summary

Margaret and Casandra talk about some of the basics of preparedness and how to get started even if you don't have a lot of money or skills. They go through their lists of things they always consider when preparing for crises, whether that be a natural disaster, "the bomb", food shortages, inflation, the further advancement of Fascism, or any of the other of the various multi-faceted horrors contributing to our slow apocalypse. They talk about community preparedness vs individual preparedness, 'stuff focused' preparedness vs response focused preparedness, bunker mentalities, and a lot of other great stuff, like how potatoes prove once again to the be the only wholesome thing, why you shouldn't trust rich people trying to sell you shit, and how again Hope is maybe the only real strategy we can count on. This is a new format for the show that we'll be exploring more soon!

Next Episode: We'll have a special episode coming out next week on July 22nd from the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective.

Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra. Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

How To Get Started

Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like The World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts today, Margaret killjoy. And, left implicit in that statement is that I have another host today, because instead of doing a normal interview format, I'm going to have my friend Casandra, who also works on this podcast, usually more behind the scenes on to join me in conversation. How are you doing today? Casandra?

Casandra 00:41 I am okay. I think the day started out rough. But we've been chatting for a while and I'm feeling a lot better now.

Margaret 00:48 Yeah, we're recording this on the day that Roe v. Wade was officially overturned in the United States.

Casandra 00:56 Yep.

Margaret 00:57 Hooray. But that's not what we're talking about today. We have other content that more directly relates to that on this show. But today, we're talking about crises and how to prepare for crises. But, more importantly, today, we're telling you that Live Like The World Is Dying is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show in the network....[waiting expectantly for Casandra] You gonna make the noise?

Casandra 01:39 Ba ba da da daaa. [laughing] Okay, I did it.

Margaret 01:59 Yay!

Chanel Zero Network Jingle

Margaret 02:32 Okay, we're back. So, yeah, we're basically going to kind of ask ourselves as though we're a panel, we're both going to be interviewed by you in absentia. You the listener. Because we've been getting a lot of questions for this show. And so we're gonna kind of talk through some of them. And hopefully, it's going to turn into a very coherent and brilliant introduction to preparedness that will be useful for all people.

Casandra 03:01 Oh, that's my cue. Margaret, what, what are the first steps that you take in preparing for a crisis?

Margaret 03:11 It's funny, you should ask that. I wrote down a list. You told me you were going to ask me that. So I mean, the first and most important thing is you have to think about what the crises you're preparing for are right? We can't prepare for everything. Like you can slowly...you hit this point of diminishing returnsfor preparedness, but you're like, you know, where you live, maybe a tornado is more likely then a tsunami, right. And so you'll probably prepare more for tornado if you're in Tornado Alley, and less for tsunami. But at some point, once you're prepared for tornado, maybe you'll start preparing for [a tsunami].....don't prepare for tsunami, if you live in the middle of the country, that's pointless. But you know, like, theoretically, you could start focusing on the crises that are less likely, like nuclear disaster is substantially less likely than a large number of other crises. Right? So I wouldn't start there. And where I would start is with doing a sort of preparedness audit, figuring out what you need, or what you have, and what you would like to have in terms of preparedness, not necessarily items, but in terms of plans or access to resources or like relationships with people or skills necessary to confront these different things. And, you know, so, to just go through that list, I guess, I would say, you know, start with like, temperature, right? If there was an immediate, you know, you lose power and you suddenly lose your ability to...or you don't have air conditioning or you don't have heat, right, what are the sources of climate control that you rely on? As an individual like the clothes that you wear, as well as any structure that you you generally reside in. If you live in a tent, how do you heat and cool the tent? If you live in a truck? How do you heat and cool the truck? If you live in a house? How do you heat and cool the house? So that would be the first thing, right? Temperature. Just think about that. And the next is shelter, protection from elements. That kind of relates, you know, what systems do you have in place for shelter? And then what are your backup systems for shelter? Right? Like, you know, if you...do you have a vehicle you can take shelter in if your house is no longer accessible? Do you have a tent? Do you have, you know, tarps to put up if you....whatever, you just think about all the different things that protect you from the elements. This one is less likely to be like, directly...you're probably not going to be changing that much about your shelter, but it's just worth thinking about. Next is water. You know, we need water on a pretty regular basis, almost daily, in fact, do we require water. So. [Casandra laughs] Actually, I drink water every day. That's how on top of it, I am. [Casandra still laughing] So, water, okay, where does your water come from? What do you do when that water source stops? This is a really good example for me, because a lot of people that I know live in places where they rely on municipal water, and fairly regularly have boil advisories right. Fairly regularly, there's going to be some sort of contact, that's going to be like, "Hey, you have to boil your water, because there might be something nasty in it." And so if that's something that happens where you are, having some extra water around might mean you don't have to boil your water, you just go to the 10 gallons of water that you keep, or you make sure that you know you have a way to boil that water. And with any of these things, you want to think about it first in sort of the very immediate, like, what would you do if you suddenly, you know, were without water for five hours, and then go from there to like three days and go from there to like two weeks and