[weagle05]

I too would be interested to view these models. Coming from a rural background, people in my hometown still have gardens and hunt/fish. We're one, maybe two, generations removed from people producing most of their own food. I don't see how cities deal when they can't refrigerate food and the supply chain is interrupted.

[barry-cotter]

> I don't see how cities deal when they can't refrigerate food and the supply chain is interrupted.

A large majority of people, including all but the youngest children in the developed world are healthy enough to survive just fine on zero calories for a week as long as they have clean water. You wouldn’t have zero calories and that’s probably enough time to start milling animal feed corn and processing other animal feed into something edible by humans. The developed world is well capable of feeding itself even in very bad situations. This is a coordination problem and in catastrophes people do not turn into locusts. They pull together. See WW2 in all combatant nations. I’d expect high mortality among the very young, very old and very sick and well over 90% survival rates four most of the developed world besides those groups.

[MockObject]

Americans eating animal feed corn in the cities? I must be missing something here. I don't think I've ever seen animal feed corn in my life.

[xeromal]

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. I don't see how it can fall apart of it's mostly self sustaining. There are still loads of people in my hometown that don't have power. What are they gonna lose if society falls apart? lol

Lots of the local trucks run on vegetable oil so they don't even need a working supply chain for diesel. It'll be an inconvenience but it's no death.

On top of that, a huge amount hunt and fish like you said and have hundreds of pounds of meat for a year or two with only 2-4 deer which breed like locusts.

[toss1]

For sure, a lot of rural people are much closer to and have actual living practical knowledge of farming and hunting. However, I wonder if there are really enough resources to support them. Two concerns, short term and long term.

Short term, depending on the season, it could be over a year before sustainable crops can be grown to eat. Best case, it happens in early spring, and everyone can go immediately till and plant as many acres as possible, presuming they have the seeds. And the stored fuel and sufficient labor to prepare the extra ground, fell trees and turn them to fields, etc. Even then, what is the fastest-maturing crop, 10 weeks? A long few months to live on the scraps in your no-longer-working refrigerator. And if it happens too late in the growing season? yikes, but less bad for those in more temperate climates.

Hunting? If everyone even in small towns started hunting for food, including out of season, most food species would be hunted to local extinction in short order.

Longer term, is there really enough to sustain more than a small population? I recall one rule of thumb of 20+ acres/household just to have wood to heat with (an acre/year, 20 years to regrow). With little tech, we'd pretty quickly be back to 98% of the population doing primarily farming activities.

Cities? Sure, everyone would help each other, but what other things stop working when there is no electricity? Water, refrigeration, fuel pumps, heating systems. The populations of cities are so dependent on just-in-time or constant supplies, I have a hard time seeing how they survive in any numbers unless massive aid can be immediately mobilized and sustained, which would be very tough if all the cities are out of power at once...

[saiya-jin]

Well if us city dwellers will turn into savages due to lack of any food, the first thing we will turn into is go out to those nice farming communities for food. Obviously if your nearest big town is 500-1000km away then you're OK for some time. Maybe.

[SyzygistSix]

>Lots of the local trucks run on vegetable oil so they don't even need a working supply chain for diesel.

Where is this? I thought only a small amount of DIY types were running their cars on used veggie oil.