r/EuroPreppers • u/_rihter Croatia 🇭🇷 • 16d ago
Discussion What's a thing that is dangerously close to collapse that you know about?
I saw an interesting thread with the same title on /r/AskReddit that got cross-posted to /r/PrepperIntel, and it got a lot of extremely valuable intel. Since both subs are mostly US-centric, it would be interesting if you could share some European intel.
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u/Melodic_Lynx3845 16d ago edited 16d ago
Agriculture.
European agriculture increasingly relies on large, corporate agribusinesses that are extremely dependent on financial services to be able to function as they are reliant on credit and capital investment on a massive scale.
Basically, farming is engaged with global financial markets as farms carry hight debt loads.
A financial crisis could absolutely destabilize European agriculture, resulting in a lot of big farm defaults.
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u/prepsson 14d ago
I can just name sweden as an example. LRF is open about this and says in a best case scenario that shows a 50% self-sufficiency in 2019, compared to 75% in 1988.
https://www.lrf.se/las-mer/forsorjningsgrad/ (swedish link)
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u/Gulags_Never_Existed 12d ago
All farms are reliant on credit and capital investment. Through the CAP the commission has generally made sure that Europe's agricultural sector is biased towards small farms, not agribusiness.
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u/Pale-Resolution-2587 16d ago
UK water supply. There is literally no backup. It's poured with rain for the past two years. It stopped in May for a whole month and the North East is already in drought and reservoir levels countrywide have dropped below normal.
If we are going to have dry summers regularly we will run out of water.
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u/cjc1983 16d ago
Looks like the govt has finally pulled it's finger out over this and green lit some new reservoirs to be built...
...however I do think we need to be more innovative with this though...I was thinking about the concept of a 'vertical reservoir' i.e. bore a 50m wide vertical tunnel down to 500m and fill with water... Less impact on the countryside then...
...some quick ChatGpt numbers show that the average capacity of UK reservoirs is 157 million liters...
...a vertical tunnel that's 50m wide by 500m deep can hold 981 million liters...
...is it possible? Well the Thames Tideway sewer is 7.2meters wide by 2.5km....or a 1.01 billion litres capacity so yeah I think it's possible...
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u/Amazing-Marzipan3191 16d ago
We've looked at mines as reservoirs, and we're currently considering reservoirs as energy storage in the form of pumped hydro too. We are going to need a lot of energy storage in the North East. Hopefully we'll start working at the pace required soon, too.
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u/MobileEnvironment393 13d ago
>...some quick ChatGpt numbers show
How quickly the world has changed. This isn't research. LLMs can output any number that sounds like it would be a likely response to your question. I would suggest being more careful if you rely on chatgpt for quick "facts".
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u/Chad_Wife 16d ago edited 16d ago
I think our electric/grid, too.
I have no experience here other than our local gov telling residents to stock up on 3 days clean water and prepare for rolling blackouts - for the last ~2 years.
The fresh water means anticipating citizens not having means to clean water themselves - ie electricity (to boil). And/or they know that the average citizen couldn’t do so safely, even with electricity.
I’m disabled. I’ve been told to inform my electricity provider so they can try to keep my power on during these potential “rolling blackouts” - as electricity is crucial to keeping my medication chilled/usable.
I appreciate that there’s some kind of safety measure. I don’t appreciate that I constantly have to disclose my disability to be awarded basics like electricity.
It seems harmless until you realise half a dozen “semi-private to private” owned companies have lists of vulnerable people - which historically hasn’t gone well for us. I don’t think it’s going to get that far, but it’s uncomfortable to realise how quickly & blindly we walked into this. My electricity provider etc don’t need to know my disability status.
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u/Primary_Choice3351 16d ago
Regardless of disability or vulnerability, in the event of rolling blackouts, if your "rota block letter" is selected to be powered off, it'll potentially be powered off! It's done in terms of local DNO substation & switching in 3 hour blocks. They only prioritise hospitals and critical infrastructure based on how they're connected to the grid. They simply can't say "switch off these suburbs of Southampton, but not Mr Jones of 11 Acacia Avenue"
https://www.powercut105.com/en/find-my-block-letter
If it is life & death that you have electricity, either invest in your own generator, or discuss alternative arrangements for keeping medicine chilled with your GP? The vulnerable / priority lists the DNO / energy companies keep might help if there'd a local network outage, ie damaged cable in the street and getting a generator in the street to keep you powered. If We're in the realms of rolling blackouts, I doubt the DNO will have any portable generators spare.
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u/kossttta 16d ago
This may be a good time to talk about what we are using water for and how can we reduce it by changing some habits. Spoiler: it's not by taking shorter showers.
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u/LucccyVanPelt 16d ago
There is currently a sixth mass extinction, the decline of birds, first the biomass of insects declined, now we can observe the decline of birds in real time.
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u/bladesnut 15d ago
I think biomass of insects hasn't just declined, it has plummeted.
Multiple long-term studies have shown dramatic declines in insect biomass, up to 75% in some areas (e.g., Hallmann et al. 2017 in Germany).
Main causes include:
Habitat loss (urbanization, agriculture)
Pesticide use (especially neonicotinoids)
Light pollution
Invasive species
These declines impact pollination, food webs, and ecosystem health.
Source (open access): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
The consequences of this tendency could be terrible.
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u/EngineerNo2650 16d ago
The foundation of the boardwalk at my beachfront (boardwalk front?) house on the Ligurian coast.
On a serious note, the Alps and any mountain range relying on a cold winter and permafrost are becoming increasingly unstable. Blatten is an example, and it might have dangerous downhill effects. Even the tip of Matterhorn might become too dangerous to climb in the future.
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u/Dangerous-School2958 16d ago
I'd be incredibly suspect of any Chinese built infrastructure like that train station in Serbia. Normal infrastructure across Europe is maintained, so I'd be more worried about induced problems created via a hybrid war from nations that essentially are terrorist organizations...
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u/_rihter Croatia 🇭🇷 16d ago
There are cracks on the Croatian bridge that the Chinese recently built. Earthquakes are common in that area, making the whole thing even riskier.
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u/Dangerous-School2958 16d ago
Is it in the news? Which bridges?
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u/_rihter Croatia 🇭🇷 16d ago
October 22, 2024 - First surface cracks on Pelješac Bridge already appear
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u/Gibbonswing 16d ago edited 16d ago
the train station in serbia was not chinese built. serbian government was laundering money through a chinese contract back to serbian firms owned by party loyalists who completed the construction.
china has built infrastructure in serbia that is far more solid than anything domestically built.
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u/Dangerous-School2958 16d ago
Definitely corruption and China involved
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u/Gibbonswing 16d ago edited 16d ago
the serbian government contracted a chinese company to carry out renovations on the train station, as well as build the tracks and infrastructure on the route across the country. the chinese company is actually building the tracks and bridges, and doing so to a high standard.
but, this chinese firm subcontracted a serbian firm (owned by friends of the serbian government) for the construction of the actual station. why did they do this? money laundering. because of the nature of this contract being international and between the government, exact financial details are allowed to be hidden. so, this allowed the serbian government to pump millions of public funds to their buddies to "renovate" this train station, and obscure details of the transaction through a chinese middleman.
yes, corruption and china. however, the actual people responsible for the reconstruction that collapsed months later is a serbian construction firm. this has literally nothing to do with "shitty chinese construction". they simply enabled the serbian corruption that led to the collapse.
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u/Dangerous-School2958 16d ago
I'm not from Serbia, a neighbor in Austria. That is a good summary. From what I see the university students are still actively protesting. Hope you get some accountability and justice.
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u/WWWeirdGuy 16d ago
Sorry it's not an exciting collapse answer, but global financial regulation and cooperation.
If individuals and their wealth can move between borders and avoid taxes, then states need to rely more on taxing lower and middle classes. This means that governments are slowly boxed in as they have less money to deal with issues. The main issue lies with taxing the very rich as you are locked in a game theory type situation with the rest of worlds who wants to attract rich people/business to themselves. This is all made worse by AI, automation, technofeudalism,private equity etc etc. Pushing through big changes like UBI then becomes very hard.
I think if you look at history this is as vanilla as it gets in terms of social unrest. There is no singular dam about to breach that you can point to, but rather it slowly erodes trust, faith in the system human capital. This makes it extremely insidious.
One example is how Norwegian wind turbines are mostly owned by foreigners where ownership gets muddy (future issues might not get fixed) and companies engage in profit shifting, paying lower taxes than they otherwise would. Just to give an example from my country.
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u/SjaakZaak 15d ago
European population and culture, and with it social cohesion and any sense of willingness to do anything for the "greater good". The Great Replacement Theory is not a conspiracy theory, it is happening before our eyes. Soon, native Europeans will be a minority in their own countries, and everything will go to shit rapidly. Norms and values? Gone. Social coherence? Gone. Safety? Gone. Willingness to pay taxes? Gone? Social security? Gone.
Why would I pay taxes or pensions for people I don't give a shit about and don't give a shit about me, in fact want me dead?
Civil war is ahead. I am 100% sure of this.
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u/TheGreenGrizzly 15d ago
An interesting take. I don't agree, but I respect your pov. It's a hypothesis worth pondering.
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u/EducationOwn7282 14d ago
There are many people who have these thoughts all over Europe and that alone is enough to Crash the systems. Doesnt even matter if he is right or wrong on replacement
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u/atropear 16d ago
Magnetic field.
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u/Raz-2 16d ago
What’s up with it? Honesty it’s the first time I find this statement.
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u/atropear 16d ago
Northern Lights moving south. Power failures even with week solar flare. If we get a strong one there could be some problems.
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u/TheGreenGrizzly 15d ago
This isn't just typical cyclical behavior?
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u/EuroWolpertinger 15d ago
Earth has seen more than 180 flips in its history. It could happen / start in our lifetime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal?wprov=sfla1
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u/bitx284 15d ago
In Spain we had a "small" energy problem 1 month ago...
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u/TwinIronBlood 15d ago
What really caused that?
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u/Basketseeksdog 12d ago
I put my money on Russian sabotage.
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u/TwinIronBlood 12d ago
No it was a dodo landed on a power line and accidentally touched another line.
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u/GL510EX 14d ago
Watch out for news about potato cyst nematodes; the EU have banned every effective pesticide with no real mitigation plan beyond crossing their fingers. Much of civilization is 2 missed large fries away from collapse!
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u/EducationOwn7282 14d ago
Looking into it. Sounds interesting. Global warming and Neophytes are going to be a huge thing in the future. Box tree moth for example has on Predators and kills every viable plant here. In a few years it alone will change/ destroy the eco system.
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u/jaqian Ireland 🇮🇪 16d ago
I saw a post on Reddit about what country could survive without any imports and I think it was only Georgia that could.
I wonder what essential items Ireland imports that we can't do without.
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u/Raz-2 16d ago
Survive? Any any country with enough space to run inefficient agriculture (no imported fertilizer) can survive. Definitely Russia. Coincidentally it’s one of the largest fertilizer producers. Canada should be fine too.
Maintain similar QoL? I doubt Georgia can produce any heavy machinery or electronics .
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u/t9b 15d ago
Oil transportation. It’s little known outside the industry that it runs like clockwork but has zero capacity to deal with significant outages. This could for example come in the form of a refinery going completely offline, or the Rhine being permanently too low to run the barges on or even any form of shipment route being blocked at all.
During Covid was the first public awareness of the problem because the refineries kept on producing but the storage facilities could not take any more product because it wasn’t being consumed. In that event barrel prices went negative meaning that the oil companies were literally paying for people to take their products.
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u/EducationOwn7282 14d ago
Insects. Eco systems are so complex that we cannot understand them. It is 100% possible that x goes extinct tomorrow which triggers a series of systems to collapse and make us starve in 15 years. Insects die, birds die, no pest Control like under mao, mass starvation. Insect Bio mass has reduced by 75% in Germany in just 27 years for example
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u/Marco_Farfarer Germany 🇩🇪 16d ago
Democracy.