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The above ideas for utilizing urban space for food production are almost all quite good, and I feel they have a place in Twilight: 2000. The single greatest drawback, I believe, is that all of these ideas require a few things that will be in short supply in at least the United States in 1997. Provided some preconditions can be met, virtually all of the ideas above can be put into practice in at least some locations, if not many locations. As usual, I"m going to address conditions in the United States, as I don"t feel qualified to offer any but the most generalized ideas on the situation in other countries.
The first precondition is sufficient order. In the first year after the TDM, there will be a lot of desperate fools running around who are more interested in taking what others might have than in producing for themselves. Fire is a danger that goes hand-in-hand with civil disorder. There are lots of options for dealing with the disorder, but it has to be dealt with before any sustained food production can be undertaken.
The second precondition is stocks. Survivors need seed. Tools for intensive gardening, which is essentially what we"re talking about in a city, can be improvised. Seed cannot. This problem isn"t insurmountable, but again it has to be addressed if urban cultivation is to occur. By the same token, livestock must be procured from someplace if it"s going to be raised in an urban environment. The livestock is going to need to eat, too. How does one acquire chickens, rabbits (sigh), catfish, or crawfish in a post-Exchange American city There are answers, but we"ll need to provide them for the scenario to be believable.
Going hand-in-hand with the issue of civil disorder, livestock is going to be a prime target for hungry survivors. Those who have chickens or ducks or whatever are going to have to fight for them or be very clever about concealing them.
Water is another critical issue. After the TDM, electricity for pumping water will be out right across the country. People and crops need water, and they can"t go without it for very long. I have a bad habit of letting two or three days go by without watering my container tomatoes. The rainy season hasn"t started in California, so the only water those tomatoes are going to get comes from my hose. What would I do if the water were out The same applies to everything in my garden. In cities that get rain year-round, such as those cities east of the 100th Meridian, it may be possible to rely on a combination of rainfall and improvised cisterns. Throughout much of the American West, however, rainfall is both seasonal and scanty. The more the solution to acquiring water in these places depends on civil order, planning, cooperation, etc., the less likely the solution is to be executed. Albuquerque is in a much tougher spot than Cincinnati.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I"m not saying that any of the proposed ideas for producing food in urban areas aren"t viable. I"m saying that opportunities have to exist. Crawfish are only going to be successfully farmed in places where the situation is not so chaotic as to preclude farming or animal husbandry, where there are crawfish to be found and kept alive during the initial turbulence, where there are adequate facilities (possibly the least restrictive requirement), where fresh water is available in sufficient quantity, and where food can be provided for the crawfish before they are eaten. The same goes for urban corn, albeit with a slightly modified list.
As a consequence of all this, I think we have to look back at the timeframe between July, 1997 and November, 1997. What was really going on in the US during this time Howling Wilderness would have us believe that the American population was more-or-less caught by surprise by the nuclear attacks on US soil. To the degree that it is possible to make a sweeping generalization of the frame of mind of a nation of 280 million, what were Americans really thinking I"ve been writing a piece to address this timeframe, based on a careful reading of the rhythms of nuclear weapons use from July through November, 1997. I"ll try to summarize here by saying that I strongly doubt the nation was sitting on its collective hands during this time. Some people would be, of course. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism. However, the first use of nuclear weapons would have prompted a strong reaction. I don"t believe the nation (or any nation) would have found itself nearly as unprepared as if a nuclear attack had come out of the blue.
Thunder Empire is an extreme case of preparedness. I have been trying to justify why the whole place didn"t blow away in the wind with my lengthy narratives on how certain characters drove contingency planning after the start of the Sino-Soviet War. Southeastern Arizona needs that kind of lead time in order to make it. Other parts of the countryparticularly the Midwestwill be better suited to a more Johnny-come-lately response. Five months isn"t enough time to start an effective State Guard from scratch, but it is enough time to affect public awareness about what to do in the event of a crisis. Ergo, many of the food-production solutions proposed in earlier posts are entirely plausible on a case-by-case basiseven where otherwise hard-to-imagine developments involving stockpiles of seed or livestock (poor bunnies) are involved.
Webstral
The first precondition is sufficient order. In the first year after the TDM, there will be a lot of desperate fools running around who are more interested in taking what others might have than in producing for themselves. Fire is a danger that goes hand-in-hand with civil disorder. There are lots of options for dealing with the disorder, but it has to be dealt with before any sustained food production can be undertaken.
The second precondition is stocks. Survivors need seed. Tools for intensive gardening, which is essentially what we"re talking about in a city, can be improvised. Seed cannot. This problem isn"t insurmountable, but again it has to be addressed if urban cultivation is to occur. By the same token, livestock must be procured from someplace if it"s going to be raised in an urban environment. The livestock is going to need to eat, too. How does one acquire chickens, rabbits (sigh), catfish, or crawfish in a post-Exchange American city There are answers, but we"ll need to provide them for the scenario to be believable.
Going hand-in-hand with the issue of civil disorder, livestock is going to be a prime target for hungry survivors. Those who have chickens or ducks or whatever are going to have to fight for them or be very clever about concealing them.
Water is another critical issue. After the TDM, electricity for pumping water will be out right across the country. People and crops need water, and they can"t go without it for very long. I have a bad habit of letting two or three days go by without watering my container tomatoes. The rainy season hasn"t started in California, so the only water those tomatoes are going to get comes from my hose. What would I do if the water were out The same applies to everything in my garden. In cities that get rain year-round, such as those cities east of the 100th Meridian, it may be possible to rely on a combination of rainfall and improvised cisterns. Throughout much of the American West, however, rainfall is both seasonal and scanty. The more the solution to acquiring water in these places depends on civil order, planning, cooperation, etc., the less likely the solution is to be executed. Albuquerque is in a much tougher spot than Cincinnati.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I"m not saying that any of the proposed ideas for producing food in urban areas aren"t viable. I"m saying that opportunities have to exist. Crawfish are only going to be successfully farmed in places where the situation is not so chaotic as to preclude farming or animal husbandry, where there are crawfish to be found and kept alive during the initial turbulence, where there are adequate facilities (possibly the least restrictive requirement), where fresh water is available in sufficient quantity, and where food can be provided for the crawfish before they are eaten. The same goes for urban corn, albeit with a slightly modified list.
As a consequence of all this, I think we have to look back at the timeframe between July, 1997 and November, 1997. What was really going on in the US during this time Howling Wilderness would have us believe that the American population was more-or-less caught by surprise by the nuclear attacks on US soil. To the degree that it is possible to make a sweeping generalization of the frame of mind of a nation of 280 million, what were Americans really thinking I"ve been writing a piece to address this timeframe, based on a careful reading of the rhythms of nuclear weapons use from July through November, 1997. I"ll try to summarize here by saying that I strongly doubt the nation was sitting on its collective hands during this time. Some people would be, of course. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism. However, the first use of nuclear weapons would have prompted a strong reaction. I don"t believe the nation (or any nation) would have found itself nearly as unprepared as if a nuclear attack had come out of the blue.
Thunder Empire is an extreme case of preparedness. I have been trying to justify why the whole place didn"t blow away in the wind with my lengthy narratives on how certain characters drove contingency planning after the start of the Sino-Soviet War. Southeastern Arizona needs that kind of lead time in order to make it. Other parts of the countryparticularly the Midwestwill be better suited to a more Johnny-come-lately response. Five months isn"t enough time to start an effective State Guard from scratch, but it is enough time to affect public awareness about what to do in the event of a crisis. Ergo, many of the food-production solutions proposed in earlier posts are entirely plausible on a case-by-case basiseven where otherwise hard-to-imagine developments involving stockpiles of seed or livestock (poor bunnies) are involved.
Webstral
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