Survival of Civilization and Personal Survival Following

¶ … Survival of Civilization and Personal Survival Following a Large-Scale Nuclear Disaster

This study operates from the viewpoint of a disaster situation and in this scenario the disaster chosen is a nuclear disaster. The purpose of this study is to choose three objects that will ensure civilization continues. A nuclear disaster would result in many deaths in addition to the destruction of property, plants, animals, and if the disaster were on a large enough scale, life as it is known would cease to exist.

Three Items to Ensure Civilization's Survival

Three items that would be chosen to ensure that civilization survives would be: (1) a packet of seeds; (2) a bag of medicine; and (3) a book on survival. While infrastructure might still be in place, the necessary manpower to operate the infrastructure would likely not be in existence. Therefore, this type of disaster, on a large enough scale would result in a loss in electricity and running water for a long time. Ensuring that civilization continued to exist would very much be reliant on the ability of the population to locate food sources, water sources, and obtain medications that would be needed to fight disease. As people in today's world do not know any longer how to survive in the outdoors, a book on survival would be important in this endeavor.

Three Items Chosen for Personal Survival

The survivors would need some method of protecting themselves from wild animals and other predators. As well, these type of survival would require that the individual be able to start fires for warmth and for cooking food for nourishment. If only three items could be chosen to ensure civilization's survival, those three items would be: (1) a knife (2) a lighter and (3) water purification tablets. A knife would be needed not only for protection purposes but for hunting game for food. The lighter would be necessary for lighting fires to keep warm and to cook foods. Water purification tablets also would be critically needed to ensure that survivors had access to drinking water.

The reason for choosing a knife rather than a gun is because while a gun would be optimal there is no way of ensuring that ammunition would be available. However, a good knife would serve many useful purposes. For example, a knife would be useful for killing and preparing game and a knife could also be used for protection and for other necessary tasks in surviving.

The reason for choosing a lighter rather than matches is because matches could become wet and useless. While the lighter would eventually run out of fluid, the type of lighter chosen would be a refillable lighter because chances are that some type of lighter fluid could be located and that it would be easier to locate than ammunition in the event of some type of disaster. Of course, the lighter would have to be used sparingly and fires that were started would have to be maintained without constant usage of the lighter so that it could be useful for as long as possible.

Water purification tablets would be of primary importance in the event of a nuclear disaster because much of the water would be undrinkable and water that was not affected by the disaster, still might not be drinkable without being purified. Water purification processes take time and the water purification tablets would ensure that drinking water that was safe for consumption would be immediately available for the survivors.

Nuclear disaster on a large scale will result in survivors having to relocate themselves away from the site of the nuclear disaster to avoid fallout radiation. Survivors banding together would hopefully bring to the table other useful survival items such as tents, cookstoves, lanterns, medications, seeds for planting and other useful tools that would assist in the survival effort and make it more bearable for those who are living after a large-scale nuclear disaster.

In the event of a large-scale nuclear disaster, the luxuries to which today's human beings have grown so accustomed would naturally be missed however, having lived through something that killed so many people, those who survived would likely be grateful for the necessities and would be so busy working to simply survive that they would not have time to lament what they no longer had in terms of luxuries.