World War Z

I finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War a few weeks ago. Written by Max Brooks, author of the famed Zombie Survival Guide, this book is a fictional collection of accounts from the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. While there are some creepy parts, that's not really the point of the book. The stories are mostly of survival and dealing with the effects of the "war". Overall, I liked it. If you're a Zombie fan or a P-A fan, it's worth a read.

I'd like to give a better overview, but it's been too long since I read it. I've got a bit more spare time now, so I'll hopefully resume posting regularly.

Water from wind

EcoGeek has an interesting post about a wind-powered turbine that cools itself and condenses water out of the air. While there are doubts about the implementation, there are certainly examples of being able to condense large amounts of water out of the air, and in nearly any P-A world, getting fresh, clean water is going to be a challenge. Of course, most of these assume there isn't radioactive dust blowing around, but at least it's a good start.

Powerless cooling

"Apocalypse" frequently means no power. But so does "rural Africa." A very inventive Nigerian man named Mohammad Bah Abba developed an incredibly easy evaporative cooling system called a Zeer. Take an unglazed terracotta pot, and fill the bottom with sand. Put a smaller pot inside it. Fill the gap with sand. Add water to the sand. The water soaks into the pots and slowly evaporates, which causes cooling. Apparently it works quite well.

Terracotta is a great PA material because A), it's everywhere, B) it might actually survive the ravages of time and weather, assuming it doesn't get smashed, and C) you might actually be able to make it yourself. Hit up any garden or home store and you'll find plenty of big planters. For that matter, check your neighbor's houses. They may have a few as well, already in use.

More on Bah Abba and the pot-in-pot refrigerator at Wikipedia.

Solar Cooking

I came across a site on solar cooking today, and I realized that it's just the thing when you need to cook your food but don't want any smoke to alert nearby raiders, zombies or other nasty folks. The site has some plans for cookers. One seems to be made from an old tire and a sheet of glass - a little gross, but very resourceful. My dad and grandpa had actually messed around with this a few years ago. They used a wooden box lined with garbage bags and a glass lid. I don't remember if we actually cooked anything in it, but it was a neat idea.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Work has me very busy and there's no sign of it letting up.

The World Without Us

Cool Tools writes about The World Without Us. It's exactly what it sounds like - what happens to the world when mankind disappears. Be sure to check out the multimedia page on the book's website for some time-lapse decay and beautiful artist's renderings of a dying New York.

This one is going on my wish list.

Bruce Schneier on Disaster Planning

Renowned security expert Bruce Schneier writes about appropriate levels of disaster planning. He usually takes a security-related perspective, but the types of disasters he talks about make it interesting to P-A folks.

How will the world end? Nuke 'em 'till they glow.

Nuclear war is probably the cause of most "traditional" P-A worlds. Nuclear bombs are among the most powerful weapons we have, and fallout from radiation can keep doing damage even after the bomb itself is long gone. Typically, an escalation in hostilities results in two major countries (the US and usually Russia or China) lobbing bombs. The rest of the world joins in, and pretty soon most major cities have been blown up and the surrounding areas irradiated. Radioactive fallout blows across wide swaths of land, killing and mutating as it goes. Sometimes there is a nuclear winter, where dust in the atmosphere cools the planet and causes an extended winter. Survivors of the initial war take refuge in bomb shelters and bunkers, sometimes for generations. Remnants of technology are here and there, but between the destruction and the passage of time, examples of advanced technology are few and far between. There are usually some fanciful mutant humans and animals too, caused by exposure to radiation.

One of the things I like about the nuclear P-A world is the fight against the environment, which seems to be more important than in some other types of P-A worlds. Radiation in high enough doses kills pretty much everything, and finding uncontaminated food and water is a major task. Large irradiated areas prevent movement across country. Radiation is also somewhat mysterious, an invisible foe and difficult to deal with. There is also a popular tradition of radiation causing viable mutations which makes for some interesting obstacles in the new world.

The classic computer RPG Fallout and its successors take place in a nuclear P-A world inhabited mostly by human survivors, but also by mutant humans called ghouls and super-mutants. High technology is usually military in nature, and the pre-apocalypse technology level included energy weapons, power armor, robots and fusion powered cars, to name a few examples. The games don't focus much on survival but more on combat and interaction with the small towns and villages trying to deal with the bad elements of the world, mostly roaming gangs and mutant menaces. Fallout 3 is in the works, and will have more survival elements, like radiated water. You'll need to drink water occasionally, but most of the water you find will be slightly irradiated, so you'll have to balance the two factors. You can find more about the Fallout series at the fan site No Mutants Allowed.

The book A Canticle for Leibowitz is a more serious fictional look at dealing with the recovery of civilization after a major nuclear war. After the war, the survivors rebel against technology and science and send the world into a new dark age. An order of monks hides and preserves books for future generations so that they can recover the science and technology of the old world. The idea of the monks preserving valuable books is one of the things that inspired me to start the Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf. Canticle deals with a lot of interesting issues, like faith, knowledge and power, but only the first third of the book really deals with the kind of post-apocalyptic world I'm interested in. During the other two thirds civilization has recovered to the point that they are no longer fighting against the environment, but merely other civilized humans.

What are your favorite nuclear themed P-A worlds?

More instructables - solar charger and pallet shelter

Instructables has had a few relevant projects lately. If you don't already know, Instructables is a site for sharing instructions on how to make stuff - food, sewing projects, electronics, all kinds of stuff. I'll have to go back through the archives and see if there are more that have relevance. I think I saw a solar water heater project at one point...

The Rain or Shine Solar Charger is potentially quite useful. It's basically a solar panel in a clear pouch for backpackers. It's mildly weatherproof and lightweight. He also shows how to hook it to a phone charger. This is a really good one with detailed instructions and decent grammar.

Here's another one, the Pallet Shelter for "Urban Survival". Basically just simple pallet walls held together with bungee and velcro straps, covered with a tarp. This is the kind of thing you just need to see once and then it sits in the back of your head until you need it.

How to sharpen a stick with fire

This is quite simple, and something I didn't know before. Now I can make my own fire-hardened spear or arrows.

How will the world end?

Probably the most important thing to discuss when it comes to a Post-Apocalyptic (P-A) world is what form the apocalypse took. Science fiction (and fantasy) have presented us with many possibilities, including war, plague, asteroid/impact, ecological collapse, alien invasion and supernatural upheaval.

Most of these have really similar elements.

1. A whole lot of people die, rapture or get kidnapped by aliens. In any case, they're gone.
2. Loss of people results in loss of government, or at least a vastly weakened government. Survivors are suddenly on their own. This can be anywhere from one lone person who mysteriously survives a plague, to entire cities building walls to keep out the crazies in the wastelands.
   
3. Frequently, though not always, the environment becomes hostile. This might due to radiation, flooding, ash clouds blotting out the sun, or zombies all over the place.
   

The kinds of P-A worlds that interest me most are the ones where government, and indeed civilization itself has collapsed, leaving smaller groups of survivors to independently fend for themselves. These survivors must fight the environment and competing groups to survive. For me, the Mad Max movies, the computer RPG Fallout and the novel/movie The Postman are good examples of this.

In future posts, I'll try to focus on some of these different kinds of apocalypses and try to bring out some of the differences.

Solar Charger

EcoGeek (via Gizmodo) has a blurb about an EarthTech portable solar charger. It's got a 6 sq. ft mat of solar panels that charge a 300 watt battery pack. Just plug in your devices. Sounds like it's seriously powerful, but pretty pricey at about $500.

Power is going to be hard to come by in a P-A world, but while our electronics are all still working it sure is good to have them available. Imagine the difference a single power drill could make, or the ability to recharge flashlight batteries. You could run a HAM radio off it too. I bet it could power an ultra-low watt LED bulb continuously and still charge the battery pack.

It also looks like there are some other interesting things on their site. Solar outdoor lighting for one. Take it outside during the day, bring it in at night. Wind up flashlights (with long lasting LED bulbs) and radios too. Neat stuff, if you've got the cash.

Bookshelf: Where There Is No Doctor

My wife recommended this one to me. She grew up in Brazil, Mozambique and other parts of Africa, as a missionary kid. Missionaries to third-world countries often end up in places where there literally are no doctors. Hence the name of the book, Where There Is No Doctor. This is a really, really basic book about keeping in good health in places where there aren't government implemented public health initiatives, like municipal water supplies. There are chapters on recognizing and treating illnesses, a first aid chapter dealing with injuries, information on antibiotics and similar things. There's also a chapter on putting together a medicine kit, which is a good thing to have ready. The book is written in plain English with minimal use of technical terms. The illustrations are pretty poor, but they're very clear. Medical information is constantly being improved, so make sure you get a recent edition.

This book is in widespread use in third-world countries and has been translated into over 75 languages and there are millions of copies in circulation. Obviously, the book is useful. I imagine that whatever form our post-apocalyptic world will take, it won't be drastically different from a third-world country. Disease and injury will be common, and failure to take care of yourself is going to lead to a quick and probably unpleasant death.

One thing the book is missing, and this is really only a P-A complaint, is a chapter on Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) effects, i.e. dealing with common forms of bio and chem warfare and radiation poisoning. Obviously, this isn't really appropriate for the book in it's current context, but hopefully I will run across an advanced text that deals with some of these.

The book is available online as well, at the publisher's website, so you can take a look before you buy it.

I Am Legend

I saw a trailer last night for I am legend. The tag line is "the last man on earth is not alone." Sounds pretty post-apocalyptic to me. Not many spoilers in the trailer (kudos to them for not ruining it). It's based on the book by the same name, but watch out - the wikipedia article will spoil it. There's another book I need to pick up...

The Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf

For a while now, I've thought that one of the most valuable things in a post-apocalyptic world would be information. Whatever form an apocalypse takes, there will almost certainly be wholesale death and destruction. Computers will be rendered near worthless by a lack of electricity and advanced electronics. Fragile books will be destroyed by water and fire. Human experts will die, and critical information about agriculture, medicine and science will be lost. One person's death could mean doom for an entire community, if the are the only one that knows how to fix the water pump or make medicine. Combine that with the fact that most people in developed countries no longer know much about hunting, farming, wilderness survival and similar skills, and we've suddenly got a serious survival problem. Well, besides the whole apocalypse thing.

My solution is The Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf. I intend to gather various books together to form a small library of important information to help survive the apocalypse, thrive in the post-apocalyptic world, and start to rebuild society afterwards. The books will be a valuable physical resource that will outlast your death and can teach others the same important skills. And by knowing what's in the books, you'll have a leg up on anyone else and be a more valuable member of your community even if the books don't survive.

Rules for the bookshelf:

1. Must be a book. Books may be relatively fragile, but there's really no alternative. Most modern books are meant to last a few years at least. Printouts are too fragile and don't age very well.
   
2. Keep the numbers small. Fewer books mean less weight, and it's easier to carry them and protect them. I won't put a number on it, but it probably shouldn't be more than a couple of dozen. If the list gets long, I may bump some.
   
3. Survival takes precedence, then thriving, then rebuilding society. That means medicine and wilderness survival guides take precedence over agricultural and tool-building techniques, and those are more important than electronics guides or other advanced topics.
4. I intend on purchasing my own copies of most of these books so I can give you more detailed information about them. Hopefully each book would also be in print or at least easily available.

I've got a few in mind already that I'll be posting about soon, but please let me know if you've run across something worthy. I'd also like to hear about other suggestions for what you'd like to see this blog talk about.