Work on proactive preventive agriculture adjustments (farmers intuition will not be keeping up). plant genetics, alternative tending protocols, land preservation (includes ownership as in who). Don't put all your seeds in one dustbowl.
Find less polluting energy, realistically we don't want to use that much less.
Help get off this rock so we can exploit the whole solar system and give the planet where we live a bit of respite.
https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers
Some are ready for a "HTF" (hit the fan), society-collapse events. Others, like myself, focus on the higher probability but less attention grabbing situations like multi-day power outages, supply chain disruptions, and low-cost-high-ROI investments (like buying two sets of N95 masks for the family in 2018 in the unlikely event of a pandemic).
There's lot of view points within the community as to what is best, but generally the agreement is to determine what your personal level of risk tolerance is, and invest + prep accordingly.
You've reminded me of this piece: https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematic...
(HN discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16905725)
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 normally as a snack or quick lunch. So I tend to order 45 bags in a box each time and that means I have between 50-80 days worth at any given time. I'm still on a big box of Plenny shake but when that is up I'm thinking of trying Huel.
Water purification tablets and gas camping stove is something I had for a long time because I love camping. And a lot of other little knick knacks for camping like a knife, flint and steel, bicycle maps of the region, compass and more.
Simple solar charger for USB, enough to charge my phone in a couple of hours on a sunny day. It's actually a foldable version that I bring on bicycle tours.
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.
Acquire air conditioning in advance. Portable units are easy to source outside of peak season. Have an "AC" room you can use to sleep/work if needed, don't try to cool the entire house. Buy a purifier if health concerns are elevated.
I've also been putting battery/conditioner on my high-value electronics.
And avoiding sMaRt devices - I imagine them failing in stupid/frustrating ways with power/data connection issues.
The problem with preppers is that if shit happens - everyone will be fighting for local resources for an unpredictably long time.
My idea is to have second/third passport to totally different country on a different continent where same shit at the same time unlikely to occur. Second - have a little property in that country you own. Maybe have local stash for necessities over there.
So your survival scenario would be to have minimum amount of crap with a clear plan - enough to reach some transportation means away from local shit and be gone to your remote hideout to continue be productive and enjoying life instead of fighting with locals for resources for unpredictably long time.
There are also some climate change derivatives like human plague, crops failing due to disease.
And similar issues can be caused by: Carrington event, vulcanic eruption, asteroids, nuclear accidents, great-power warfare, some kind of 'misinformation event'.
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.
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.
Get a bike, maintain it yourself, keep a generous number of spares and tools around.
Participate in any "nets" held, emergency prep, get to know the hams in your area, and map out as much as you can how the local city/state orgs plan to communicate with the public. Ideally you can act as a conduit to let neighbors know when there's going to be water trucks, food delivery, shelter, communication of evac orders, etc.
Regularly go camping, note what is useful, what is not, keep notes for next time, involved any friends/family/neighbors as much as possible. Keep a month or two of dried food around just in case. Eat at least one meal of the dried food per camping trip.
Try anything to improve the neighborhood, organize a park/road/sidewalk cleanup, buy a basketball hoop the neighborhood kids can share, etc. Meet people, shake their hands, learn about their family, offer to share yard tools, etc.
Keep at least a few weeks of water (at least a gallon per person per day), food, etc. Buy a UPS or keep an older UPS just for USB devices, so instead of trying to keep a 600 watt PC up for 10 minutes you can keep a phone charged for a week or two. Get a portable solar panel or two and inverter/charger to share phones, family radios, etc. Ideally enough for you AND some neighbors.
Vote in favor of science and schooling (at all levels).
Discuss emergency logistics with more distant friends/family, plan exactly how to evacuate, what is important to take, multiple routes to get where you are going, do not assume that wifi/internet/cell towers are going to work. Consider storing fuel if needed to get to a safe location, rotate it as necessary. Exchange keys and plan on a reciprocal agreement in case either household has an emergency. Install an app on your phone that allows offline maps. Print any important maps and ideally download at least your entire state, and any others you might evacuate to.
OsmAnd is a great app for this.
If you think the worlds going to break down then move something farther north with guaranteed access to fresh water. Michigan in the USA or start looking at Canada and stock up on guns and ammo cause if it gets that bad that's the new currency.
Fires, storms, even just cold weather can be life threatening. Even simple stuff like knowing how to turn off the water supply to your house and drain the system would have saved MANY households in Texas.
Planning to not have electricity, natural gas, and working cell network makes sense pretty much universally. I'm not talking about spending $100k to go off grid, but making sure you have some essentials around. Even simple things like enough blankets for a family to weather 0F for a week.
If you really think it will be that bad, then you should look into prepping.