getting independent.
so, I have been thinking: preppers often learn how to live independent of industrial production. Maybe the solarpunk movement can learn something from them?
The diversification of prepping was clear last weekend at the Survival & Prepper show at the fairgrounds in Boulder County, a liberal district which President Joe Biden won in 2020 by nearly 57 percentage points over Trump. Over 2,700 people paid $10 each to attend the show, organizers said, and attendees were varied.
Bearded white men with closely cropped hair and heavily tattooed arms were there. But so were hippy moms carrying babies in rainbow colored slings and chatting about canning methods, Latino families looking over greenhouses and water filtration systems, and members of the local Mountain View Fire Rescue team, who in 2021 battled a devastating fire in the region, giving CPR demonstrations and encouraging citizens to be more prepared for extreme events.
“People want to regain their agency, their sense of control, and do something to match their fears to their actions,” said Ellis, who underscored that he did not speak on behalf of the Department of Defense.
People motivated by climate change, Ellis said, tend to be homesteaders who grow their own food and move to more “climate proof” locations, such as the mild summer haven of Duluth, Minnesota.
I think I’ve always had a kind of admiration for preppers, and have even had similar impulses myself, though I don’t really have the money to actually, ya know, prep. It probably has something to do with trauma and a lifelong love of apocalypse media and just growing up in a family that never really had much faith in Canadian institutions. I think the main problems are the individualism and ableism (especially with the former feeding into the latter), but the sheer amounts of skill, knowledge, and dedication that this subculture has I think kind of dovetails nicely with solarpunk and other subcultures/movements that emphasize decentralized societal structure and independence from capitalist systems including the state. I think anarchists, communists, solarpunks and the like can benefit from what preppers have to offer, and vice versa. From preppers, as I understand it, this would be a lot of specific skills and resources–growing and preserving food, weapon knowledge/skills, other means of ensuring ones own safety/survival. From solarpunks, anarchists, communists, concepts of mutual aid, governing by consensus, community building, and in general a sense of hope for a future we grow together.