Surge in Survival Courses for Manhattan Climate Change Worriers

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Urban high-rise dwellers are increasingly flocking to survival skill camps, to learn how to trap game and light fires by rubbing two sticks together.

Climate change fears spur more Americans to join survivalist schools

“If something breaks down, if the grid drops out, all of this modern technology fails us instantaneously,” instructor Shane Hobel said. “These skills will keep you alive — period.”

Aug. 1, 2021, 6:30 PM AESTBy Ethan Sacks

Manhattanite David D’Alessio spent a recent Saturday cobbling together a shelter out of muddy leaves and twigs in a wooded stretch 75 miles north of New York City.

While the wilderness training on the 90-acre grounds of the Mountain Scout Survival School has traditionally attracted outdoor enthusiasts, the musician was among several of the 18 attendees who weren’t learning to drink water out of a vine or set traps for rabbits just for fun.

Those are skills D’Alessio, 49, the father of a 6-year-old girl, fears will become essential in the coming years — as the impacts of climate change continue to worsen.

“It’s an inevitability that we’ll be facing a crisis within our lifetime, within my lifetime and certainly within my daughter’s lifetime,” he said.

Survivalist school instructors across the country say there has been an increasing interest in their wilderness and urban-disaster preparedness courses from Americans worried about climate change. As rising temperatures bring more wildfiresdroughts and destructive storms, those types of courses are no longer the domain of campers and hunters. One of these schools’ fastest-growing demographics is now young families.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/climate-change-fears-spur-more-americans-join-survivalist-schools-n1275474

Healthy outdoor exercise and all that, probably does them good to get out of their high-rise apartments and experience nature.

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B Clarke
August 1, 2021 2:07 pm

It was only a matter of time before griff and loydo went into business together.

griff
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 12:57 am

If you think that this is going to save you from climate collapse, I have a bridge and a Miami waterfront condo I’d like to sell you…

I have seriously thought of selling worthless Florida real estate to gullible climate skeptics…

B Clarke
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 2:44 am

I knew it,I knew it.

MarkW
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 11:12 am

As the years go by, and the collapse that griff has been praying for fails to appear, he gets more and more bitter.

Derg
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 2:52 am

I am ready Griff. I will give you a $1 a foot.

Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 5:13 am

I’ll have it Griff. Sell me a property for a dollar. It’ll be a nice family holiday home for me and generations of my family after that.
“Worthless Florida real estate”. You complete wally.

Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 7:40 am

“climate collapse” now?

Meab
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 9:14 am

Shows that you know nothing about real estate or the market in general griffter. The dishonest alarmism about sea level rise is already priced into the waterfront condo market. A few people believe this tripe and stay away from that market, slightly retarding price escalation, but most people don’t – that’s why prices are still strong. Most people know not to worry about a sea level rise that’s running at about a foot per CENTURY and was running at a roughly comparable rate 100 years ago. Most people worry more about real concerns like the crime rate in an area and don’t go running around with their panties on fire over the slow rate of climate change like you do, griffter.

B Clarke
Reply to  Meab
August 2, 2021 10:15 am

I might be wrong ,but I think griff was a bit tongue in cheek with his answer to me

MarkW
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 11:13 am

It sounds too much like his regular spiel.

B Clarke
Reply to  MarkW
August 2, 2021 11:49 am

I think his two posts today are about winding every one up.

MarkW
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 11:11 am

Getting the world back to the temperatures it enjoyed during the MWP is going to cause climate collapse?
Really?

August 1, 2021 2:08 pm

Because of CC ?
To be prerpared for a total and longer black-out seems to be more reasonable.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Krishna Gans
August 1, 2021 3:17 pm

They are preparing for the wrong thing anyway. When the power goes out for more than a couple of days, there would be the entire population of New York City on the prowl, looking for anything and anyone they can get. Lae enforcement would be non-existent, and I suspect that a significant number of those people will have guns.

Prepping for anything not in the complete wilderness is a dangerous fantasy at best. Humans are not kind to each other when law collapses.

griff
Reply to  Krishna Gans
August 2, 2021 12:57 am

you only have to worry about grid outages in fossil fueled Texas…

Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 1:44 am

Last week Europe just missed a blackout because 1 of 2 lines from France to Spain failed.
Some parts of Spain and Portugal were down for about an hour.

Bill Toland
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 2:42 am

Griff, thank you for admitting that Texas doesn’t have enough fossil fuel power plants.

SDN
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 3:29 am

It wasn’t the fossil fuel portion that failed.

Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 5:14 am

It was the unreliables that failed. If they’d had more fossil fuel plants they would have been just fine.

Tex
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 5:28 am

Wind and solar failed us.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 8:40 am

“you only have to worry about grid outages in fossil fueled Texas…”

Not true, Griff. There were outages all over the central U.S. during the February cold snap. The wind stopped blowing over the whole area. That’s what happens when an arctic high-pressure system sits on top of you for days.

MarkW
Reply to  griff
August 2, 2021 11:14 am

You really are a hoot griff. It’s almost as if you actually believe this stuff.

Justin Burch
August 1, 2021 2:11 pm

What is hilarious about that is 99% of these survivalists from the city who plan to flee to the woods with their designer ‘go bags’ will be dead from either accidentally shooting each other while hunting out any game left, or dying of hypothermia the first winter. These people have NO CLUE.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Justin Burch
August 1, 2021 3:18 pm

They won’t get to the woods, let alone the winter. I suspect that a fair few residents of NYC have guns.

starzmom
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
August 1, 2021 3:37 pm

Oh, plenty of them have guns–those folks are not the ones at the yuppie survival schools, though.

David Wojick
Reply to  starzmom
August 1, 2021 5:07 pm

Right they should be learning to shoot, not camp out. Of course New Yorkers think New Jersey is mostly wilderness.

starzmom
Reply to  David Wojick
August 1, 2021 6:03 pm

True. New Yorkers think anything west of the Hudson is not worth visiting, much less living in. When I moved to Kansas, my cousin from NJ asked me “So what is really like living in the midwest?” My mother jumped in to tell her that we live in a really nice place. On the other hand, my husband told his sisters that he took his shirts to the Indian women to wash in the creek and they BELIEVED him. Even in my own family, they haven’t got a clue.

Spetzer86
Reply to  starzmom
August 1, 2021 6:54 pm

Something about being able to stand in your yard and being able to see everything in about a 10 mile radius that takes getting used to. When the sky seems like a huge blue cup placed over the world. Kansas is a nice place.

John
Reply to  starzmom
August 1, 2021 9:47 pm

and you hunt buffalo

walt
Reply to  John
August 1, 2021 11:11 pm

It is better to hunt than be prey.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  starzmom
August 1, 2021 5:34 pm

They have another way to survive.

walt
Reply to  starzmom
August 2, 2021 9:02 am

There will be a huge number of gun accidents.

Spetzer86
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
August 1, 2021 6:59 pm

It’s not the guns that’ll be the problem, it’s the other 8 million people heading out of town at the same time that’ll be the issue. Like FL was for that hurricane a few years ago. Gas stations exhausted, broken down cars, upset people all caught up in a marvelous wad somewhere between NYC and safety. If this family were really serious, they wouldn’t go home to NYC after the training.

Reply to  Spetzer86
August 1, 2021 10:00 pm

Don’t forget all those EVs with dead batteries.

walt
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
August 1, 2021 11:13 pm

If they only had enough pet gerbils on treadmills the EV might move.

StephenP
Reply to  Spetzer86
August 1, 2021 11:45 pm

Yes, they will very soon run out of wood to burn and game to shoot.

oeman 50
Reply to  StephenP
August 2, 2021 8:17 am

Then they will eat dog food and then the dogs.

Gerald Hanner
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
August 1, 2021 7:28 pm

Central Park is part of the woods.

OldGreyGuy
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
August 1, 2021 7:32 pm

Most of them will be flat out trying to get out of their buildings without lifts, lights, etc.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Justin Burch
August 1, 2021 3:28 pm

Yes, if the offshore wind farms are inundated by rising sea levels resulting from the polar ice sheets melting abruptly, anyone within a couple days hike from NYC, looking for game to eat, will probably find more fellow Manhattanites than edible game. Do these schools also teach the people how to field-dress and butcher a deer? Or how to make jerky in the absence of refrigeration? The farmers will be alright if the urbanites don’t appropriate all their livestock.

John Tillman
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 4:30 pm

There are fewer than a million deer in NY State. Typically 850 K, but perhaps 900 K after a mild winter. They can’t feed 20 million New Yorkers for long.

Not a lot of them are mature bucks. Assuming you know how to field dress properly, a typical Northern whitetail fawn yields about 55 to 75 pounds of meat dressed, while a healthy doe fawn weighs 45 to 65 pounds. Southern fawns weigh less, sometimes less than 30 pounds field dressed.

Yearling bucks, which range from small spikes to basket-racked 10-pointers, typically weigh 105 to 125 pounds. The average mature Northern doe will might weigh 105 to 120 pounds field dressed.

So less than 100 million pounds of meat, plus bone marrow, brains, eyeballs, testicles, what have you. I guess you could boil the skin for soup.

But call it five pounds per person. Twenty quarter pounder deer burgers, or food for perhaps a week. Bear in mind you’ll be living in the wild, with consequent high caloric needs.

Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 4:41 pm

Not really a problem. The folks who want to bring on an energy Armageddon are the same ones preaching the recycling nonsense. I think recycling, Soylent green and backyard BBQ will have a convergence.

John Tillman
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
August 1, 2021 4:45 pm

There will be fewer but better New Yorkers.

ozspeaksup
Reply to  John Tillman
August 2, 2021 3:43 am

and a fast end to the obesity issues

Doug Huffman
Reply to  ozspeaksup
August 2, 2021 4:16 am

The obese Donner Party members were largely the survivors eating Long Pig

Doug Huffman
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
August 2, 2021 4:15 am

Long pig too

Joe
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
August 2, 2021 6:23 am

If a few tens of thousands have the others over for dinner, eventually there’ll be fewer to feed.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 8:15 pm

And, just like at the beginning of hunting season, all the deer will be spooked by all the people and keep on the move until they find some place where they can rest. That will probably be rugged terrain or places difficult for humans to move through, like swampy areas.

I don’t know about NY, but in California it is typical that only about 10% of the hunters with deer tags actually take a deer. There will be a lot of hungry New Yorkers if they expect to eat venison.

John
Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 9:53 pm

But you have 8m humans at an average weight of 100kg – probably 20kg (40lb) dressed so eliminating humans for food is far more beneficial
Less people for competition but a reasonable source of protein

Chaswarnertoo
Reply to  John
August 1, 2021 10:18 pm

Long pig. Eat the vegans first.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Chaswarnertoo
August 2, 2021 12:46 am

Eat the vegans first

Too stringy and not enough meat on ’em.

Doug Huffman
Reply to  Zig Zag Wanderer
August 2, 2021 4:17 am

You are merely not hungry enough – boil ‘em longer.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 8:44 pm

There are quite a few million people in New York State who do not live in NYC. When the urbanites flee to squat and pillage, they will meet formidable resistance. The deer are not free for the taking; you must first subdue the rural folks.

However, please be advised that the rural folks have been prepping for years, decades, generations. They already know what real survival requires. They may not be willing to share their space with refugees from Gotham. And they are well-armed.

The future is now. The cities are in free fall today. Get out while the getting is still possible. Bring some humility and plenty of money. Rabbit snares won’t save you.

Reply to  Justin Burch
August 1, 2021 3:35 pm

What winter?

walt
Reply to  Justin Burch
August 2, 2021 9:00 am

The ones who take up archery are silent and a real menace until they run out of arrows.

MarkW
Reply to  walt
August 2, 2021 11:21 am

But arrows are re-usable.

MarkW
Reply to  Justin Burch
August 2, 2021 11:16 am

Very few of them would survive long enough to get from the city to the wilderness.
Which would be thoroughly picked over by the time they got there anyway.

Robert Hanson
Reply to  MarkW
August 2, 2021 4:40 pm

If you wonder how this will all work, just do some research on what happened when the Communist Khmer Rouge sent everyone in the Cambodian cities out to “become farmers” (sic). @ a 1/3rd of the population died from starvation before the Vietnamese took pity on the country and overthrew the Pol Pot regime. The bad news for people living in large Blue cities, Canada is not coming to their rescue.

Gary Pearse
August 1, 2021 2:14 pm

“Healthy outdoor exercise and all that, probably does them good to get out of their high-rise apartments and experience nature.”

Doing something will also ease psychological stress of all this climate nonsense. Maybe it will free up their stress enough to investigate what climateering is really about.

There are likely sceptics taking these courses who are worried about the scam being successful and destroying the economy.

It would be good to have a destressing camp that brings sceptics and climate fearing victims together. The scammed might go home wiser. Actually, I think this is a very good idea.

walt
Reply to  Eric Worrall
August 1, 2021 11:18 pm

There will a long wait for delivery.

Ron Long
August 1, 2021 2:17 pm

David D’Alessio should worry more about the crime wave in New York City, especially as regards his daughter, than the nonsense about climate change survival.

August 1, 2021 2:19 pm

Trap game? So how does that work for deer and bear?

Richard Page
Reply to  John Shewchuk
August 1, 2021 2:25 pm

Deer – at best, nothing, at worst they’ll injure the deer. For bear? The brave little hunter will be the hunted!

starzmom
Reply to  Richard Page
August 1, 2021 3:38 pm

These people think every deer is Bambi, and every bear is cuddly. It will not end well, I think.

Reply to  John Shewchuk
August 1, 2021 4:37 pm

I want to see one of them standing calf-deep in deer guns or knee deep in bear guts – assuming they can kill one in the first place.

Reply to  Tim Gorman
August 1, 2021 5:22 pm

They might even find out they need something called a gun to survive — but then again they are in New York an they can just have pizza delivered.

walt
Reply to  John Shewchuk
August 1, 2021 11:20 pm

They will have a long time to wait till they get delivery.

John Tillman
August 1, 2021 2:19 pm

Don’t they know that that fire, if started, will release “pollution”?

At least the sticks are renewable.

Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 4:15 pm

Fire has a tendency to spread, ala western U.S. Can’t imagine city dwellers leaving home and going to the woods to light campfires!

John
Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 10:02 pm

but you need dead dry wood
ever tried to light a fire with green wet wood
lots of smoke not much heat and lots of energy to keep it feed

Neil Jordan
Reply to  John
August 1, 2021 11:14 pm

Easy peasy. You add “Oregon kindling”, another name for kerosene from the lantern. If it is really cold or the firewood is frozen, you can use Amish blende, 2/3 kerosene and 1/3 white gas. Flint and steel are provided by the Zippo.

Joe Crawford
Reply to  Neil Jordan
August 2, 2021 9:15 am

We use to call ’em both Boy Scout fire starter :<)

B Clarke
August 1, 2021 2:25 pm

“in a wooded stretch 75 miles north of New York City.”

Thats ironic haven’t temps just dropped up there to unseasonably low, and there learning how to survive a heated climate.

Anyways if a lot of us are right, there learning the wrong skills for the wrong climate ,the cold is comming .

Rory Forbes
Reply to  B Clarke
August 1, 2021 4:56 pm

The answer will be soon revealed to them the minute they get wet out doors and can only rely on a self made shelter. They’ll learn why 20 times more people die from the cold than heat. Even in Summer staying warm is an issue.

B Clarke
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 1, 2021 10:10 pm

Yep, then there’s the head fxxk when your sitting under a tarp with endless rain and snow,wind ,nothing to eat,cold maybe dependents , thats when folk get desperate and will do anything ,

Rory Forbes
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 9:51 am

And if you survive more than a few weeks the most vulnerable of your dependents start to die … the old, the young, the sick.I’m beginning to see that we pampered, “educated” Westerners simply have no idea how well off the entire world is now; better than at any other time in human history.

B Clarke
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 2, 2021 10:30 am

All true Rory, in Europe in the 1960s the last vestiges of rural living was still to be seen ,village life was all self sustaining ,sure the odd car and tourists were around, then the powers that be weaponized theword convenience they then graymaild the locals to leave this lifestyle without moving out of their homes,such was the influence of the club of Rome and others, the areas were alpine regions in Italy, Austria and Germany, maybe France as well ,sure there are a few diehards and rich hippys taking up the reins, but the zest of the above living is gone,

You can find videos on YouTube showing these mountain villagers hard at work smiling all day.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 11:53 am

I don’t think many people know just how far we have come in such a relatively short time. I was living and traveling in Europe during the mid ’60s. You’re right, there was a huge chasm between rural and urban life … and not all urban life either. There were pockets of old world ‘sustainable’ culture still found in many urban areas (London’s East End, for instance and many parts of outlying Paris arrondissements).

I crossed France by canal and in the Loire Valley there were towns, serviced almost exclusively by the Canal du MIdi, where it seemed time had stopped. One town still had a communal oven/bakery, where people bought their ‘proofed’ dough to be loafed and baked. These people were almost completely self sufficient.

B Clarke
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 2, 2021 1:35 pm

I was still a child in the 60s what a time to travel Rory.

Heres some hard mountain farm life in rural Austria

I particularly liked how they spread muck on a steep mountain side,

https://youtu.be/3nAtY2GEfJc

Rory Forbes
Reply to  B Clarke
August 2, 2021 6:01 pm

Brilliantly detailed slice of prewar life in he Alps. They even showed how he wrapped the runners of the sledge wit chains as a braking device. I loved the clip of der Großvater making the carving. There were free range chickens, pigs, sheep, cats and children … and everything from hand sheering to side-hill plowing and tump-line muck spreading. I like the tough little barefoot kids heading home from schule. There was a kind of wealth in that film the world will never regain. Can you imagine how strong their legs were … especially the Father?

Many thanks for that, I truly enjoyed it. Oh … and could you see anyone today making hay on that side hill every year?

B Clarke
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 3, 2021 2:46 am

Glad you enjoyed it Rory,

In the German alps they still make hay on the side of a hill, its mechanised of course, they use a much bigger version of a allen scythe. Walk behind,I use a similar machine which goes on the back of a tractor its from the 60s and was made in Austria!

I shall show my tenant farmer the video who’s just made conventional hay without leaving the cab of the tractor.

B Clarke
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 3, 2021 2:56 am

How they do it today even a child can do it

https://youtu.be/l604G2TtRvI

n.n
August 1, 2021 2:38 pm

Fiscal inflation, social contagion, conflation of logical domains, babies on the barbie. We didn’t start the conflagration.

Rob_Dawg
August 1, 2021 2:39 pm

49yo high rise dweller with a 6yo daughter. Day one, get to street level. Day two, get in line to walk across the GWB. There is no day three in this story.

The same blind spot exists on the Left Coast. There are three million pople in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles all with the same plan for a major earthquake. Drive the US-101 to Thousand Oaks and make reservations at the Four Seasons for the 8-10 days for services to be restored.

Chaswarnertoo
Reply to  Eric Worrall
August 1, 2021 10:19 pm

Try also Fallen Angels by Niven.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
August 2, 2021 10:44 am

Eric,
That was a life-changing book for me when I read it at age 12.

Forrester was my inspiration: I decided that the most valuable thing I could stockpile was knowledge. That’s something that can never be taken from you. And in such a scenario is far more valuable than “survival food”, guns, whatever.

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  TonyG
August 2, 2021 9:29 pm

Town Guard: “Halt! No one comes in from outside!”
Me: “I’m an engineer.”
Town Guard: <sneers> “We don’t need any computer jockeys.”
Me: “Chemical engineer. I know distillation and I supervised a nitroglycerin plant for 5 years.”
Town Guard: “Welcome, brother!”

Neville
August 1, 2021 2:45 pm

Gosh I think it’d be much easier and more helpful to let them watch Dr Rosling’s 5 minute video of the real planet earth over the last 200 years.

Admittedly it’s not as interesting as the endless BS and fra-d that they can dream up about their silly fantasy world.
Hopefully they can take the delusional Biden with them and he can lecture them about the EXISTENTIAL threat or APOCALYPSE or CRISIS or EMERGENCY that Willis couldn’t find?
But then again neither could Shellenberger, Lomborg, Christy, Koonin etc.

Reply to  Neville
August 1, 2021 4:15 pm

Weather dependent electricity grids and Chinese bioweapons have already started to reverse those trends in the more developed countries.

If Net Zero takes hold then it will condemn the undeveloped countries to remain impoverished. However China is investing heavily in undeveloped nations so they create offshore income streams before they get old; hoping to copy the Japanese model.

Reply to  Neville
August 2, 2021 5:29 am

The website that the has the interactive graph Rosling uses is superb. I use it in my maths lessons when I’m teaching statistics to kids. They are always totally enthralled.
This link will take you straight to the graphing tools and away from the obligatory bullshit about CAGW they have on their homepage https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles&url=v1

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  Neville
August 2, 2021 7:48 am

Pretty good, except the erroneous notion that “green technologies” will continue the upward trend; in point of fact, the needless, pointless, stupid, and wasteful application of such “green technologies” will drag the curve backwards and/or cause stagnation in countries that are “behind” to the extent they embrace it.

The missing elephant in the room is that the entirety of the buildup of countries from “poor and sick” to “rich and healthy” is 100% because of fossil fuels and the related provision of housing, clean water, sanitation, transport, food, medicine, central heating, air conditioning.

August 1, 2021 2:47 pm

I just give up….. Biden’s Borg at play

Videodrone
August 1, 2021 2:55 pm

This is going to be a great comedy thread!

Start a fire – without a match or lighter? Ever try to start a fire with friction?

Shelter? Water?

When Lewis and Clarke made their way to the Pacific the primary “meat getter” was a large bore pneumatic rifle – I found a .45Cal 1300fps 185 grain fully suppressed rifle that my friend uses on feral hogs in Tx – with what walks through my backyard I’m not going hungry although I might have to share…)

Videodrone
Reply to  Steve Case
August 1, 2021 3:15 pm
Reply to  Videodrone
August 1, 2021 6:48 pm

I Googled “Lewis and Clark pneumatic rifle” and I was too lazy to make a link, I just slapped the Wikipedia URL up and let it go at that.
 
I vaguely knew there was such a thing and surely didn’t know that they could be used for hunting, and damn sure didn’t know that Lewis & Clarke used them on their famous expedition. So thank you for your post.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Steve Case
August 1, 2021 8:19 pm

I think that L&C carried it in part to impress the Indians with their firepower. Also, should they lose or expend all their powder, they would still have a rifle with which to take game.

Reply to  Videodrone
August 1, 2021 7:03 pm

Cool link, thanks (-:

Jeffrey H Kreiley
Reply to  Videodrone
August 2, 2021 4:35 am

I have a .357 Bulldog. I am impressed with its power and accuracy. Those big bores sure are pricey.

B Clarke
Reply to  Steve Case
August 1, 2021 3:20 pm

Interesting rifle the first PCP ? I have a gem heavy. 25 around 1890 American in origin Europeans stole it ,and massed produced them, some were centre fire but converted to air rifle I can’t find any details on how this was done.

Robert Alfred Taylor
Reply to  Steve Case
August 1, 2021 4:17 pm

Thanks!
I have read two histories of the Louis and Clark exploration based upon their diaries, and neither mentioned this.

Reply to  Robert Alfred Taylor
August 1, 2021 5:51 pm

Meriwether Lewis talks about using an air rifle to collect birds.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Videodrone
August 1, 2021 3:34 pm

The people on the so-called ‘reality’ show, Naked and Afraid, often go days without eating because they are unsuccessful at finding edible food. This, despite many of them claiming wilderness experience.

I pity the poor Amish having to deal with hordes of incompetents trying to steal their food.

starzmom
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 3:40 pm

The Amish just might have guns.

John Tillman
Reply to  starzmom
August 1, 2021 4:12 pm

Some Amish are armed, but their faith forbids them from shooting people:

https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-guns/

starzmom
Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 6:07 pm

Sure, but are they threatened? I would not bet they would not defend themselves and their families.

Dave Fair
August 1, 2021 3:11 pm

If societal, economical and technological collapse occurs, most all of us are dead. Looting and murder will get a goodly percentage. The first couple of winters in the higher latitudes will get most of the rest. Tropical tribes will have a head start in taking over.

H.R.
August 1, 2021 3:13 pm

I think by the time he makes it to the woods, all the game would be gone.

He’d be better off learning to trap rats and collect some recipes for tasty preparation of the critters.

Besides, I think the rats in NYC have twice as much meat on them as Upstate squirrels.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  H.R.
August 1, 2021 3:41 pm

As I recollect, the French Legionnaires at Điện Biên Phủ found that rats sauteed in white wine were quite acceptable. The problem is, rats will probably taste like whatever they have been living on. But, at least they won’t be as tough as squirrel meat. I’ve eaten different small animals, and never experienced anything as tough as squirrels! Actually, my favorite is rattlesnake.

John Tillman
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 4:15 pm

Big rice rats are a delicacy in SE Asia and China.

Don’t criticize a rat-eating Commie’s culinary practices until you’ve tasted rice rat. Same apparently goes for dog, although I’ve never eaten one.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  John Tillman
August 1, 2021 8:24 pm

I imagine that rice rats might taste a little like rabbit. On the other hand, NYC MickyD rats might not be as tasty.

Apparently American Indians would resort to eating their dogs if game was scarce.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 4:27 pm

What they will be eating are dead people! That’s why they will be so fat!

H.R.
Reply to  Tim Gorman
August 1, 2021 5:45 pm

I didn’t want to go near the subject of long pig, Tim.

But yeah… The Donner Diner Dinner Special would probably become a popular dish.

Reply to  H.R.
August 2, 2021 10:53 am

Donner, party of 12, your table is ready.

Donner, party of 10, your table is ready.

Donner, party of 7, your table is ready…

H.R.
Reply to  TonyG
August 2, 2021 2:23 pm

🤣 🤣 🤣 👍 👍

August 1, 2021 3:13 pm

How in Pete’s name do these fools think they are going to get to a place where they can build a shelter and trap game?

Ban gasoline and turn off the electricity and you’ll be stuck in Manhattan till the gangbangers find you and turn you inside out!

It’ll be the Purge on steroids. You want to survive? Leave the city behind NOW, not later!

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Tim Gorman
August 1, 2021 3:43 pm

What makes you think that the gangbangers will be any better at surviving — other than their ruthlessness?

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 4:24 pm

The gangs will control any store that has food and do so with prejudice. They will be the last to go foraging “in the woods”, lol.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 1, 2021 4:35 pm

They will control the streets, taking what they need to survive. They won’t last forever, just longer than most non-gangbangers. No one will last long without the ability to live as the pioneers in the Great Plains did – 40 acres, a mule, and a cow, all in sod houses.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Tim Gorman
August 1, 2021 8:29 pm

Some of us aren’t that far removed from that. My paternal grandmother was born in a sod house in what is now a ghost town in Nebraska. The sod is easy to come by. The mule and cow not so much.

MarkW
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 2, 2021 11:30 am

Never discount the efficiency of ruthlessness.
The willingness to kill anyone who has what you want is definitely a survival skill.

Sage
August 1, 2021 3:18 pm

AGCC? …………….. Right!

The need for survivalist skills appertains only to the inevitable CME, that occurs head on facing earth, with a magnitude of the Carrington event. That occurred some 160 years ago when there was only the nascent telegraph system to disrupt. Today – think of all the electrical/electronic stuff waiting to be fried. You are looking at a societal disruption lasting many months if not a year.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Sage
August 1, 2021 8:42 pm

Most of the large transformers are custom made and not a stock item sitting on a pallet in some warehouse. Assuming that repairman live within walking distance of their company, and that the company had the foresight to stock pile diesel fuel, repair trucks would have to have enough fuel to get to a non-critical transformer, disconnect it and load it onto the truck, then drive to the location where it was critically needed, and install it. Then have enough fuel to get back to the factory so the repairmen can walk home.

Wait, some politicians in their infinite wisdom are going to do away with liquid fuels and require all vehicles to run on battery-powered vehicles — batteries that can’t be charged when there are massive outages from the CME!

Sage
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
August 2, 2021 10:04 am

The diesel trucks produced in the last 30 tears are heavily controlled with electronics. Many, if not most, will not run after the event. The days of the old, Mack B Series, Thermodyne straight six engine, are long gone. Same problem with cars built after the 70s.

B Clarke
Reply to  Sage
August 2, 2021 10:37 am

I agree,but I’ve just bought a 80s suzuki 4×4 no comp on board ,still has points condenser and is basic ,in Europe the cut off date ,between comp controlled was 1999,2000.

Dr. Chaotica
Reply to  Sage
August 1, 2021 10:56 pm

That’s the scenario that scares me the most. If the electric grid goes down for months, very few people will survive. The pumps that provide our water supply are electric. With no water, those who can make it out of the cities will seek out the nearest rivers and lakes. With no toilets or sewer systems, those water sources will become contaminated with fecal bacteria. Epidemics will follow quickly. According to one projection I’ve seen, the survival rate will be 3%.

navy bob
August 1, 2021 3:27 pm

This is like a modern I Love Lucy episode. People whose entire knowledge of the world comes through their phones spend day a prepping for the apocalypse by plastering mud on sticks. Climate catastrophists really are insane.

Richard Page
Reply to  navy bob
August 1, 2021 3:45 pm

Yes but someone is making a good living out of their insanity. Everywhere you look there’s a vested interest!

walt
Reply to  Richard Page
August 1, 2021 11:32 pm

There are a very big number of lunatics who only know what they are told by an expert.

James francisco
August 1, 2021 3:35 pm

I wonder if they have electricity and heat in these training facilities. A few days without those wonderful things should convert many. If they were powered only with windmills and solar panels and made to pay the true cost of those sources they couldn’t afford it. A very funny movie called Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau should be seen by everyone thinking of going to a survivalist training camp.

Rud Istvan
August 1, 2021 3:47 pm

Here is an article problem. We have two ‘go to ground’ properties. My big dairy farm in Wisconsin since near 40 years but two days out, and our 5 acre plus cabin in the mountains of North Georgia only one day out.
If any New Yorker (or anybody else) tries their survival skills on our properties, they will soon find they did not survive, period. Both places are well armed, and do not even include my best competition and hunting stuff that we would travel with.
This MSM climatastrophy stuff is just nuts.

markl
August 1, 2021 3:54 pm

LOL!!! And we wonder why people are taken in by the AGW scam when crap like this is available to egg them on.

B Clarke
August 1, 2021 4:05 pm

There are plenty of Americans who have planned and prepped years ago, it goes something like this , by some land ,dig a big hole put in a very large diameter pipe or shipping container, make livable, conceal, fill with food,guns ,generators, solar,ect ect, then use it as a holiday home till TSHTF day, the reasons for the above are many some think society is doomed, law and order breakdown.

Then there’s another group the grand solar minimum people, who again see a collapse of society, these guys or some of them are land buyers, they encourage to survive get into trusted groups and share skills ,survival and safety in numbers.

Its also big business in the states with companies who will build you custom made to order survival shelters , certain firearms sold via the home defence,prepping marketing, water purification systems,the list is comprehensive.

August 1, 2021 4:18 pm

“ Healthy outdoor exercise and all that, probably does them good to get out of their high-rise apartments and experience nature.”

More than that
Getting them out doing these things should show them exactly what they have in the city
And start looking closer at what is really putting all of that modern civilization under threat, fantasy ideas of renewable energy keeping the lights on.

When the collapse occurs it is critical that people know who is responsible.

commieBob
August 1, 2021 4:24 pm

I belonged to an organization that taught survival skills. We called it Boy Scouts.

Reply to  commieBob
August 1, 2021 6:35 pm

Sadly, they feel victim to much the same idiocy under the guise of “equality”.

Doug Huffman
Reply to  commieBob
August 2, 2021 4:30 am

While I was BSA a boy sprout I taught ‘How to eat weeds and like ‘em’. The culmination was a ‘cake’. Very little in the woods will kill you, investigate with small doses; it’s not the poison, it is the dose.

Family hikes were eating lessons conducted with pocket knife in hand and curiosity. Spanish Dagger flower stalks taste like apples raw and are inedible sticks cooked. Found puffball mushrooms once, some were perfect.

August 1, 2021 4:38 pm

Why are the folks who are telling us to commit social suicide taking survivalist training? Isn’t this just one more example of planet-sized hypocrisy. If they want to depopulate the planet, they can lead by example.

Rory Forbes
August 1, 2021 5:10 pm

Unless you have a supply of seed they’ll be lost. Meat is great, but hard to find. Your heifer will not become a cow and be giving milk unless you have a bull to freshen her every year. Also, you’re in competition with far more experienced predators for any bush meat. Unless you produce an over abundance of crops, the local critters will eat it for you, long before harvest time.

goldminor
Reply to  Rory Forbes
August 1, 2021 11:21 pm

Exactly, first and foremost you need seeds. I save seeds from everything I grow.

Rory Forbes
Reply to  goldminor
August 2, 2021 9:55 am

Very smart idea, if for no other reason than that the price of seeds has skyrocketed. Keeping back seed is as good discipline as always saving a portion of your income.

August 1, 2021 5:14 pm

pity the squirrels in central park

c1ue
August 1, 2021 5:21 pm

How utterly moronic.
If TSHTF – 8 million New Yorkers are all going to be trying to get out at once. The Manhattanites aren’t going to make it.

goldminor
Reply to  c1ue
August 1, 2021 11:20 pm

That will be ground zero for zombies.

Jeffrey H Kreiley
Reply to  goldminor
August 2, 2021 4:27 am

If tshtf I have no doubt the government would blow up the tunnels and bridges out of NYC to keep the hordes in.

John Hultquist
August 1, 2021 5:24 pm

Are they going to trap Picas?
75 miles from NYC.
Pace Picante: See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvIRh-qt9EQ

DMA
Reply to  John Hultquist
August 1, 2021 7:40 pm

The picture is of a Pika which is related to rabbits ( same order). There lots of them here in Montana but they are high mountain critters here. I don’t think I’ve seen one below about 7500 ft elevation.

John Hultquist
Reply to  DMA
August 1, 2021 8:41 pm

My first encounter was also on a mountain, but that seems not to be necessary. When expanding I-90 east of Snoqualmie Pass in Washington — including an animal overpass — Picas were found colonizing the new road bed — the rocks transported during the cut and fill operations. Elevation there is about 2,600 feet. Elsewhere, north of Ellensburg, at about 4,400 feet I found one of their small “hay stacks.”
I wonder if there are differences, but have not investigated.

Al Miller
August 1, 2021 5:35 pm

Alas, if only those (otherwise intelligent I’m sure) urban dwellers took the equal amount of time to research the climate scam they could direct their energies to useful pursuits, but as has oft’ been repeated “it is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled”.

John Sandhofner
August 1, 2021 5:53 pm

The need for the survival skills are for the wrong reason but useful none the less.

Editor
August 1, 2021 6:20 pm

“trap game and light fires” – ?????
You can’t do either of those things, because of climate change. Eating meat causes the oceans to boil. As for lighting fires …….

Mark Kaiser
August 1, 2021 6:43 pm

How to open a can.



Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Mark Kaiser
August 1, 2021 8:53 pm

You have got to be ‘schisting’ me! I do that routinely. It is a little more challenging if the only thing you have is a rock hammer or a large hunting knife. I also have a couple of the war-surplus can openers that fit on a key chain. The rock hammer worked great for the old-style beverage cans that didn’t have pull tabs.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Mark Kaiser
August 2, 2021 12:54 am

Now let him try it with those can opener thingies on a penknife. It’s actually better than most modern can openers, they’re pants.

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Mark Kaiser
August 2, 2021 3:57 am

OMG the ineptitude and effort…
truly funny
and even more truly frightening that such an effortless skill seems to be new and novel

Tom
August 1, 2021 8:15 pm

Climate change fantasy leads to survivalist fantasy. Seems rational..

Anthony
August 1, 2021 10:08 pm

I guess if it was people from San Francisco, they would be taught how to rub two boy scouts together the light a fire but then after, the Big One, I don’t think fire will be a problem.

The Dark Lord
August 1, 2021 10:36 pm

they are taking the courses due to the urban unrest they have experienced first hand … not climate change …

August 1, 2021 10:54 pm

These idiots will was cash on anything!

August 1, 2021 11:31 pm

Cue the dueling banjo music…

Rod Evans
August 2, 2021 12:16 am

I’m guessing a deer living in the wilds of NY state will have some advantage over a 225 lb man from NY city, rubbing two sticks together hoping to start a fire to cook his hoped for catch out in the wild.
If the conditions become intolerable in NY city, I suspect hoping to find a tolerable existence in a rural haven, is all these hopeless climate alarmist believers can hope for.
What was it Bill Clinton said? Oh yes, ” we believe in hope”
I think he was looking at Hilary at the time, so he is allowed his hope.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Rod Evans
August 2, 2021 12:57 am

I think he was looking at Hilary at the time, so he is allowed his hope.

He may have hoped, but I don’t think his wishes were fulfilled. Someone else had to manage it.

Jan de Jong
August 2, 2021 1:37 am

Biggest danger in NY woods: ticks and Lyme.

Old Goat
August 2, 2021 2:14 am

I would have thought that it was the “Great Reset” which was spurring people on to live off grid, and/or in the wild, as there will be shortages of everything, not just power…

ozspeaksup
August 2, 2021 3:38 am

PT Barnums one born every minute sprang to mind
fleece the sheepies who may have done a day or two camps but are still not going to handle sudden changes very well.

Bruce Cobb
August 2, 2021 4:06 am

It’s sort of a Frankenstein meets Dracula moment, innit? I guess if you’re willing to accept one type of whackjob ideation, you’ll accept any number of them.

Doug Huffman
August 2, 2021 4:12 am

Too little and too late.

Wilderness are wilderness because it is really difficult to live survive on a slope, and all the good spots are already taken by hard men..

I bugged out more than a decade ago to an island in the middle of the largest body of potable water in the world.

Doug Huffman
August 2, 2021 4:33 am

What a fun thread, city rats versus country mice.

August 2, 2021 5:19 am

I’ve been to up state New York (gorgeous country). Having spent an evening drinking beer with some of the superb no bullshit locals I know they’d very quickly f*(k up any Manhattan wimps who tried to steal their resources.

August 2, 2021 5:28 am

Well, I may opt for this type of training as well, not because of climate change, but because of climate change politics. If the lunatics on the left get their way, – that is, shutting down reliable energy infrastructure and replacing it with weather dependent, intermittent, and unreliable energy sources – grid collapse is inevitable

August 2, 2021 5:38 am

Blackout – Tomorrow will be too late
0
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Elsberg_novel)

A nice story, also well researched as it seems, some crime around as it is a novel.
It starts with a hacked smart meter…

Tired Old Nurse
August 2, 2021 5:55 am

I live on a small farm just outside Daniel Boone National Forest. I do a little hiking and camping there. If/when SHTF I’ll avoid the forest like a radiation zone. I’ll leave it to all of the Les Stroud wannabes. When they start starving (won’t take long) they should keep in mind how protective people are of their property.

On the positive side maybe a little time in the woods will give them an appreciation for the outdoors.

August 2, 2021 7:39 am

Survival isn’t just a matter of taking some classes; it’s a mindset, one which many of these folk don’t have.

But maybe getting outside a little more will help them connect with reality a bit better.

August 2, 2021 8:14 am

“It’s an inevitability that we’ll be facing a crisis within our lifetime, within my lifetime and certainly within my daughter’s lifetime,” 

The most ridiculous part of this story is that it is based on mis information. If this musician spent a half hour researching REAL data he’d realize he’s operating under a false premise and he can save his family a lot of angst.

(Just think how he unintentionally passed false information and alarmed his daughter to explain why he want away!).

michael hart
August 2, 2021 8:15 am

 “…and light fires by rubbing two sticks together.”
That seems a bit advanced.
They should stick to banging rocks together for the present (after they’ve learned how to manage fire properly, of course).

Steve Z
August 2, 2021 8:17 am

Rub sticks together to start a fire? It is possible, but why not just stock up on cheap wooden matches and keep them in a waterproof plastic baggie? That could start lots of fires if needed!

Of course, wood fires emit lots more CO2 for the amount of heat obtained than natural gas or home heating oil, plus the CO2-absorbing ability of the tree is lost, which would exacerbate any “climate change” effects these people were supposedly fleeing.

Some of the forests “75 miles north of New York City” can be pleasant in midsummer, but they are 10 to 20 degrees F colder than NYC year-round, meaning that cold rainstorms in NYC are frequently snowstorms 75 miles to the north. Most edible plants don’t grow in the winter, and most game animals are hibernating, and would be difficult to find. Anyone trying to eke out a “survivalist” existence near the Catskills or Berkshires would be better off camping near a river and living off fish.

Or better yet, stay in NYC and hope the gangs don’t shoot you.

AGW is Not Science
August 2, 2021 8:31 am

The true irony of this is that the likelihood of the “grid dropping out” and “all this tech failing” has nothing to do with the unnoticeable changes to the climate and everything to do with what the same idiots taking these courses have been voting for and protesting for and clamoring for to “save us” from an imaginary “crisis.”

It is if these idiots get their way that such skills will be needed, because the grid and tech failure is guaranteed once a sufficient level of electric grid and transport is dependent upon stupidities like windmills and solar panels.

Tom Abbott
August 2, 2021 8:45 am

Survival training isn’t a bad idea. Not for climate change, since that is a non-issue. But the training might come in handy if the U.S. is invaded by a foreign enemy, or attacked using electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) devices.

The Chicoms seem to think they are up to an invasion. Here’s a hint, Chicoms: Invading the U.S. would be like grabbing a tiger by its tail.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 2, 2021 11:53 am

6 million people in Toronto consume 250,000 chickens daily! There’s not enough game in Ontario to feed them all for a week. In order to survive they’ll have to eat each other.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  David Pentland
August 2, 2021 4:59 pm

One of the better prepper preparations I have heard of is where a person digs themselves a swimming-pool sized hole in his yard and then fills it with coal and covers it over with soil, and saves it for a rainy day.

A person could last a long time on the amount of coal in a swimming-pool-sized hole in the ground.

John the Econ
August 2, 2021 12:05 pm

It’s the economic collapse resulting from run-amok Progressive green & economic policy consequences that will require these skills, not any actual “climate collapse”.

otsar
August 2, 2021 1:10 pm

On November 9 1965 there was a multi state power outage in the north east. The outage included NYC. 9 months later there was a population surge.

2hotel9
August 2, 2021 2:35 pm

Unless they REMAIN in the forest none of this will do them the least bit of good, other than a weekend out and some light camping, in their $60-70,000 SUV and massively over priced sleeping bags and pop up tents.

ScoutsHonor
August 2, 2021 3:04 pm

Learning to live off the land can give you a great sense independence, resiliency.
Mountain Scout Survival School would do well to add on a Bug In course. Shortly after SHTF cities will be killing zones for weeks. Desperate people will do things they never thought they would to survive. Then there’s the roving gangs.
If you do not Get Out Of Dodge in time you are stuck behind enemy lines. Better to plan surviving that. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands will all be heading to the woods. Consequently not a place I would choose to be for at least 3 months.

Having said that why would a Climate Change Alarmist think heading to the woods is a good idea. Given their claimed decimation of nature what makes them think there would be anything beneficial in heading to the woods.