Is "Prepping" Practical Or Paranoia?

[NickB79]

15. If you follow the environmental/ecological news, it is only a matter of time before hardships set in

Global warming is pretty much locked in at this point to the tune of 4-5C warming by 2100, with all the predicted side-effects already starting to occur (more unpredictable weather, crop failures, flooding, drought, famine, heatwaves, species extinction, etc). We've passed Peak Oil, and without another recession to crush economic growth, demand for fossil fuels will start to outpace supply and drive energy prices further upward. Long-term, both of these crises have the potential to throw large parts of the world into civil unrest and years of grinding economic hardship. This doesn't even take into consideration the CURRENT economic turmoil we're seeing in many world markets.

That said, most preppers I've seen go about their preparations all wrong. They expect a sudden, cataclysmic blow to bring civilization to it's knees, with the obscene hope that most of humanity will be so unprepared that they quickly die out before they can pose much of a threat to their little bunkers in the wilderness. The reality is that when our civilization does collapse (if we aren't already in the early stages of collapse), it will be a slow, drawn-out process that will take decades before some degree of stability is reached. Packing a stockroom of canned food and ammo won't be nearly as useful in a slow collapse scenario as learning how to grow and store your own food, live on less, and get to know who you can rely on for help in your community.