Things will be cold, crude, smelly, scary, vexing and demoralising at first, but you can do this. 

You can do this because you’re a human and that’s what we’ve been doing for much of our existence.

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Learn First Aid: try your local Red Cross, for example. Here's the NZ link https://www.redcross.org.nz/first-aid/our-courses

Learn to forage: A New Zealand example is https://www.wildbotanica.co.nz/pages/free-beginners-foraging-guide but these are very locale-specific, so try and find one for your own area or country. 

Build a community: learn to ask questions rather than jump to judgement. Try and work out how to re=purpose someone's skills, hobbies and interests for the current situation. At the same time, try and pair people with those who can learn, to have skills passed on. 

https://www.wikihow.com/Create-Community

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

On the Sarakatsani shepherds; check out Patrick Leigh Fermor's brilliant pre-WWII travel books. They are well worth reading for an intimate glimpse of 1930s Europe: A Time of Gifts (1977), Between the Woods and the Water (1986) and The Broken Road (2013) in which the Sarakatsani shepherds appear (pp 255-258). The language he writes is simply beautiful, and Fermor captured worlds elucidated by no other, in my experience. 

HPR Finberg in The Formation of England 550-1042, Granada Publishing Limited [Palladin] 1976 page 19.

On 'Zomia', The Art of Not Being Governed, James C Scott, Yale University 2009

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

A nod to my sponsors here – I don't have any. No links as this is mostly opinion – if you've been following along, you should know how I got here. So these opinions are definitely not those of my non-existent sponsors. 

This is the beginning of chapter 5 of the unpublished book (Survive). How would we, could we move on from an apocalypse? 

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

We need fat to survive, which sounds counter-intuitive since we're so paranoid about it, and it's true we get too much in many of our typical Western diets. 

But we can't live without it, either, and when things get tough, it's hard to find. There are reasons why even pescatarians like me might end up considering meat.

And then there are water-borne diseases to contend with...

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

How many calories does work burn? http://calorielab.com/burned/

How cooking led to bigger human brains: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cooking-up-bigger-brains/

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Little House on The Prairie, what they really ate: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-did-they-eat-little-house-on-the-prairie

Make your own salt: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Sea-Salt/

Why we need salt: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/146677.php

Canadian diet guide (protein): https://www.canadianliving.com/health/nutrition/article/calories-protein-carbohydrates-and-fat-how-much-do-i-need.

French agricultural production and World War Two: Alan S Millward in War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945 (Pelican Books 1987, page 269).

Western POWs and food: Parcels From Home: The Prisoner of War Parcel Scheme and the New Zealand Red Cross in World War Two by Mark Webster and Paul Luker, CreativeTech Publishing Ltd 2015 (electronic)

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Daily steps:

https://www.verywellfit.com/whats-typical-for-average-daily-steps-3435736

How much food do you need?

http://www.mydailyintake.net/daily-intake-levels

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

International water use: 

http://www.learnz.org.nz/water172/bg-standard-f/water-use

We're so used to our conveniences:

https://melmagazine.com/my-month-as-a-member-of-the-wild-wild-country-sex-cult-8ac377aa7938

The sociological studies of Quarantelli and Dynes:

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.so.03.080177.000323

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Healthy living and emergency management (New Zealand official advice)

https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/emergency-management/managing-stress-emergency/common-reactions-disaster

Fukishima, Japan

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Robo-future with no jobs: https://medium.com/swlh/what-does-a-future-with-no-jobs-look-like-71bda1004a71

Antimatter movements: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02221-9

Matter matters; https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/3/17522810/aliens-fermi-paradox-drake-equation

Atlantic fish and microplasticsL https://phys.org/news/2018-02-high-microplastics-northwest-atlantic-fish.html

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

Our moon: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

NASA on Climate Change https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

Hurricane Maria http://digg.com/2018/climate-change-survival-hurricane-maria

Effects of global warming https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-effects/

Road deaths of pedestrians and cyclists www.fastcompan y.com/90310016/the-urban-design-problem-thats-killing-pedestrians-and-cyclists

www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2018/en/

Death by surgery https://thepolicytimes.com/surgery-kills-more-than-hiv-tb-and-malaria-combined-study/

Asteroid dangers https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/asteroid-flyby-nearer-than-moon-2017-1

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

The Great War and mortality impacts: Dmitri Jdanov, Evgeny Andreev, Domantas Jasilionis and Vladimir M Shkolnikov of the Max Planck Institute in 2005. Between 1913 and 1918, British men aged 23 showed a 15-16 fold increase in the probability of premature death.

https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol13/16/13-16.pdf

During World War One, in 1916, the Newfoundland Regiment went into action 753 strong; the following day, only 68 answered the roll call – 90% casualty rate, of whom almost half were deceased. In military (and any, actually) terms, this was a catastrophic and devastating loss.

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/first-world-war/articles/beaumont-hamel-en.php

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
The Back Death and HIV
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/4/l_104_05.html

Tsunami: some countries often have plans to help deal with ‘tidal waves’, such as this one from New Zealand.

getthru.govt.nz/disasters/tsunami/

That most dangerous of animals, the mosquito: www.who.int/features/factfiles/malaria/en/

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026

An apocalypse is a “very serious event resulting in great destruction and change” (according to the Cambridge Dictionary)
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/apocalypse

A super volcano event possibly resulted in a human population decline of up to 90%, although a group of African early-modern humans nearly 9000kms away managed to thrive in this period, putting the whole thesis into contention. 
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/03/these-early-humans-prospered-during-what-should-have-been-a-devastating-volcanic-winter/

According to Yuval Harari in his book Homo Sapiens, there were six species of humans 100,000 years ago.

An article by Luke Kemp on the BBC demonstrated a complication of factors contributed to the death of ancient civilisations, including climate change and socio-economic inequity. Kemp defined collapse as a “rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity,” although a few of the civilisations in his study recovered and/or transformed.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

Commentaries on the war in Gaul byJulius Caesar, quoted in A History of Rome by Cary and Scullard (The Macmillan Press Ltd, 3rd Edition 1975), page 262.

Pompeii research: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101102/pompeii-mount-vesuvius-science-died-instantly-heat-bodies/

Written, edited and produced by Mark Webster, original music by kraM Left, plus self-generated & Logic Pro 12 foley, Aotearoa New Zealand 2026