Surviving The Warming: Strategies for Americans

(5/5) Multigenerational Strategies to Survive and Prosper in a Warming World
Global warming is coming after us. Here in Sacramento, California, we set a record for the number of 100 degrees or more days in a year. And that record, 45 days, will be broken this first week of October 2024. Hurricane Helene just set a record as the strongest hurricane to cross the Florida Panhandle. It left destruction all the way to Western North Carolina. Extreme weather events have become the new normal. Scorching weather can kill you, especially if you are one of the approximately 45 percent of Americans who are obese. Sweating keeps us cool. High humidity can prevent cooling. Excessive layers of fat act as an insulator that slow cooling. Keeping your body at an average weight will soon become necessary to stay alive in a warming world. How did we get to such a dire place in the history of our planet? And what can we do to survive and live reasonably comfortably in a warming world? Those are the questions that Lorin Robinson answers in Surviving The Warming: Strategies for Americans. His recommendations are multigenerational since future generations will suffer more than the present ones. They include considering the best places to live, not relying solely on the medical establishment to care for your health, finding access to food as crops fail from heat and drought, and personal security. If you care about staying healthy in a warming world, especially if you have grandchildren, this book should be required reading. (Tom Spradley)

(5/5) The Next Great Migration
"Surviving the Warming: Strategies for Americans" is an exhaustively researched book. Robinson fills the reader in on past events, how it impacts the current world and a certain doomsday scenario as to what will occur in the future. According to Robinson's studies, we may already be beyond the point of recovery. A possible socioeconomic revolution and major geographical upheaval may be closer than we think. This work will make you think and more importantly act to help mute what is certainly headed our way. (Bob Timpson)

(5/5) Robinson Tackles a Troubling Subject with Head-on Professionalism
Whether you believe in climate change or not, you owe it to yourself to read Lorin Robinson’s Surviving the Warming. This book does not pull any punches, is well documented, and includes Dr. Robinson’s stories about how climate change could affect us in the future. This is a book that should be required reading for all, and required twice for climate change deniers. (Davie Perrin)

Bill Berry, Columnist, Madison Capital-Times

https://tinyurl.com/mskn52d3

"Memo from a Climate Writer: We're Screwed"

Lorin Robinson has deep roots in these parts. He has been studying and writing about global warming for a long time — and he says it’s a done deal, and we’re screwed.

His latest book, “Surviving the Warming: Strategies for Americans,” does two key things. It describes in detail why the warming, as he calls it, is going to be a massive catastrophe. Then he outlines strategies and provides information on how to survive what he sees as the inevitable decay of civilization as we know it.

Some of his key points: We need to live with less, brace for societal disruption, prepare for mass migrations as people flee danger zones, especially coastal and desert regions, and get used to thinking like, well, survivalists or preppers. “For whatever reasons, preppers have the right idea,” he writes. Their resources online and in other media have value, he writes.

The book is unabashedly critical of Donald Trump and other climate deniers. But written as it was in 2024, before the presidential election, he didn’t know who would win.

No matter. He cites a range of scientific facts to conclude we can’t beat climate change no matter who’s in charge, so we must adapt. Many of the strategies he offers are familiar, though not at the scale he says we’ll need. They include building cohesive, self-reliant local communities, neighborhoods or even communes. “Get thee off the grid,” he advises. Societal decay could lead to rampant violence, so prepare for it, he says. “I think at some point Americans will have to rely increasingly on themselves for protection from the growing lawlessness that will accompany the likely collapse of civil society,” he writes.

Robinson has a broad communications background. He was a journalism professor at UW-River Falls, where I was among his students. He went on to chair the Journalism Department, then a career in corporate communications at 3M, and later a return to teaching. Along the way, he has been a working journalist and author. He has written for an array of publications, including guest columns for The Capital Times, one that he uses in “Surviving the Warming.”

His interest in the environment is deep and long-standing. In fact, the first environmental journalism gig I ever went on was when Robinson packed a few scruffy broadcast journalism students into a car and drove us to Clam Lake for a freelance piece he was doing for a Twin Cities TV station on the environmental impact of the U.S. Navy’s proposed extremely low-frequency radar system intended to track enemy submarines. Among other publications, he authored a 2015 novel, “The Warming,” speculative fiction about the human impact of the climate crisis.

“Surviving the Warming,” he writes, comes down to a simple mantra, “Simplicity, Self-reliance and Sustainability.” Yes, it assumes the worst. “Much of the book is devoted to challenging the ‘rose-colored glasses’ view that we can save ourselves from the worst warming has to offer by continuing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he told me in an email exchange.

Survival resources range from old favorites like swamp coolers to heat pumps powered at times by solar energy. Cooling is easier than heating, he notes, but wood stoves, creative use of passive and active solar and other strategies will help in self-sufficiency efforts.

In many ways, the book seems written for young adults who will have to deal with the impending disaster. Even as America is beset by drought-induced wildfires in the West and super hurricanes on the coast, Robinson told me he seeks to fight the normalization of these events and “accept the fact that things are getting rapidly and progressively worse, requiring that planning to cope starts now.” Planning strategies focus on dealing with “challenges in areas such as housing, family finances, food, water, energy, employment, health and safety and security.”

Like others who have studied warming, he says many thousands in the U.S. will be forced to migrate to escape the worst. As ocean levels rise, submerged coastlines will increase dramatically, “affecting a small sliver of the nation’s land but a disproportionate share of its population,” he writes. Drought and wildfires like last week’s California conflagration will continue to sweep across the West, Northwest, Rocky Mountains, and also the Southeast. Combined with insufferable heat, a mass migration is coming, Robinson writes. Where will people go? The Upper Midwest for sure, but also the Northwest, Upper Great Plains and areas northeast of the Ohio Valley. The migration will stress the resources of states like Wisconsin. His advice to those in danger zones: Migrate sooner than later.

I hope “Rob,” as we called him, is wrong, but I fear he’s right.

(5/5) Prepare for the Imminent

One cannot either believe or disbelieve global warming; it’s not a matter of belief; no longer up for debate. Its evidence is the province of science, not opinion. Data analysis and evidence are in conclusive agreement about the slow emergency which not only is already underway but has crossed alarming tipping points after which course correction is no longer available to us. Catastrophic global harms are clearly manifesting the predictions of decades of climate science.

Should you continue to separate your plastics and aluminum? Sure if you’d like, but it’s comparable to bailing out a rowboat already at the bottom of the lake.

What WILL make a difference for you and your loved ones is preparation, and that’s the topic of this accessible guide prepared by Lorin Robinson.

I highly recommend Surviving the Warming: Strategies for Americans. (Dennis Mick)

(5/5) A Must Read!
Surviving The Warming,” by Dr. Lorin Robinson, should be on the must read list for every 9th and 10th grade student along with the parent generation. The book is a highly readable reference to remind us of - this is how we got here, this is what is happening and this is what we must do to survive. “Surviving… “was a fear-inspiring warning in 2024 and now that political changes have scuttled many of the hard won steps to protect our clean water, the aggressive effort to advance our climate laws in Biden Inflation Reduction Act which may be repealed, the damage to our access to alternative non-polluting energy technologies, the immigration reforms that will reduce our workforce and with lack of water and likely loss of 50 percent of our food production all make for sleepless nights. Dr. Robinson’s guide to how to survive and plan is essential if we are to deal with the inevitable violence and deprivation we are all facing – especially the young. His core message is that we have come to the point where we all have to rethink our lifestyles, adopt simplicity , become self-reliant and embrace sustainability as a way of dealing with the coming crisis. I strongly recommend “Surviving …” for everyone and it should be shared widely. (Duane Ebnet)

5/5) Read this Book if You Care About Your Family
This book is essential in thinking about how personal activity and practices can offset the Warming. The book offers an unbiased and extremely approachable way to think about this issue that has unfortunately become increasingly political. The book begins with foundational, factual reporting of climate change and moves to concrete strategies that everyday folks and their families can do. It's a difficult issue to think about, and the book gives real strategies and hope for individuals and their families. (Brenda Bredahl)

(5/5) How to Survive the Warming
Dr. Robinson, the author, conducted extensive research to support his views of how the Warming is progressing and how it will impact everyone in the coming years. Unfortunately, the climate situation cannot be stopped, and he explains why. He offers several examples of how the Warming will affect different groups of people in different locations. Some will be more drastic than others.

His suggestions for survival should be noted and applied where it is possible. The book is an excellent resource to plan actions on how each of us and our children and their children may need to deal with it. There are also references for specific additional resources to enhance the ability of individuals or groups to survive.

The book is a must-read, as we cannot ignore the impact the Warming will have on all of us. (Steve Daniel)

Please feel free to contact me with comments or questions.