The Reliance School

1,600 Words / 6 min. Read

In How to Survive the Future, we’ve compiled lists of essential tools, resources and information to help you build a more resilient life. These include over 100 books covering a wide range of topics, from climate change and collapse to disaster preparation, gardening, and community building.

In this post, we’ve pared down that list to just 6 titles; a much more manageable amount, and a great starting point for your journey! We’ve read and would recommend all of these books to anyone interested in building security and sustainability in uncertain times.

Climate Change

‍Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency (Mark Lynas) $20, Harper Collins

Philosopher Timothy Morton calls climate change a hyperobject;¹ a problem made up of problems (made up of problems), to the point that addressing it - or even conceiving it - feels beyond our ability.

The word "hyperobject" offers a useful shorthand for why threats like global warming are so difficult to understand or accept: They threaten our survival in ways that defy traditional modes of thinking about reality and humiliate our cognitive powers, a disorienting shift that sends many people reeling into superstition, polarization, and denial.²

The intangibility of climate change is what makes it so hard to recognize the threat until it’s at our doorstep. In Our Final Warning, Mark Lynas paints a vivid and harrowing picture of a world that’s 6°C warmer - a threshold that we’re creeping closer to with each passing year.³ Chapter by chapter, the book describes in detail the effects of each additional degree of warming:

At one degree - the world we're already living in - vast wildfires scorch California and Australia, while monster hurricanes devastate coastal cities. At two degrees the Arctic ice cap melts away, and coral reefs disappear from the tropics. At three, the world begins to run out of food, threatening millions with starvation. At four, large areas of the globe are too hot for human habitation, erasing entire nations and turning billions into climate refugees. At five, the planet is warmer than for 55 million years, while at six degrees a mass extinction of unparalleled proportions sweeps the planet, even raising the threat of the end of all life on Earth.⁴

While the prognosis is grim, it also serves to illustrate the importance of fighting this crisis; even if we can’t stop climate change entirely, every tenth of a degree saved has massive ramifications for our society (and planet). Our Final Warning is a call to action for a world that continues to disregard this existential threat.⁵

Collapse

The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age (John Michael Greer) $15, New Society Publishers

Climate change is just one node in the polycrisis;⁶ if our goal is building resilience, we need to recognize the fragility of our systems at large. In The Long Descent, John Michael Greer begins by taking an in-depth look at our fossil-fueled society, and the implications of the end of abundant energy. Greer then explores the stories which inform our understanding of this predicament:

In discussions about the future of industrial society, too many people remain fixated on only two possible outcomes: business as usual and imminent apocalypse. People cling to these two polar opposites because of how well they jibe with existing cultural narratives - namely the myth of progress and the myth of apocalypse - that exert tremendous emotional power over us. But there are a vast number of middle-ground scenarios in between these two extremes, and these latter possibilities represent the most likely future course of our civilization.⁷

Rather than collapse or utopia, Greer makes the case that industrial society will undergo a slow decline, precipitated by a series of crises. After painting a picture of what that process may entail, the book ends with practical advice for persevering through the transition. The Long Descent is a sobering tale of our potential future, and serves as both a warning and an inspiration to our generation.

Location

‍America’s Most Sustainable Cities and Regions: Surviving the 21st Century Megatrends (John Day, Charles Hall) $30, Springer

Understanding the risks inherent to your location is a key factor in building resilience. While no part of the country can escape the challenges we're facing, some regions are better-placed than others. As the authors state:

Cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas are situated where water and other vital ecological services are scarce, and the enormous flows of resources and energy that were needed to create the megalopolises of the 20th century will prove unsustainable. Climate change is a reality, and regional impacts will become increasingly severe. Finite resources will mean profound changes for society in general, and the energy-intensive lifestyles of the US and Canada in particular. But not all regions are equally vulnerable to these 21st-century megatrends.

Using 12 cities as case studies, the authors extrapolate trends for climate change, weather patterns, energy, agriculture, natural resources, population density, and societal structure, to see how different regions of the country may fare. Whether you choose to move or stay where you are, America’s Most Sustainable Regions and Cities provides a toolkit to help with that decision.

Preparedness

‍When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Prepping and Crisis Survival (Matthew Stein) $25, Chelsea Green

As climate change increases both the frequency and severity of drought, heat waves, fires, floods, and storms,⁸ disaster preparedness is more important than ever. And while preparation often goes hand-in-hand with self-reliance, it’s also a key part of community resilience; when you’re not in a state of crisis yourself, you’re able to help those around you. The enormity of natural disasters can easily overwhelm our ability to respond effectively as a nation;¹¹ while help may be on the way, it may take days, weeks, or even months before things return to normal. Inside that window, it’s up to us.

With a background in mechanical design, construction, and sustainability,⁹ Matthew Stein spent over two years compiling this comprehensive resource for responding to emergencies.¹⁰ When Disaster Strikes covers everything from water treatment and food storage to first aid, essential supplies, communication, and self-defense. The second half of the book deals with mitigating natural disasters, such as fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, winter storms, and tornadoes.

Perhaps most importantly, When Disaster Strikes explores the mindset required to navigate extreme situations; determination, commitment, and the ability to take quick, decisive action may be our most valuable assets in a crisis. Whether it’s Tuesday or doomsday,¹² this book is an invaluable resource for ensuring the safety of you and your loved ones.

Community

‍A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (Rebecca Solnit) $20, Penguin Random House

One of the best predictors of our ability to respond to (and recover from) disaster is social capital;¹³ the relationships and bonds we’ve formed with our family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and local communities.¹⁴ At the same time, America is experiencing an erosion of that capital; polarized politics and “culture wars” have caused distrust and division on a national scale;¹⁵ the decline of “third spaces”¹⁶ and public institutions¹⁷ leads to less interaction with our community at large; the digitization of social interaction has increased depression and anxiety,¹⁸ while COVID fueled a “loneliness epidemic” that’s still ongoing.¹⁹

In A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores our response to crisis and disaster over the past century, and how social capital can help us survive (and sometimes thrive) in the face of catastrophe. In a world that often seems at odds with itself, the book provides a refreshing counterpoint:

Breaking down Hobbes’s conception of a supposedly natural “war of all against all,” Solnit’s empiricism demonstrates that neighborhood societies of cooperation and mutual aid arise precisely when official institutions of sovereign authority have broken down, leaving no one to help the wounded or traumatized except for other survivors, neighbors, and health providers. Solnit shows how often the greatest post-disaster threats to human security and welfare come not from “anarchy” or even “looting” but from the panicked, militarized overreaction of elites who fear a loss of power and control.²⁰

Social capital is an essential resource, but to draw on it, we have to build it; and to build it, we have to invest time and energy into our relationships and communities. A Paradise Built In Hell is an inspirational reminder of the importance of connection, and the role it plays in our survival.

Gardening

‍Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (Toby Hemenway) $30, Chelsea Green

We believe that gardening is essential to creating a sustainable future; not just as a path to more resilient food networks, but as a means of fighting climate change and restoring our ecosystems. And no practice is better-suited to this task than permaculture, defined as:

the conscious design of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people - providing food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.²¹

‍Gaia’s Garden is a ground-up guide to the art, science, and practice of permaculture. Drawing on decades of experience as a researcher, educator, gardener,²² and field director of the Permaculture Institute,²³ Toby Hemenway walks us through every step of the process, from conception to completion.

The book begins with the ecological principles informing the practice of permaculture; working with nature to create bountiful harvests without back-breaking work. From there, it explores the topics of soil science, mulching and composting, garden planning and design, water harvesting and conservation, plant roles and functions, species selection, and working with local wildlife (such as pollinators and birds). Filled with full-color illustrations and practical examples, Gaia’s Garden is a comprehensive introduction to permaculture (and gardening in general).

Footnotes & References

1. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Timothy Morton, University of Minnesota Press)
2. At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down (Laura Hudson, WIRED)
3. Global warming in the pipeline (James Hansen et al., Oxford Open Climate Change)
4. Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency (Mark Lynas)
5. Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels (Damian Carrington, Ben Stockton, The Guardian)
6. This is why 'polycrisis' is a useful way of looking at the world right now (Kate Whiting, HyoJin Park, World Economic Forum)
7. Review: The Long Descent by John Michael Greer (Frank Kaminski, Resilience)
8. The Influence of Climate Change on Extreme Environmental Events (National Geographic)
9. In Remembrance: Matthew Stein (Chelsea Green)
10. Episode 795: Matthew Stein, Author of "When Disaster Strikes" (The Survival Podcast)
11. Why the U.S. Disaster Agency Is Not Ready for Catastrophes (Thomas Frank, Scientific American)
12. The Schism Breaking Apart the “Prepper” Community (Lili Loofbourow, Slate)
13. Disaster recovery via social capital (Beate Völker, Nature Sustainability)
14. What Is Social Capital and Why Is It So Important? (Rick Mask, Southern New Hampshire University)
15. America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide (Michael Dimock, Richard Wike, Pew Research Center)
16. Worry Less About Crumbling Roads, More About Crumbling Libraries (Eric Klinenberg, The Atlantic)
17. Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital (Robert Putnam, Journal of Democracy)
18. Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review (Fazida Karim, Azeezat Oyewande, Lamis Abdalla, Reem Ehsanullah, Safeera Khan, Cureus)
19. Loneliness in America: How the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness and What We Can Do About It (Richard Weissbourd, Milena Batanova, Virginia Lovison, Eric Torres, Harvard)
20. Come on up to the Rising (Jonathan Greenberg, Stanford Social Innovation Review)
21. What is Permaculture? (Permaculture Research Institute)
22. About Toby (Toby Hemenway)
23. Toby Hemenway (Permaculture Institute)