Cold Times — How to Prepare for the Mini Ice Age

by Dr. Anita Bailey

  Now, imagine something like a Hurricane Katrina or Harvey in terms of its ability to destroy power lines, make roads impassable, cut off internet and cell phones, and strand people without food, heat, or shelter – say, a blizzard that wraps the entire northern third of the United States in ice. Now, imagine it remains frozen for a mere 6 weeks. Streets and homes and businesses, wheat fields and livestock, buried under 15 feet of hard snow in sub-zero cold. Trucks do not roll. Food is not delivered. Water mains freeze and rupture. Homes and skyscrapers burn as warming fires made from busted furniture get out of control; firetrucks cannot get to the site, and there is no water to pump to control the blazes. Livestock and crops die in the fields.

  In 6 weeks, when it begins to thaw, the number of dead is a national horror. The blame is concentrated on political appointee supervisors or agency heads, banks and insurance companies fail, investment monies move to warmer climates, research papers are written, authorities explain what happened and how to make everything better, knowledgeable speakers reassure a shaken public, the economic disaster is swallowed like bad medicine, and people try to go on. The following year, it happens again. And again the year after, this time in the spring when corn fields are planted and apple trees are in bloom.

  That is the arrival of the Cold Times.

  Not only is this nation unprepared, it cannot get prepared. We have structured our entire system, our existence, on it will all work as it always has. There is no national plan, no direction, and no public will to prepare…although there are plenty of independent researchers and journalists and preppers who are shouting the news from any venue that will let them.

  The Cold Times will continue at least until your grandchildren have passed on from old age, perhaps longer. The things you do now, the plans you put in place, the sacrifices you make, and your foresight, will affect your descendants a hundred generations into the future – just as your ancestors’ day to day choices during every past Cold Time and ice age, led to your life today. Choose wisely.

  If you can only afford one reference, the best I’ve ever seen on every aspect of simple living is:

  Gene Logsdon's Practical Skills: A Revival of Forgotten Crafts, Techniques, and Traditions, by Gene Logsdon. Published by Rodale, 1985 – reprinted 2016. Get two copies because you will wear the first one out.

  2 The Transition to cold

  There are two questions that form the foundation to most people’s concerns about the coming ice age:

  When?

  How bad?

  In reality, these are crystal ball questions; there is no one answer that can cover every person’s experience. Just as a regional ice storm affects everyone in some way – some severely as pipes break and falling tree branches crush their car, others with mere inconvenience of having to fuel a generator to keep their home lit and warm – so, too will the coming Cold Times. The information here provided will necessarily be general as to individuals, but specific as to the Big Picture.

  My personal preference is to take steps to insure against the greatest risk – by doing so, all lesser risks are covered, as well. There is profound peace and security in knowing that all your bases are covered.

  When?

  In the simplest terms, the next ice age has already started. The winter of 2016-2017 began with greater snow and cold over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, going down into the tropics, than has been seen in decades, centuries, or since any records were kept. Coffee-growing regions known for their warm climates, such as Myanmar and parts of Brazil, have lost young trees and crops to unseasonable cold. California had enough rain and snow during an 11-day period to refill all the reservoirs emptied by a decade of drought and cause panicky evacuations below overloaded under-maintained dams. Unheard-of category-5 hurricane force winds, 175 mph, battered the mountains covered with 60 feet of snow. In parts of Asia, dry season was interrupted by rains so heavy that rivers over-flooded banks and inundated cities and crops standing in fields. In the great Australian desert, a year’s worth of rain fell in three days. Snow fell in New Zealand in mid-summer and dozens of their glaciers grew inexplicably larger.

  Already, food prices are going up significantly. In the United Kingdom, fresh vegetables were rationed when crops from southern Europe were destroyed by unexpected snow and cold. Grains suitable for humans to eat are rising in price. Crops have been degraded so much that they are only good for livestock feeds. Even oatmeal, once among the least-expensive foods you could find, has already jumped almost 20% in a year. Anyone who shops has seen the abrupt and unhappy price increases that are already hitting our populace. It’s harder in Third World countries, where impoverished people have no extra money to pay for higher-priced foods.

  The winter of 2017-2018 should convince anyone who has been on the fence – but it will be almost too late to start preparing by then. By 2022, no one will doubt.

  When? Now. It will get worse.

  How bad?

  If we consider this answer on a planet-wide basis, the answer is it will be worse than you can imagine. For many people, it will be as bad as it can get – just as Katrina was as bad as the folks who stayed behind could conceive of, including watching loved ones die.

  On an individual basis, it will vary from “death” to “hardly knew it happened.” Some of the sad outcomes will be from poor luck – getting stuck in a snowbank when an unpredicted blizzard strikes – and some from poor planning.

  That one element, planning, can mitigate much of the downside, excluding effects of bad luck. Planning, plus sensible awareness of your region’s trends, political structure, cohesiveness, and the general health of your clan as we head into this time. Here’s a mental exercise that can help you visualize your own “how bad?” outcome:

  Write down the answers to these questions:

  Is your home or go-to location in a flood plain, in a dam’s spillway, in the path of a volcano’s probable zone, near a major earthquake fault, within sight of a major highway, within 25 miles of a city of 100,000 or more, or in a suburb?

  At two meals per day per person, how long would all the food you have right now last?

  At 2 gallons of water per day per person, how long would your existing supply (count the water in your water heater and holding tanks) last?

  Do you have enough stored alternative heat sources (kerosene stove, propane heater, wood heat stove with dry wood stocks, etc.) to last through a 6-month winter?

  Do you have enough seeds to plant a half acre of mixed nutritious food crops for each person in your group? If you don’t know how much seed that would be, the answer is “no”.

  Can you raise one steer yearly or 7 goats or 90 rabbits or 90 chickens for each 3 people in your group?

  How many people outside your “in group” know about your existing supplies? The best answer is “zero”.

  For those in your group who require medication, how long would their existing supply last?

  Could your group immediately field a competent perimeter observation and defense team?

  The way you answer those questions will tell you exactly “how bad” it could be for you and yours. If you’ve got all this covered fairly completely, you’re likely to have a relatively easy experience going forward. If your level of preparedness falls short, it is time to work seriously toward getting it done.

  Stages of Transition

  There are three primary stages leading to the full-on effects of the coming mini ice age. These are identified by the perception of the situation that most people will hold. There’s no specific length to each stage, and it is likely that there will be some fluidity between the borders of each stage. Different regions, even different households, go through these at their own rates, as well.

  Early Stage: Awakening

  We are well into the awakening of awareness of the coming mini ice age. The unbelievably severe weather in the winter of 2016-2017 was an eye-opener for many who were on the fence about the reality of climate chill, and those who endorsed
the fanciful concept that people control planetary weather by raising taxes. The proof is there, the cold is affecting the entire planet. The coming winters will sweep the rest of the sleepers into full awakening.

  In the Awakening stage, prices for foods and other supplies begin to rise, and there will be shortages of some items, enough to be talked about. The grid within regions will go down abruptly, and there will be brownouts during the aftermath of storms and freezes. This is the natural consequence of severe weather. Some media will ignore this, and some will play it as ordinary seasonal variance. It is not, of course.

  There will be enough “normal” that it will be possible to keep the normalcy bias going for a while. Summers will still be bright, flowers will grow, ATMs will work, there will be rush hour traffic jams.

  During this phase, if you have never grown a garden and put-by your own food, you must. You have to experience the entire process, from seed to table, to understand what it requires from you. If you have never stored food and vital supplies, you must. You have to learn your own methods of record-keeping and the rate at which you use your supplies and what the best storage methods might be.

  If you have not already done so, this is the last opportunity to stock freeze dried staples, toilet paper, building and plumbing supplies, repair equipment, extra batteries, lightbulbs, all the things that make life comfortable….plus those things that make it survivable when the power is out, such as backup solar, generator, and fuel. Stock a personal library of paper books that have repair, construction, sewing, military, and medical information. Do not count on others to take care of you and yours. Sell unnecessary toys and cancel time-wasting subscriptions like cable, use the money for supplies. The more you know, the more skills you have, the more things you use routinely and have extras set aside, the less stress and worry you will face as the next stage of the transition is felt.

  Middle Stage: Zen-Slap

  There is an old Japanese Zen koan, or teaching story, that tells about the young student who asks the elderly Zen master, “What is Zen?” The old master immediately slaps the student across the face and strolls away. Confused by this response, the student goes to another master and asks, “What is Zen?” The next master punches him in the nose, and goes back to carrying water. When the student moves to the third master with the same question, that master stomps him on the toe.

  As absurd as that seems, that is the answer. Zen is “reality”, without words, without barriers, and without illusions. There isn’t anything quite as real as being slapped, punched, or stomped!

  The Zen-slap of the mini ice age is when it is here, and virtually everyone recognizes it. It is that moment when each person knows, absolutely knows in their gut, that whatever is happening at that moment is the new normal, and they are not ready.

  In this stage, the irregular, changeable, seriously cold weather is here to stay. Your employer’s business gets washed away during the flood and they will not rebuild, so your job is gone. The supermarket is STILL out of fresh veggies, and they don’t know when the next shipment will be. The box of oatmeal that cost $2.50 a couple years ago, now costs $12. People drop their dogs out on lonely country roads, hoping the kindly farmer will take them in, and Farmer Brown regrets having to shoot feral packs of hungry pets that are trying to kill his goats.

  At that point, if you don’t have a particular item in your possession – coffee, toilet paper, nails, writing paper, caulk for a broken window pane, seeds or fertilizer for your garden – you won’t be able to find it easily, or at all. You may have to pay what today is an exorbitant price for some “luxury” things – chocolate or whiskey, for example – or do without. New economies will develop on a local scale….the elite at the top won’t experience these struggles and won’t even imagine that they happen, but everyone around you will know the experience quite well. Farmer’s markets will become more important, and “seasonal eating” will be more than a fad.

  Late Stage: Hang On

  At this point, your primary goal is no longer to “thrive” – it is to “survive”. Being comfortable in your home, being able to acquire the things you need or even those you merely want, being able to adapt to changing circumstances, having enough to eat, staying warm and staying healthy, will be the signs of a good life.

  Creativity and the old skills such as sewing, repairing, making-do, manual labor, will have made a stunning comeback. Food will become a daily conversation piece: people will exchange recipes and eggs, share garden seeds and harvests with friends: your excess zucchini for my extra cucumbers. At the same time, many will “hold their cards close to their vests”, and you’ll only know how well they are doing by how thin they are.

  Health care will be herbal, at home, and more-or-less natural. There will still be antibiotics, but they’ll be expensive, hard to find, and not always terribly helpful due to antibiotic resistance, weakened immunity, and how late in the disease process these are used. People will die from things that were easily treated in the past – strep throat, accidents, pneumonia, a cut on the hand that gets infected. Old disease makes a sudden comeback (measles, mumps, and rubella already are), and forgotten diseases related to poor hygiene show up: typhoid, cholera, dysentery, boils, tuberculosis.

  There will still be a national economy and technology, but fewer people will participate in it, and those who do will be concentrated in population centers. Food and clothing will be available in these places, but more expensive as a portion of total income. Society will go on even though with fewer participants, and quite a few people who are independent-minded will have moved to the country for a less socially-dependent lifestyle.

  Problems that befall individual households will have to be solved on the local level. If a tree branch crashes through your roof, it will be up to you, yours, your neighbors, and friends to repair it. If someone’s home catches fire, they will need help to find a place to live or help to rebuild. All solutions will become local. FEMA, National Guard, DHS, and whatever imaginary other agencies exist, simply will not be able to resolve the hundreds of thousands of problems that develop.

  Home break-ins, raids that empty your garden, poaching of pets and livestock, lawlessness, violence, robbery, crime, the dead laying in the street – this is part of it, too.

  This will be the new normal. Make your plans accordingly.

  But remember – even when the weather has made existence more challenging, the sun will still come out, flowers will bloom, people will fall in love and marry, children will be born. Celebrations of life will have deep meaning. It is not the end of the world, just the end of the generations-long warm spell.

  3 place

  The most basic aspect of your primary preparation for Cold Times is where you live. Clearly, keeping warm will be an enormous part of this process; preparation and protection from weather extremes – for us, for our livestock, our food stores and our crops -- figures into this very heavily. Commonplace modern homes and trailers will fail in the time to come, so the sooner adjustments are made for the coming intense cold, the easier your transition will be.

  But first, your location.

  Several reports indicate that zones north of 30 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere (and south of 30o in the Southern Hemisphere) will not be reliable growing regions as the weather turns. You can plot your location utilizing online maps, or if you’ve got a paper map of the world, or a globe, that 30o level is easy to pinpoint. Most of the US is in the cold zone above that, except for south Texas and lower Florida. So is Europe, China, Japan, and Russia. These areas are likely to be progressively less reliable for the currently-grown crops. The zone between 30o and 40o north latitude (south in the southern hemisphere), will probably be livable but severely limited by unstable weather. Above 40o latitude will be the realm of polar bears, wolves, and not much else – although in past Cold Times, coastal Alaska was actually relatively warm and green.

  Major crops currently grown above 30o latitude includes corn, wheat (both spring
and winter), soybeans, and potatoes. Rice is usually produced in “lowland” flood zone farms in the US’s currently-warmer regions only a little north of the 30 degree zone. Beef, chicken, and hogs are also above the line.

  Image created by Trestudios.com

  Ultimately, this means that food prices must go up, since food production will concentrate closer to the equator – which means creating farms where none currently exist, both costly AND time sensitive because it takes years. It also means your ability to produce your own food in the northern parts of the US and in Canada will be limited by weather extremes – not impossible, just much more challenging than it is now.