Overlooked topics that could change everything? One example is natural rubber.
Posted by yamanp@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 21 comments
I just saw this video about rubber as the "natural disaster to worry about." The last post about the rubber supply chain on here was from 2 years ago.
Basically, natural rubber is used for plane tires, and the crops only grow in SE Asia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFXLZ7FEJc4
What are some overlooked areas that could cause our world to quickly change?
It feels like something in this fragile global economy is bound to break. What are you doing to prep?
I'm feeling good about my preps and want to add a home battery backup. It feels like throwing away money for peace of mind, though.
churnopol@reddit
We're on borrowed time before a virus or fungus wipes out coffee plants. So I've been stocking up on different freeze dried instant coffees. My favorite right now is Africafe instant coffee. The packaging is perfect for prepping and will definitely hit that 25+ year lifespan. It's a blend of arabica and robusta.
There's also a second banana extinction going on right now. The infection rates are so bad, banana workers have to sanitize their PPE before and after leaving a crop zone as to reduce cross contamination. I bought a few bottles of that pricey $38 bottle of banana liqueur and different types of freeze dried banana products. I'm still scratching my head on what to do with freeze dried banana popsicles? I'm sure it would taste good as a drink after being rehydrated.
Dangerous-School2958@reddit
There are quite a few natural rubber substitutes. (Styrene-Butadiene Rubber SBR, Polybutadiene Rubber BR, Nitrile Rubber NBR, Chloroprene Rubber CR, Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer EPDM, Butyl Rubber IIR. They all have various properties for instance, CR is specificity used in neoprene suits.
Not something I'm personally going to prep for outside of keeping a collection of gasket material and o rings.
Mountain_Fig_9253@reddit
That’s what I thought too until I watched the video. Apparently the synthetic versions are limited in utility and a rubber farm failure would actually have pretty significant impacts to the economy.
Fheredin@reddit
It's not that there are no substitutes, but that some applications absolutely must have natural rubber. Aircraft wheels are the big one.
Spnszurp@reddit
it's not like there's been much pressure to find an alternative... I'm willing to bet we'd come up with something
yamanp@reddit (OP)
This is what I was trying to highlight. Agreed that there are synthetic rubbers too.
Dangerous-School2958@reddit
It's got to be purely based on cost. There's a dandelion that produces a natural latex in its roots.
Sink_Stuff@reddit
Rubber trees grow all over the place. No one bothers because it's too cheap to worry about. But as soon as the price of rubber becomes more than dirt, trust that it will be produced all over the world. It's a very hearty tree that grows outside from Florida to parts of South America. There will never be a shortage of rubber unless there is another world war
snazzynewshoes@reddit
Native Americans learned to add sulfur to latex to keep it 'bouncy' over 3K years ago. They were harvesting latex in Central America. The 1st big boom was the Belgian Congo in the late 1800's for bicycle tires and motorize stuff came shortly...and hoses and gaskets, etc...Wild latex was also in South America, then they planted rubber trees all over the tropics.
vba7@reddit
Oh man, it's a real disaster if you forget to bring a rubber
Aust_Norm@reddit
Bees. The Verroa mite has the potential to decimate bee colonies. The loss of bees for pollenating plants has the potential to critically impact food production with estimates at a 70% reduction in yields.
yamanp@reddit (OP)
That's a really interesting one. Bees are also shipped to CA in the US for almond tree farms at the same time of year so they are really susceptible here.
Losing our pollinators would send shockwaves.
98G3LRU@reddit
Wrong. Rubber is not "only grown in SE Asia." Most production? Yes. Only? No.
Did you ever take geography in school?
Grigor50@reddit
The world economy really isn't that fragile. When hundreds of millions of people are completely dependant on stuff working, and earn a shit ton if it is working, then there's an irresistible force for it to work. That's why the black markets were so successful in communist countries, and why desperate needs for commodities always result in technological progress. And that wasn't even for survival.
Also, remember that world trade, according to several ways of counting, reached a level back in 1914 that wasn't reached again for almost a century, despite the huge advances made in so many fields, especially electronics. In other words: even if a lot of "necessary" modern technology temporarily fails, the world would continue working.
As for the specific case of rubber... most of all the rubber in the world is synthetic, for good reason. More and more money and resources is being put into finding methods of counteracting the blight, and it seems unlikely these attempts would fail.
yamanp@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the hopeful reply. Also did not know about world trade in 1914. That's really interesting.
Grigor50@reddit
I was quite shocked when I learned about it in university, how globalisation had reached an amazing level in 1914, before the disaster struck, WWI, then the awful post-war era when the states simply could not find a way to return to the openness and reciprocal dependency of earlier times, which led to Hitler's crazy ideas of "conquering them instead of being dependent on them", which in turn led to communism. Even if the rest of the world could start to rebuild, it still took so much time for the world to become as open for trade and codependence as before.
gilbert2gilbert@reddit
Sudden failure of gravity
capinredbeard22@reddit
Well that’s an uplifting thought!
yamanp@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the chuckle
gilbert2gilbert@reddit
It's a theory
silasmoeckel@reddit
RE battery backup check out grid stabilization inventives. Mine I'm hitting ROI at year 3 and have 7 more years on my contract to make money.
As to rubber some of it can be replaced with metal sometimes a simple swap sometimes needing machining as to gasket type applications. Hoses a lot more problematic, ev's don't have many that matter. Tires the amish been using steel for a long time don't go to fast.