What To Do After The Collapse Of The Oil Industry

It’s May, 2020. The world is being rocked by the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Major countries and states are in a lockdown due to fears of the spread of this deadly virus.

Shops, schools, and businesses have closed down until further notice. Busy streets have dried up, international flights canceled and the whole world is waiting for a cure, a vaccine, and an end to this deadly virus.

No one saw this coming, no one could have predicted this, but yet here we are in it.

The truth is, no one really expects these kinds of SHTF events to happen, but yet they do. This is just the problem or challenge we’re facing today, and I’m sure we’ll find a solution to it.

What about tomorrow, what happens when there’s no longer something we depend on, on a daily basis? Something very important to us right now. Something like oil.

When there’s no longer oil, how do we survive that? Oil is not an unlimited resource. It’s a limited one.

One day, the oil wells and reserves of the world could run dry. Just like this COVID-19 outbreak, nobody knows when that will happen as well. What happens after then?

Well, it’s pretty scary to think about it, because most of our everyday needs today are derived from oil or are petroleum-based.

For instance, almost every part of the car you drive is derived from petroleum, like the tires, the seats, the paint, the carbon fiber body, and most importantly, the fuel that runs it is derived from oil.

What about the fertilizer for your farms and gardens, the tractors and machines that do the bulk of the work in our farms where most of the food in the world is produced?

The medicines that keep you and your livestock alive.

Jet fuel for aircraft and materials that go into the construction of the aircraft itself are all petroleum-based.

The clothes you wear and the detergents that keep them clean. The beautiful sneakers that adorn and protect your feet and even the comfy matrasses you lay on at night are all derived from oil.

If I were to continue listing everyday products derived from oil, then maybe this article will not be enough to list them all.

But the point is clear. If our access to oil is suddenly shut down today, the world will suffer so much from it.

We’ll all suffer so much unless we look for substitutes early on. Unless we look for ways to survive without oil and petroleum-based products, we’re all in for quite a disaster.

It’s an SHTF event that no one wants to happen, but yet might meet us face to face by surprise one day, unless we’re prepared.

So, when SHTF, how do we survive without oil and the many products derived from it that affects our daily lives today?

What are the survival skills we need to learn right now before it’s too late?

Here are some ideas.

Learn food acquisition and preparation skills now

Today when you’re hungry, you don’t have to cook. You can just go out there to any grocery store and get packaged food and fill your stomach, and off you go.

Without oil, those means of obtaining food will likely not be there. You’d have to learn basic skills of acquiring and preparing your own food like fishing, hunting, dressing, and cooking.

No gas cookers and propane burners means you have to learn traditional means of cooking like using wood and charcoal to prepare your meals.

No more plastic water bottles means you also have to learn how to wash out and sanitize animal intestines, instead of eating all of them or throwing them away and using them as water bladders.

Every part of an animal has its use, so we have to learn these uses now, and get prepared for a life without oil.

You have to learn how to keep your livestock alive without using petroleum-based medicines produced in the lab and learn how to use traditional medicines to keep your livestock healthy and good for consumption.

Learn important food preservation techniques

Storing and preserving food today is very easy because most people have refrigerators and freezers at home that does the job and makes it easy.

But without propane and other petroleum-based gases that refrigerators make use of to cool and freeze your food, what methods do we turn to?

The answer lies in tradition food preservation techniques.

Traditional food preservation techniques have been around for centuries, and even though they’re not the most effective and efficient today, they’ll do if modern food preservation technologies are no longer available due to lack of oil.

Some of these traditional techniques include drying, smoking, salting, fermentation, and even pickling. Many people today have forgotten these traditional food preservation techniques and unless you learn them again, you’re going to have a tough time when the oil finally runs out.

Learn social skills

There’s no doubt saying that social media, cell phones, and computers rule our lives today. People spend most of their time on their phones, on Facebook and Instagram, and make many virtual friends than actually going out there to meet people face to face and creating real relationships and connections.

That is why most people today have millions of Instagram followers and thousands of virtual Facebook friends but have very few friends they can see physically on a daily basis and have face-to-face conversations with.

What happens when there are no more oil and petroleum-based products used for manufacturing our iPhones and computers?

Without those luxuries, you’d look for other ways to make real friends, and without any social skills, making these friends and connections essential for survival in an oil-less world will be extremely difficult.

That is why we need to start learning these social skills now before it’s too late.

As humans, we’re wired for connection, we’re built to be among other people to be in a community, to be seen, known, and loved.

Although social media tends to satisfy these needs now in most people, it will not always be there when the oil runs out.

Hence, the need to learn important social skills now. We need to learn how to have real communication with people we see every day, like our neighbors.

When you’re on the bus, train or place where other people gather, don’t just plug in your headphone and bury your head in your phone.

Look around you and find a way to talk to that person next to you. Doing so will allow you to widen your social circle, develop real relationships built on trust, and most importantly, it will help you learn valuable social skills that will aid your survival in an SHTF situation.

Learn how to use powerless tools

Before the advent of power tools which are petroleum-based products, we made use of powerless tools like hoes, shovel, spade, wheelbarrows, hammers, crowbars, screwdrivers, chisels, and so on.

The question we need to ask ourselves is that do we still know how to use these tools? A day might come in the future when the oil runs out or it’s too scarce and expensive to purchase than knowing how to use these tools will be essential to our survival.

Today, we have tractors, augers, cultivators, planters, power drills, irrigators, power saws for cutting materials, and even nail guns for effortlessly sinking nails into wood. Find the best of these tools on Craftsmanprotools.com.

Nothing is wrong with having or using these tools. I personally love having these tools and using them for my projects, as they make carrying out projects far easier and saves a lot of time.

However, all these power tools are either manufactured with products from oil or they make use of fuel gotten from oil.

When there’s no more oil, it will be either impossible to get these power tools or useless to have them in the first place.

That’s why you shouldn’t get rid of your powerless tools just yet.

In fact, you need to learn how to use them again if you don’t know how to because this knowledge will definitely go a long way to help you survive and thrive when there is no more fuel to fuel your power tools.

Learn to grow food the old way

Without petroleum-based fertilizers, you will have to learn how to grow a garden in the old way. People used to make use of manure from livestock and poultry and compost for the growth of plants.

These are still effective ways of fertilizing the ground and growing plants. Without petroleum-based fertilizers, we’ll all have to return to using these traditional gardening techniques to grow our food.

Gas-powered tillers and cultivators will not work too, so we also have to learn how to use traditional means of cultivating the soil like making use of animal-powered or hand-powered gardening tools.

This knowledge should not be lost. If you don’t know how to grow a garden using these traditional means, then you should start learning now and develop these skills that may help you and your family in the future.

Conclusion

The idea and thought of living without oil and the many oil-based products that we make use of today is a very scary one, very difficult to accept.

However, it’s important to know that the oil we enjoy so much today will not last forever. One day, it will be gone, scarce or too expensive to purchase on a regular basis. It will be gone along with the many products manufactured with or from it.

When that day comes, we don’t want to be caught unaware. That is why we have to start learning survival skills like the ones mentioned in this article that will help us cope if we ever experience that type of SHTF event.