How to survive an ice age apocalypse
Winter is coming. There’s a reason they stopped talking about global warming and started talking about climate change – it turns out that the damage we’re doing to our environment might ensure that some places just freeze over. If the UK loses the gulf stream (which it could if the ice caps melt much more) we’ll cease to be ‘temperate’ and become ‘arctic’.
This gets my apocalypse-obsessed mind a-wondering. If there was a second Ice Age, how would we survive? What could we do? So here it is: Your Ice Age Survival Guide.
Forget the Diet
In the modern ice age, you’ll need all the extra flesh you can get. There may be weeks, months where you’ll have to live off the energy created from your own fat. Plus, the extra fat will help keep your interiors warm. Eat up.
Stockpile Food
Canned and dried. Don’t worry about frozen; the environment will do that for you.
Re-learn the Basics
How to make fire, how to build shelter, how to layer clothes to get the best benefits. All things our ancestors had to know, all things we have forgotten in our life of central heating and ready-built houses.
Consider Hydroponics-grown Food
In this Ice Age, fresh fruit and vegetables are going to be pretty thin on the ground. If you can set up a hydroponics system in your house that you can keep powered somehow, you’ll be miles ahead of the rest.
Move Underground
It’s easier to keep temperature regulated and walls secure if you live underground. It’s also easier to hide from animals and people who may want to hurt you. Have a main, more obvious entrance and exit as well as a couple of more secret, hidden ones.
Learn how to hunt
Sorry, vegetarians and vegans. You can’t afford to have dietary ethics or preferences in a survival situation. If you’d honestly rather starve than eat that deer I just brought down, whatever your reason might be, feel free. More food for me and mine.
Animal Skins
Again, sorry. But there’s a reason fur is preferred by the inhabitants of cold climates. It’s soft, warm and natural so it doesn’t require too many resources to produce. If you’re careful with the skinning, you can get it off the animals you eat. I suspect PETA will all be dead, so don’t worry about it.
Practical Clothes
Stock up NOW on: thermal underwear, thick socks, sturdy boots with good tread, winter-weight jumpers and hoodies (buy from camping stores for the proper thickness and warmth). Also, while you’re in the camping shop, buy all the stuff they recommend for winter camping and ice climbing. You’ll need it.
Other Practicals Too
Snow shoes, skis, toboggans, grippers for feet and hands. The outside is going to be slippery and hard to navigate. Make it easier on yourself, and have stocks of these things to start with.
Know How to Treat Illness
Modern medicine is unlikely to be available after a while, but you should know how to prevent and treat most common illnesses, especially ones brought on or exacerbated by extreme cold. Frost bite is the WORST – expect to have to remove affected areas.
Don’t be a Loner
Being a loner post-apocalypse seems romantic, but it’s too dangerous. Human beings are basically walking 1 kilowatt heaters, so the more you have around you the better. At night, sleep in a ‘person pile’, for warmth.
Join my Post-Apocalyptic Compound
Sure, I won’t allow you any personal freedoms, but there’ll be plenty of food and warmth, armed people to keep you safe, and I know what I’m doing. All you have to do is your fair share, and adore me as a god. Don’t like it? The frozen waste is to your left. Don’t come back.
Get prepared. Don’t be one of the dead ones.