Find Your Tribe Now, Before It’s Too Late

Prepare now for a post +2C world

Find Your Tribe Now, Before It’s Too Late
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Civilization Collapse

Find Your Tribe Now Before It’s Too Late

I don’t believe we’ll stop rising global temperatures. I think the majority of humanity can’t and won’t give a shit. The minority (us) have been screaming out loud about the dangers of human-induced climate change but those in power don’t take it seriously.

I expect large sea level rises. Large parts of the world will become uninhabitable and the population will collapse.

Just look at the United States. We ended up getting a watered-down climate bill that passed with a lot of infighting. The world got the Paris Accord. While both are steps in the right direction, I argue that it’s a little too late. We should’ve been fixing this years ago but there’s no desire to do anything because the 1% continue to get rich.

Right now the target is a 2C increase in global temperatures, but we’re on track to exceed that.

Greenhouse gas emission scenarios 01
© Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, adapted for svg and smartphone by Eric Fisk, CC BY-SA 4.0

Even with a 2C target, we’ll still see massive upheaval in our ecosystems.

Why the target isn’t set at a 0C increase is beyond me.

If you ask me, we’re well on our way to a +4C global temperature increase, because we don’t know everything about this complex system.

A 2C increase is just politicians and bankers who speak for balancing “trade and economic goals” with the cost of putting bandaids on this disaster.

You’ll have to live with this, you plebs! Deal with forced migrations of billions of people. Deal with pollinator collapse. Deal with microplastics in your drinking water.

Deal with the chaos and loss of life.

Is this what politicians think we can live with? A 2C target will wreak havoc on humanity and all life on this planet.

They don’t care about us. They just care about power and money.

Fuck them all.


My partner is a novice beekeeper. She has a mentor that helps her tend to our two hives. Bees are amazing insects and both of us have learned a lot from just tending to them over the past year.

We learned that an aggressive hive has a mated Queen whose DNA makes the worker bees aggressive. The solution? Kill the Queen and replace her (if she’s accepted by the new hive) with one that was from a more docile hive.

One month later, the disposition of the hive is completely different. All the older aggressive worker bees will have died out and the new ones that come after will be more “chill.”

In one generation, the entire hive has changed for the better. It’s easier to work with, more productive, and the honey tastes sweeter.

Imagine if we can do that with humans. Replace climate-denying, violent, and aggressive people with smart, kind, and gentle people.

What could our world look like then?


As a former civil engineer, I’m constantly assessing the land and natural resources. I love geology, ecology, and just being outdoors and learning about the world.

Of course, we’re humans and we need places to live but I really hate these mass-produced houses we live in.

When I fly and take off from an airport, I’m usually in an urban area. I look out the window and see pavement, buildings, and houses. I note how this looks like a scar on the earth.

Then I see the subdivisions and the cookie-cutter houses. I think about the poor schlub that couldn’t wait to buy his house there, the same exact one as his neighbor. The same exact box.

Then we climb higher and I see boxes within boxes. That guy’s box is part of the subdivision box, that’s part of the city block box, that’s part of the county box.

It feels like jail to me.

I know why cities are “planned” the way they are. I know why we cram once open-flowing rivers into underground structures. I know why we build massive solid waste landfills. I know why we once designed combined sewer systems that overflow into rivers.

I know why we did all these things. It’s because we didn’t give a crap about living with the environment, we wanted to dominate it and exploit it.

We exploited our environment to make money at the expense of quality life and harmony with our flora and fauna.

It’s this short-sightedness that will kill us in the end but we won’t notice. We’ll be too busy mowing our lawns in our green gilded backyard jails.


Here’s my bit of advice. Find your tribe of people and plan. Find the gentle ones. The smart ones. Organize with them. You will need to work together to survive in a post +2C world.

Make your own seed banks. Swap and trade plants. Learn to grow a small garden in your backyard now. Plant flowers and keep bees.

Learn to preserve and jar food. Be frugal and learn to fix things. Start going low-tech as much as possible. If you’re worried about money, ditch those Bitcoins and buy silver and gold coins. You can buy “junk silver” coins and squirrel them away. You won’t need much because food and seeds will become the new currency.

That said, you and your family will need to become “valuable” in some way. You will need to use your skills and talents to survive and thrive.

Then band together with liked minded people.

You will need to have friends, allies, and liked minded people to survive and thrive. Nature always selects for those that integrate and respect her sustainable boundaries. You will need to do that with each other.

Organize around land and water. Build your own commune of sorts where you share processing facilities and share different foodstuffs you grow and preserve. Share seeds. Share labor. Share raising your children together.

And stay quiet. Lay low. You will need to hide.

The world is going to become more violent and more dangerous, especially for women. You will need to learn to defend yourself and each other. I abhor guns but they’ll be required at peak collapse. Learn to shoot.


I’m fully aware that the tone of this article and my other ones is gloomy. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can still avoid a +2C world if we stop the engines that are driving us off a cliff.

We’re seeing some of the engines being shut off now. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade, women and their supporters have been showing up in droves to vote against this injustice. I have said it before and I will say it again. The rights of women are crucial to the survival of this world.

Labor unions are seeing a big surge again as people see that organizing for a goal sees benefits for them all. Tribes are forming everywhere and people realize that banding together for a common goal can see massive benefits.

We haven’t gotten there yet with stopping human-induced climate change. Many of us are banding together but the real change won’t happen until the “Queen” is replaced in our collective hive.

We need to replace the violence-loving, conspiratorial, and plain shitty politicians with younger idealistic people. The ones that have been cast from a new mold, one that loves integration and sustainability. One that espouses living gently and simply with Nature.

When that day happens, and I hope it happens soon, can we truly be a sustainable and happy tribe of humans.

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