Are we ready if there is a National Emergency?

sandelf

Spreading alarm makes people afraid. Frightened people look for someone to blame - often that turns out to be 'strangers'. This meeting seems calculated to whip up fear and anger - never a good idea.
All in favour of measures to ensure our national and personal resources are set to improve our health, strengthen community organisation, and improve our resilience against cyber and real world aggression.

I suspect the purpose of this meeting is not to cause fear among the general population but to jolt the authorities into doing something positive about climate change - and if fear makes the general population convinced that it is time for them to be proactive about it, then the government may be concerned enough about votes to get their fingers out and act. If the oil and coal-producing countries (USA, Middle East, Russia, China) can't be persuaded to cut back on the amount of greenhouse gases their wares are releasing into the atmosphere, then the coutries who can see where the globe is heading will have to do twice as much.

The big problem is persuading the ruling class to risk being unpopular. It is the voters they are afraid of, not what will happen in a few years when they are out of office.

The two brothers behind the petition, Nick and Simon Aldridge were not the people who collected and analysed the climate data, but respected scientists who understand how climate works. They examined ice cores going back thousands of years, widths of tree rings, ancient weather records, recorded earthquakes and amounts of ice formation, and more.

They calculated that the range of temperatures which were conducive to the development of the earth's various climatic regions, and the evolution and continuing success of vegetable and animal life in them, were surprisingly narrow. A few degrees in either direction and we might never have been here at all.

The inescapable conclusion from what they found from the cycles of natural phenomena was that we were actually due to move into another ice age, not an age of global warming.

The factor that seems to have made the difference is the amount of Co2 and other gases that are released by modern human beings as they alter their environment to suit their concept of what is necessary to fulfil their lives. That includes built-in obsolescence in their homes, factories, cars, clothes, food, communication technology, entertainment, holiday destinations, planes. Goods are not used and reused until they fall apart, they are replaced by "better" versions and the older ones buried in landfill.

All these material objects are produced or powered or transported by energy. Before the Industrial Revolution, the energy to make these things came from human beings farming by hand, or horses pulling ploughs or carts, or blacksmiths wielding hammers in a forge, or women spinning thread to weave cloth. With the machines invented to make production easier and quicker, more input of energy was needed to keep the cogs turning to produce the goods needed by an expanding population expecting more of life than just surviving another hungry winter. Faster and easier production meant that people owned more, ate better, and their children survived their childhood to reproduce and need even more food and more possessions. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025 ( www.worldometers.info/world-population/ - see the number rise as you watch!) and the amount of greenhouse gases has risen exponentially with them.

Energy is produced by fuel - oats, grass and hay for horses, decent food for humans, and fossil fuels (coal and oil) and electricity for machinery. When coal and oil burn, they produce gases - the carbon dioxide that was trapped in the trees and vegetation that formed them, and others too. These gases blanket the earth and keep the heat that rises from the land that is warmed by the sun from rising above the atmosphere and dispersing.

Nasa has more info on the causes of climate change, but the takeaways from their (very readable) webpage are:-
The greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space.
Five key greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and water vapor.
While the Sun has played a role in past climate changes, the evidence shows the current warming cannot be explained by the Sun.
science.nasa.gov/climate-change/causes/

I could feed the street for a couple of weeks from my cupboards. I have a log burner and candles, torches and matches. This is not emergency provisions, it is just the way I am.
I do grow some things, so have seeds for the Spring. I inherited my mother's wind up torch and radio, which she bought the last time they talked about this in 2008.
Somewhere I have a wind-up watch too.

Telephone would not work though, since the govt decided to shut down the land line provisions that were a vital standby, so when the local mast went down, we were out for a week recently

Depends how long i would be without electricity. I have nothing to heat my home or any hot water once my hot water tank was cold. All my cooking is done with electricity and my heating is with gas. I have food I could eat cold and a wind up radio. I have my mobile phone but if the signal went down no communication method. I make sure my car is filled up eith petrol mostcof the time so I think I would take myself to my youngest daughters house who cooks with gas. Has an open fire and also has camping equipment.

We are geared up for at least a week of isolation with a wood burner for cooking and heating and a shed full of wood, we did have 4 days of no power about 30 yrs ago, a storm brought down power lines

Cooking on an open fire then, it was fun for a few days but not a good option for a long period, that’s not an option for most, electricity is the one thing that is not replaceable and so much of our lives is vital to it. Even if you have a gas boiler it doesn’t work without power

I have a basic Primus stove and gas bottles, as well as a stock of dried food and bottled water. I also keep a box with things like batteries, painkillers and other emergency supplies.

Re the "Winterwhite pill" - that has long been part of my preparations personally. Nowt to do with being "elderly" (as I guess some would call me now at my age - if they were living dangerously LOL). But I have no responsibilities - no children/no pets/not a carer etc etc.

I sometimes wonder about having a cat - but that would be a responsibility (so that's part of the reason I don't). So only myself to consider and I've long had that "Winterwhite pill" in place should I need it ever. Life is quite hard enough with everything going along normally and my body being in manageable condition - but if "life got too hard" or my body "got too ill" = I know how to go and would. I could be gone within hours if I had to choose to.

I've had the wherewithal for years - just in case either my society or my body got too bad to put up with any longer. Obviously I'm not going to say - because I don't trust my Society enough to do so. But, if I have to leave it = I can. I feel like I've had to put up with Society changing one heck of a lot for the worse since Normal Times (ie the 1980s for instance), Society has heaped one heck of a sight more onto us from 2020 onwards and so I simply don't trust it not to get even worse.....and hence the Boy Scout motto of "Be prepared" is one I bear very much in mind.

I don’t get what they’re trying to say.

Climate change only? Other emergencies? Any emergency?

What to do? Who should do it? Us? Them? Britain? The world?

Like I said it just seems a word salad that I’ve heard many times before. What is their point}

Someone help me out here in a couple of short concise sentences.

Before I watched the short opening speech of that meeting (in the youtube video of it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-PFKT1SNc4) I thought from the title that an imminent threat of a physical invasion had been detected, and that we were about to be informed of the construction of air-raid shelters and the issuing of ration books, iodine tablets and tin hats. I've not watched any more yet, but it turned out to be about climate change, a danger that is less generally understood but still a real threat.

However, in the news a few days ago from the US, there is danger lurking internationally which doesn't seem to be discussed on GN yet. There are more ways to defeat a country or bloc than by outright war - interfering in their internal governance is one.

Four days ago, Trump’s New National Security Strategy statement for 2025 was issued. It starts, of course, with a predictable claim by the president to have saved the world and created peace.

There are analyses of it online. Rick Landgraf has one at:-
warontherocks.com/2025/12/ten-jolting-takeaways-from-trumps-new-national-security-strategy/

From his second takeaway - "Where previous strategies wrapped U.S. power in the language of democracy promotion and the rules-based order, this one is markedly different. It redefines leadership and power through coercive leverage, bilateralism, and transactional alignment. This is an America that is not necessarily retreating from the world stage but consolidating its power through bullying and dealmaking."

From his sixth takeaway - " . . . not a traditional assessment of allied capability or political will but a cultural test for geopolitical trustworthiness. European governments seen as insufficiently responsive to public opinion are depicted as suppressing legitimate democratic impulses. Their policy disagreements with Washington are presented as evidence of deeper cultural or ideological drift. The strategy therefore treats internal political debates within allied democracies as matters for American scrutiny, while insisting on strict insulation of American domestic politics from foreign influence. This asymmetry reveals a worldview in which cultural politics becomes an instrument of statecraft. It positions the United States to judge the internal order of its partners through the lens of ideological compatibility rather than institutional capacity or shared interests."

And from the ninth - " . . . vow to resist “sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organizations,” promising to “reform” those institutions so they “assist rather than hinder individual sovereignty and further American interests.” It also warns against foreign attempts to “manipulate our immigration system to build up voting blocs loyal to foreign interests within our country.” By framing diaspora politics as a national security threat, the strategy blurs the boundary between counterintelligence and domestic political competition, a move without precedent in prior national security strategies. The assertions about sovereignty in the text expose a double standard: America is not to be messed with and yet the Trump administration sees no issue with inserting itself into the domestic political debates of allies, "

Defending the Uk, (and Europe too) against this kind of invasion needs a similar "National Emergency Meeting" to the one rallying against climate change, if we are not to lose identity and be subsumed into the US empire, our strings pulled politically and culturally from across the Atlantic.

The Strategy statement itself is at:-
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

Lathyrus3 I think it is an attempt to rouse the general public from a dream where they believe climate change is not happening (and feeding upon itself to increase) and is all a theoretical exercise by mad scientists, before it has gone so far is impossible to change it back again to a stable position within which the conditions for human beings to still survive, grow food, breathe good air and avoid climatic disasters.


where the erosion of humanitarian

I don't know where the last few words came from - left over from my previous post, perhaps.

We are not serious about climate change, our lifestyles are not changing we are consuming ever increasing quantities of resources, we are travelling ever more. Building more roads and runways, we are doing everything that increases CO2 emissions.

But we are fooling ourselves, the UK has a Net Zero target, we are only reducing our emissions by importing more, exporting our pollution

The jury is still out in my mind re whether we've got climate change going on or no - and how to think on that is muddied by the chemtrails they spray around to change our weather (including over our country). Thankfully that particular argument is over now - as they've even admitted to spraying chemicals around now to change our weather and the lies on that aspect stopped when they had to admit it.

But, for instance, years back I thought "I wonder just how realistic - or otherwise - They are being re how much we can change". Given that I decided to fill in a questionnaire (Friends of the Earth or somesuch) that I came across as to "How many Earths are you consuming?". I hadn't thought for one second they'd tell me I was apparently consuming too much - as a single childless person/one house/no car/vegetarian/very few foreign holidays/etc/etc. But the answer came back that, according to them I was. I think they said - even at that low level of consumption - that I was using 1.5 Earths.

Luckily I realised an assumption they were making - and proceeded to fill out that questionnaire all over again with exactly the same answers - except that I said I was married, rather than single (ie 2 of us living in my house) and back came a changed answer of "You're okay....you use less than 1 Earth". That was the only change in my answers - ie saying there was a Significant Other living with me (so I guess they divided my small little starter house between two because of that).

At that point I thought "So the only way they'd think a badly-off Western person like myself consumed reasonably would be to get married/live together - even if I don't want to myself. There's the nearest bridge for them to jump off as fast as they please". So they do set unrealistically low limits....so basically, according to them, the planet has basically had it anyway. Something has got to give - and I can't see anything that realistically can for at least the single amongst us....

I could see then - all those years back - that it looked as if we might be under threat of someone like Klaus Schwab emerging at some point in the future with a mantra of "You vill own nozzing". As we can't realistically live in an environmentally suitable way whilst there are so many of us and populations still increasing - whilst meanwhile those who think they're superior keep flying across the globe and owning a mansion or two - whilst lecturing the rest of us.

A very interesting post Elegran, thanks.

So what do they want people and Government to do that will make a difference globally?

Unless they’ve got a working solution it’s just another pointless conference or whatever.

butterandjam

Perhaps they are unaware of this

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Contingencies_Act_2004

Or the numerous local Resilience groups that exist and train.

I have seen these in action twice and been hugely impressed by the speed and co-ordination deployed by multiple agencies.

The first example that came to my attention was during the Foot and Mouth Crisis. Family member was instantly called from his full time (vet) employment in the Highlands, to serve the Min of Ag at Lockerbie near the borders. In 1988 PanAM 103 crashed onto Lockerbie, and in the long terrible aftermath, the community became expert in disaster-resilience. In 2001 , when F and M reached Scotland in a farm near Lockerbie, the town became the centre for Scottish Govt response. . Family member arrived with zero notice and found he'd been provided with accommodation, meals, vehicle, driver, full protective gear and a contingent of army soldiers who followed him from farm to farm, killing and burning as he identified and condemned infected herds. Despite that devastating local stress in a farming area, the level of practical support by locals was astonishing. Every night , he reuturned exhausted, was fed, then his contaminated vehicle, every stitch of clothes and protective gear were collected for sterilisation and a clean set arrived next morning. It was considerably thanks to Lockerbie's experience in disaster-management, that Scotland handled the FM epidemic faster and more effectively than other parts of UK.

In 9/11, some of that trained experienced team from Scotland was despatched to help.

The second instance of local resilience was in March 2013 a freak snowstorm in West Scotland completely
destroyed the mainland pylons serving the under sea cable to the whole of the island of Arran (total blackout) and dumped
up to 10 ft of snow on parts of it; houses were buried to roof depth, roads impassable, no power whatever. Many of the islands telegraph poles and cables had also come down, so no landline phones service. There is no mains gas, no airfield.
There was a huge effort by the local community; plus hundreds of power engineers drafted from all over UK; bringing emergency generators and the fuel to run them. It took six days to connect all homes to the generators (and two months longer, before the mains netword was rebuilt and reconnected). The govt delivered emergency kitchens and cooks (and food) to feed the emergency workers and locals who had no working stoves.. Ever since then, Arran local services have done regular resilience/emergency training involving the police, mountain rescue, medical services, and local community.

I had no idea. Thank you butterandjam!

More in the news about possible war with Russia and our unpreparedness on many fronts.

Lathyrus3

So what do they want people and Government to do that will make a difference globally?

Unless they’ve got a working solution it’s just another pointless conference or whatever.

It wasn't for the general public, it was for those in connected fields. Unless people who CAN make a difference talk to each other, there is no concerted plan. Most of the people at that climate emergency meeting worked in politics where they could influence legislation by their votes, in science or academia researching climate and teaching students, in the media where the climate change is mentioned, explained and debated (usually by people with no background knowledge of the subject) Meeting together and exchanging information and contact details gives them a common platform to work from.

Applegran

More in the news about possible war with Russia and our unpreparedness on many fronts.

And the US seem to be aligning themselves more and more with whatever Russia says or does.

The US defence plan also includes a "Golden Dome" over the USA (not actual gold or gold leaf, like Trump's ballroom and gifted runabout plane - it would be figuratively golden, and protect them from invasion) It says "We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland—to protect the American people, American assets overseas, and American allies." but they have no intention of co-operating with any other country or international organisation.

i think in the Blitz families were ready with food and water and warm clothes in case of need. Now what would we add? Torch and batteries, radio .......
A friend long ago told me that her father had fought in the war and for ever after, if there was concern about another war, the first thing he did was fill the bath with water.

I have a stock of tinned food and candles I can cook outside if needs be .
I bought some containers of drinking water
today .,but I forgot soup .
Ill health has made me manage without a proper shop for three weeks .
I can manage,but not without my meds .

I don't know anyone with a nuclear bunker-perhaps that's what we need !

I think it is about not panicking but making sensible preparations. Most of what is needed has to be done by government - but we can do some appropriate things for ourselves.

I would think as grandparents our biggest contribution would be the skills we bring for cooking from scratch using stored staple ingredients, growing and preserving food and make do and mend when resources are scarce.

Applegran Wind-up torches and radios are available - no batteries needed. I have a torch/ lantern that is rechargeable plus it works on mains power or by winding a handle. It has three modes - torch, lantern and flashing red danger or "help" signal.

There are others which spend most of their lives plugged into an electricity socket doing nothing, but spring into light if there is a power cut.

All manufactured in China and shipped halfway across the world for us to buy, I expect😬🤣