I noted this report in the Guardian:
New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.
The researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” due to the highly interconnected and energy-intensive society that had developed and the environmental damage this had caused.
A collapse could arise from shocks, such as a severe financial crisis, the impacts of the climate crisis, destruction of nature, an even worse pandemic than Covid-19 or a combination of these, the scientists said.
I did so in the context of a question I asked on Twitter yesterday:
It was once said that "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. " So, what is the major anxiety of our time?
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) July 28, 2021
I was expecting climate change to be the predominant answer to that question. For some it was, but the largest number, by far, suggested our biggest problem was our leader, putting the threat he creates in various ways, but all making clear that the way he is undermining the democracy that we live in is the greatest challenge that we face.
I am not pretending for a moment that a couple of hundred replies is scientific. But, I also think them illuminating. The message was that we cannot run away from the climate crisis, a financial crisis, or anything much else come to that if the politics that enables them all is predominant and destroying society from within, and that is what is happening.
The premise that we can run away is, then, wrong.
The places to which these scientists say we can run have no solution to the political-economic problems that we actually face.
Unless we face down the threat to society that comes from the far-right nowhere is going to be exempt, least of all the UK.
It's folly to pretend otherwise and time to end giving space to the idea that it is possible to do so.
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I have no idea why the UK should be in that list above?
Having just been on holiday to Scotland however, it was clear to us that a lot of Englishmen are moving up there to live for precisely the reason you state: Boris Johnson and his Tory lackeys.
And as a result house price inflation is now being seen – another consequence of this mirage that one can just run away and make everything better.
It’s [Scotland] in the UK for now.
Running away to some imaginary Eden at the ends (it is round so that is a dumb description anyway) of the Earth is just another right wing idea.
As has been the survivalist bullshittery of yankees – which really is just the gun manufacturers way of selling ever more weapons than any individual will ever use for ‘survival’ – you need something to hunt! And so does the next survivalist!! So you’ll end up hunting each other!!! Dumber.
Mostly the survivalist ethos is tied up with white supremacy, getting away from the black, brown and yellow to stay ‘pure’ – let’s not beat around that bush any further with the idiots, the dumbest cretins.
As for the antipodes being in some way immune from Climate change – dream on.
CO2 concentrations are in the WHOLE atmosphere.
Ocean Currents aren’t going to remain the same.
Wild fires , heatwaves , floods already afflict them.
And let’s not forget cataclysmic seismic activity of the ring of fire that has laid waste to Australia in the Dreamtime’ Big Wave’s as the tallest mountains on the planet , collapse under their ever increasing volcanic weights! Hawaiian lava never stops spewing and is guaranteed to fall as it has always done.
Christchurch showed that the ground itself can turn liquid under the feet and cathedrals and homes of Hobbits no matter how furry their feet.
There is just One Blue Dot in this part of the Galaxy. No dot on that dot is any different.
Can’t afford a bunker in NZ…… but I have a boat!!
🙂