Ask HN: How to prepare for blackouts/other disruptions caused by climate change? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to prepare for blackouts/other disruptions caused by climate change?

#21

Post by AndrewLiptak » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

tejtm wrote: post #11

Expend your precocious time on building local community, work in industry that actively seeks to mitigate extant anthropomorphic climate disruption. Use less share more. Vote. Be aware and active in local and regional politics to counter the externally financed divisiveness that brought you to your current frame of mind, they serve as a feeder system for whack jobs further up. Work on proactive preventive agriculture…

THIS. There's technical fixes and then there's systemic fixes. Technical fixes are bandaids.

Re: Ask HN: How to prepare for blackouts/other disruptions caused by climate change?

#22

Post by sircastor » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

- Get a solar array on your roof. - Get a battery on your wall. - Get a small generator that will run off fuel that stores well. (Propane) and get a few tanks.

Probably more important than that, start building a supply of food storage. Small at first, pick foods you like and will eat.

I love just outside of Portland. We’re lucky that we have AC. The thing that got me today was 2/3 restaurants we called had closed up and the last one wasn’t doing any cooking. This was obviously not dire for us. We had food in the house, but You never know when your options are going to suddenly dry up.

Re: Ask HN: How to prepare for blackouts/other disruptions caused by climate change?

#23

Post by mikewarot » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 7:18 AM UTC

Here in the Midwest, we have snow storms, sometimes you can't go anywhere for days, and the power goes out. These events will become more intense. Global climate change means more hot and cold events.

Can you stay warm for a week with no power? What if your water is cut? Plan for those. There will be lots of good hints here. Once you're ready for those, just focus on improving your network of friends.

Get to know your neighbors, have some cookouts, now that the plague is over. If you live in an urban area, consider joining a makerspace, where you can learn a variety of skills, AND have a lot of fun along the way, AND make new friends.

Re: Ask HN: How to prepare for blackouts/other disruptions caused by climate change?

#24

Post by AstralStorm » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 11:26 AM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #5

I'm not into the whole prepper culture, I live in a city so if sh*t really goes down I'm loading up my touring bike and leaving. But I do have some things that are quite cheap and easy to get. 4 big jugs of water, total of 160 liters iirc. I rotate them out every 6 months. One crank operated radio+usb power bank+torch. First aid kit. ~80 days of powdered meal replacement, not for prepping but because I eat it normall…

Nothing about this prepares for climate change. You need to prepare (yeah right) for long periods of high heat, potential middle to long term lack of food availability, potential water rationing, job market and especially money market being completely weird and so on.

Power outages are possible and persistent, sure. Having some skills and hardware not reliant on power is prudent, but I'd expect more of a throttle than complete outages, esp. AC and non critical businesses being throttled. Focusing on power efficient or manual devices could help.

I hope you don't have medical conditions...

99% of "bug out" stuff will be worthless in these situations. Yes, including the solar chargers. And your liters of water won't do against general rationing.