The other day on NPR, I heard the first serious discussion of storing food and water in case of a breakdown in services or the need to stay in the house in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease. These potential outbreaks are another indicator of climate change.

It is theorized that the rise of plagues in Europe and the fall of the Roman Empire are related to a major weather change that took place as a result of a volcanic eruption. The dust created a climate in Northern Europe that was inhospitable to the Romans and they pulled back to the warmer Italian region. This dust also caused crop failures which forced rats out of the fields and into the villages where they spread disease. Today, as things warm, we can expect similar outbreaks of diseases spread via insects and birds, made worse by the fact the we are an international economy.
Last week the Borough of Queens in NY was without power for 10 days due to heat and severe storms. For those of you who haven’t visited lovely Queens, it is larger than most American cities with a population of 2.2 million. This was a major outage during a period when temperatures were in the 90s.
Are you prepared for such an outage? For the potential to be unable to cook, obtain fresh water and stay cool (or warm)? The interview on NPR suggested that we should have two weeks supply of water for drinking, food and pet food (can’t forget our friends), along with fuel and emergency power supplies.
I don’t want to seem alarmist but this makes sense to me. Just as businesses should be making contingency plans for staying afloat with half their workforce out sick, we, as individuals, should be planning for emergencies. Otherwise, places like Upstate NY could end up like the post-Katrina Gulf Coast.
We’ve seen that we cannot depend on the Government to take care of us and our neighbors- they won’t even admit there’s a potential problem. It’s up to us.
Guess I’ll go out and get that bottled water I saw for sale at the convenience store…