A diet of worms for when it all falls apart

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Those who believe 2000 will be the year of the apocalypse are preparing for it now - right down to what they will eat. Wendy Grossman reports

What you'll need to survive the apocalypse

THIS is supposed to be the year of panic, when we all realise that the Year 2000 problem (Y2K) is almost upon us, bringing with it The End of the World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI, as it's often referred to on the Internet). The most extreme predictions have it that on January 1, 2000, public transport will fall over, the food chain will be disrupted, electrical blackouts and brownouts will take out our heat and light, the water supply will fail, and civil unrest will ensue because neither the banks nor the Government will be able to fix their software in time to issue social security and other cheques.

Poster advertising TEOTWAWKI by Ian Laurie SAMDOG@compuserve.com

Most people figure it won't be that bad - that some things won't work temporarily but that, ultimately, human adaptability and the will to see civilisation survive will take over and restore order out of potential chaos. After all, Quebec didn't collapse when a power outage froze the province for six weeks last winter, and Ireland didn't fold when a months-long banking strike in the 1970s required everyone to pull together and exchange handwritten bits of meaningless paper until the banks reopened and everyone could settle up.

There is, however, a class of people who not only believe TEOTWAWKI is upon us, but are positively looking forward to it: the hi-tech incarnation of the survivalist movement that first became known in the 1970s when the apocalyptic fear was of global nuclear warfare.

Their hoped-for scenario goes something like this: small failures due to end-of-year financial projections to start January 1, 1999; non-US failures start April 1999 as the fiscal year turns over; European crash fuels US crash; people start to panic in US and food, cash and petrol all become scarce, and bank runs become common; panic renews in July 1999 when state fiscal years turn over; September sees the beginning of business computer failures and food riots in larger cities; further crashes on 9/9/99 and federal computer failures in October mean major cities start to burn; December sees power outages and brownouts; New Year's Eve kills off 400 billion embedded chips, sparking failures in water, power, and transportation and five to 10 years of anarchy worldwide. If we're lucky and no one sparks a nuclear war, only four-fifths of the world's population will die. The survivors will be the smart ones, the prepared ones, the ones who flee the cities by the end of this year and set up self-sufficient homesteads.

Damien Thompson, author of The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium, points out that "one of the paradoxes of apocalyptic belief" is the fact that "the people who are spinning out these scenes always do so with wonderful and gleeful attention to detail. From the beginnings of history, people who've been describing the end of the world have done so with a certain amount of relish."

Nowhere is this more visible than in discussions of the Year 2000 problem on the Internet. "We are heading for a disaster greater than anything the world has experienced since the bubonic plague of the mid-14th century," writes Gary North, who adds that all jobs that didn't exist before 1945 are doomed, except that of computer programming. He advises us to ensure that we have printed copies of all personal records - insurance policies, birth certificates, bank and mortgage statements. If you don't believe him and others like him, you are a Pollyanna, too full of denial to examine the evidence objectively.

Much discussion is about money. If you're talking a complete financial collapse, you want to transmute your financial assets into something more durable than any single paper currency. Gold? Ah, well, now, in the US, "there are executive orders and options open to the government to confiscate gold during martial law, declaration of a national emergency, etc". Not gold, then. Try real estate you can live on and farm, silver, platinum, or items that will be in huge demand - bicycles, perhaps. In the Mad Max movies, it was petrol, since everyone was trying to get from inland Australia to the coastal water supplies. In Britain, that seems a dubious source of wealth, since using it would make you an easy and visible target.

"If there is no recovery, or this is not the Return of Jesus Christ," writes one Internet poster, "then it may get pretty hairy for a long, long time." (Admittedly, not everyone is pleased about this. One sad 25-year-old writes: "I could have had a full life if not for Y2K; instead, I will die at the age of 25, at the cusp of starting an independent life.")

Militarism, stubborn independence and the desire to be self-sufficient; anti-government sentiment coupled with the wish to wipe the slate clean and start over; and a tinge of paranoia constitute a weird enough, quintessentially American mix; but some like to throw in a dose of good old brimstone-and-hellfire Christianity for good measure as well.

"In the US, the imagery of the Biblical apocalypse is much closer to the surface than in Europe," says Thompson. Even so, he agrees, "you certainly do find on the fringes of evangelical religion in Britain, particularly the fringes of Pentecostal Christianity, endtime beliefs, and almost anybody who has a sense of the apocalypse is incorporating Y2K into it in one way or another. Y2K is perfect, because it actually provides the mechanism for everything breaking down."

Survivalism, says Thompson, has never been part of the British tradition of apocalyptic belief, but there are signs that this could change. "It could be a function of the global market in apocalyptic scenarios which has been developing since the arrival of the Internet," he suggests. We are, he says, even beginning to find survivalists in Japan, surely a place where the culture is completely antithetical to the rugged kind of jungle ethic demonstrated by people who are fortifying their hillbound homes and laying in guns to shoot the "evil looters".

If you're really worried by now, cheer up: at least you can eat earthworms, and you can grow them by the millions in an old bird feeder. "I know they may not sound appetising now, but if you're starving they will taste wonderful," writes an enthusiast. "And they'll save your life."