Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to A good philosophical question: If you were the last person left alive on Earth?

re: A good philosophical question: If you were the last person left alive on Earth?
James Brown — (archived)

Not exactly on topic but close. I have always thought you could predict the ability of a society to survive by asking yourself this question:

“How long after a complete loss of electricity would I die?”

I mean the power grid not that electricity itself were to vanish just the ability to generate power. For me it would be about three months. Here is how it happens:

Power loss - Everyone thinks it’s romantic, candles are lit and the Bar-B-Que is used to cook a steak. Work in the morning, ho hum.

Week Two -. Still go to work but since I’m a computer guy and they require power not much point. I am now out of gas for the car (plenty of gas in the underground tanks but need electricity to pump it out) and the company is closed pending resumption of power

Week Three - A cold snap but that’s not a problem in San Diego. I fire up the natural gas fire place but it fizzles out after a couple of hours. Seems some pump or valve somewhere is electrically operated and now the lines are empty. Still not much of problem since we are still in San Diego but the millions in cold country die very fast because they simply cannot light there house heaters and have no way to cut enough wood to stay warm.

Week Four – We are running out of food. We had a huge pantry but even that is getting low. The local Safeway is a walk away but most of the food is gone because the delivery trucks cannot get gas either. What food remains must bought and paid for with checks but since the bank cannot process the checks (no computers) the store has stopped selling food.

Weeks Five through ten – Water is now a problem – again a pump is needed to raise the water from the local reservoir.

Week Eleven – Out of food, out of water. Roving gangs of those smart enough to have purchased guns early who will gladly kill you for a can of corn. We huddle in doors.

Week Twelve – We die of thirst and starvation..

Folks we are all hot house plants. Some who live on farms with animals would survive longer but that could not be more than one of twenty and they would die in short order as well because they could not feed or water their animals. There crops would die without irrigation water and there would be no way to plant crops, harvest or store anything for much longer than a month or so.

So down here in warm San Diego I would give us twelve weeks at most. In the north no more than four weeks with weather like you are having now and farmers in the south no more than four months.

Sound right?.

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