# Best long term survival for a 'The Road' style scenario? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 29, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230 "2015-01-29T15:47:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/21 "2015-01-29T19:57:36Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Thats an interesting question in itself, Mad Max also had the ammunition running out pretty quickly with Max himself using an empty shotgun as a bluff, though I imagine Australia would have less ammo about in the first place. Gasoline was scarce too, and yet Max decided the most appropriate vehicle was a supercharged V-8. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/22 "2015-01-29T20:41:59Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Oh, you’re not the only one. I was surprised by it, as were many of his fans. It truly is “happy” compared to his other books. It is one of my favorite books of all time, though. It is truly haunting. The method of writing can be a little hard to get used to, but somehow the distance caused by calling them “the man” and “the boy” made it so much more generic; i.e., any man, and any boy. It’s stayed with me ever since I read it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/23 "2015-01-29T21:20:54Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Is that true? Everyone was talking about [ammunition shortages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9313_United_States_ammunition_shortage) a few years ago because Obama was elected/reelected. If something like that can cause shortages, wouldn’t an actual apocalypse empty the shelves pretty quickly? The Road supposedly takes place about 10 years after the unnamed event. Ammo may have been scarce to buy in stores, but that was only because people were hoarding it at home, not due to increased usage or diminished supply. There’s probably more ammo right now that at any time in the past. > [@TroutMan](#): > > It was undiscovered because it was buried all that time. The father was worried (rightly, in my opinion) that entering and exiting the shelter made it likely they’d be found, either seen in person or from tracks. Not leaving the shelter at all wasn’t an option - he was worried about rickets in his son from lack of sunlight already. And weren’t they also trying to make it to the coast before winter? Well, most shelters (probably almost all of them) aren’t in the front yard next to a major road. But its certainly likely that a substantial amount of resources would be lost, slowly rotting away, locked behind metal doors or buried in the ground and forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/24 "2015-01-29T23:49:41Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > It is one of my favorite books of all time, though. It is truly haunting. The method of writing can be a little hard to get used to First the plants died. Then the animals died. Then the apostrophes died. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/25 "2015-01-29T23:54:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Gasoline was scarce too, and yet Max decided the most appropriate vehicle was a supercharged V-8. In the remake he is going to drive a nissan leaf, if the legends are to be believed. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/26 "2015-01-30T04:27:29Z")
I believe freeze-dried food would have a longer shelf life. Until you run out of water. ---
**Author:** ![Joools](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joools](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joools)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/27 "2015-01-30T07:30:04Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > It was a jarring ending. Like, all this time the book fills you with this utter sense of loss and loneliness, and suddenly! voila! It is an Adam and Eve scenario with the other family even having a little girl child. (IIRC, it’s been a while since I read the ending). I wonder if the tone change immediately upon the father’s death was intentional, to signal that this final scene is the dying wish of the father for the son - rather than being something that actually transpired. That was how I read it, which felt like an interpretation consistent with the bleak tone of the rest of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/28 "2015-01-30T10:25:38Z")
Great book, and movie. **(a) would you want to survive for as long as possible or just decide its hopeless and end it all.** I’d be in it for the long haul no matter what but would have no hesitations given the right circumstances of ending it if I was severely injured or ill. **(b) assuming you did want to survive what would be the best long term survival strategy, either retaining your morals or simply doing whatever was necessary, however horrendous.** I would think the overwhelming majority of people would revert to doing whatever was necessary to survive, your behaviour and morals would adjust to the new world you find yourself in no matter how abhorrent it may of been to you in the old world. Survival and self-preservation of life an family is a strong instinct. This is why I couldn’t get past the second season of the Walking Dead. They started getting philosophical and droning on and on about right and wrong of the old world despite everything, and everyone around them trying to kill them time after time. **© what would be the maximum length someone could survive in those conditions, someone on another thread stated that the very last person might survive for thirty or forty years, I found that an incredibly creepy image, what would it feel like to know or suspect that you were literally the last human alive, and possibly one of the last creatures full stop** Given the right environmental conditions, access to resources and healthy mental state a person could survive for a very long time. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/29 "2015-01-30T12:00:52Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > No plants means 2 immediate life threatening issues, 1) no more oxygen creationi and 2) no more carbon dioxide cleansing. The build up of CO2 would likely become a problem long before the existing oxygen runs out. How long? I’ll leave that to the scientists on the board to work out, but my gut says soon enough that long term survival planning would be a moot point. Oxygen is a non-issue. If we exterminated all plants tomorrow it would take about 10, 000 years for the oxygen levels to fall to a level that is even \*noticeable \*to anyone without electronic equipment. The CO2 problem would be a non-issue in the scenario described, since even microbes had ceased to function. While this isn’t spelled out, if microbes did exist them people would be able to survive for centuries on fungi and bacteria. No microbes means the only source of CO2 is fire, which wouldn’t be that big of an issue. Given the apparent cooloing of the world, some CO2 buildup would be a blessing. But quite frankly the book is silly. The world has about 8 weeks worth of food stockpiled. After that everyone on Earth is dead within 3 weeks if food is distributed evenly. You can have some people survive longer buy distributing the food unevenly, but that just means that more people die sooner. If we allow that 90% of people get no food from day one, then they are all dead within a month of the catastrophe, and the remaining 10% survive for 110 weeks, or around six months. If we ration food so 99% of people get no food, then the rest survive for 1100 weeks or 3 years, and so forth. And this assumes perfect distribution, knowledge etc. Yet the story has the protagonists surviving for at least 10 years after the event, and they are not special. That is simply not possible if you still want to have roving gangs. For anyone at all to survive 10 years you need to allow at least 99.6% of people to die within the first three weeks. So assuming the story is set in the US, that means that there are at best 100, 000 other people left alive, and that only as a result of deliberate and careful selection for food distribution. The idea that a random survivor walking across the country will encounter even a single survivor is almost nil, the idea of gangs of roving cannibals is ludicrous. The book never really goes into detail about how fast the catastrophe happens, although it is in full swing between the Boy’s conception and his birth, so less than 9 months. But a long, drawn-out famine with ever-declining crop yields would make it harder to ration food to the 0.4% of survivors, not easier. The whole concept depends on massive suspension of disbelief. So with that in mind: (a) would you want to survive for as long as possible or just decide its hopeless and end it all I’d try to to survive, but since I’m not on any government list, I would be toast 3 weeks after my food runs out. I store 2 months worth of rice and beans for an emergency, so I might live to see easter if i am prepared to let all my family and friends starve to death. If I eat my family and friends, i might make Halloween. that is “as long as possible” for 99.9999% of humanity. (b) assuming you did want to survive what would be the best long term survival strategy, either retaining your morals or simply doing whatever was necessary, however horrendous If we allow for cannibalism, and we allow that some tiny minority of people will take up to 4 months to starve to death, then the best strategy would be to go cannibal as soon as possible to save your rice and beans for when the meat runs out. Absolute optimum will be to imprison large numbers of healthy people and make them eat the corpses of those who die of starvation, then feed those who starve tho the rest and so forth. That way the survivors stay fresh. By doing this, you might manage to survive for as much as 5 years. After that, everyone is dead of starvation and the last of your prisoners will then die within weeks. (c) what would be the maximum length someone could survive in those conditions, someone on another thread stated that the very last person might survive for thirty or forty years, I found that an incredibly creepy image, what would it feel like to know or suspect that you were literally the last human alive, and possibly one of the last creatures full stop I have no idea how someone calculated forty years. The book describes all plants and animals dying. At the moment, the global food reserve is measured in months. With no new plantings, the world will have no food at all within months. If some has hoarded 40 years of food they might survive that long, but if they have hoarded 100 years they will survive that long, so the 40 years figure is kinda odd. For \>99% of people, death will come before Christmas, and the half life of humanity after that will be measures in the 3 weeks or so it takes a corpse to decay to inedible status. IOW, 50% will be dead within 2 months, 50% of the survivors will be dead 3 weeks after that, 50% of them within 3 weeks after that and so forth. That’s as the book portrays it: no animal or plant life. With no food except other humans to eat, humans are going to be effectively extinct within 5 years. Maybe some hardcore prepper family with 10 years worth of stored food will live for longer, but they are going to be alive in an uninhabited world. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/30 "2015-01-30T12:04:56Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > I believe freeze-dried food would have a longer shelf life. Dry is dry. Freeze dried preserves texture, not nutrients. IOW, it’s entirely cosmetic. Oven dried peas last just as long as freeze dried. > [@](#): > > Until you run out of water. Water doesn’t depend on life. In fact with less plant life, the amount of available water would \*increase \*slightly. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/31 "2015-01-30T15:26:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The CO2 problem would be a non-issue in the scenario described, since even microbes had ceased to function. While this isn’t spelled out, if microbes did exist them people would be able to survive for centuries on fungi and bacteria. No microbes means the only source of CO2 is fire, which wouldn’t be that big of an issue. Given the apparent cooloing of the world, some CO2 buildup would be a blessing. I’m not sure why you are positing that microbes would be wiped out with plants. Bacteria that cause decomposition should flourish, one would think, since all the earth’s plants are dead (and very soon after, all the animals). That decomposition uses oxygen and creates CO2. With no plants to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere, it accumulates exponentially faster. And remember, it takes a minimum oxygen saturation of about 17% to support human life. The current O2 sat is about 23%, so only about a quarter of the earth’s oxygen would have to be used or displaced before we are in a world of hurt. I don’t know the calculation, but I think it is more than a non-issue. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/32 "2015-01-30T16:13:58Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > I think the people with doomsday bunkers win in this scenario. You know, the traditional preppers that everyone always makes fun of and laughs at. My guess is that there are people with essentially unlimited quantities of food out there who could make it for decades, but no one really knows since smart preppers don’t advertise much. You really think there are people with decades worth of food stored? I think Mormons have up to a year’s worth of food stored and that’s unusual. I can’t imagine how much room you’d need for decades worth of food, even for a single person. ---
**Author:** ![SuperAbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@SuperAbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperAbe)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/33 "2015-01-30T17:31:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > You really think there are people with decades worth of food stored? I think Mormons have up to a year’s worth of food stored and that’s unusual. I can’t imagine how much room you’d need for decades worth of food, even for a single person. [A years worth of canned food fits (apparently) in 120 #10 cans](http://www.costco.com/9687-Total-Servings-1-Person-1-Year-Food-Storage.product.100003177.html) (the gallon size ones). A regular pallet (not quite 4’x4’) holds about 300 cans - so, about 2.5 years worth of food. Thus, a decade worth of freeze-dried food in cans would take up 8’x8’ worth of floor space. Ballpark: you can fit about ~25 years worth of food in a spare bedroom (!) if you pack it in floor to ceiling… ETA: Just noticed the link I included says “Up to 25 years shelf life”, so, for a mere $37.5k you really could have enough food for ~25 years. (To be fair many of the items have shorter listed shelf lives, so…eat those first?) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/34 "2015-01-30T17:40:40Z")
Why am I not surprised that the company supplying that item is based in Utah? And I realize this is a nitpick but if you actually tried to fill a normal bedroom from floor to ceiling with canned goods, you’d probably collapse the floor. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/35 "2015-01-30T17:42:42Z")
> [@SuperAbe](#): > > Just noticed the link I included says “Up to 25 years shelf life”, so, for a mere $37.5k you really could have enough food for ~25 years. (To be fair many of the items have shorter listed shelf lives, so…eat those first?) And be sure you time the apocalypse correctly. You bought the food today but the world doesn’t end for another 5 years? You’re down to 20 years, pal! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/36 "2015-01-30T17:49:22Z")
By the way, that Costco site also lists a year’s worth of food for four people. It comes in a single pallet, but it weighs (according to one customer review) about 1,800 pounds. It’s a little cheaper, though, at $4,000. So a thousand dollars per person per year. I still don’t buy the idea that anyone has stockpiled “decades” worth of food, let alone much more than a single year. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/37 "2015-01-30T18:18:23Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Why am I not surprised that the company supplying that item is based in Utah? > > And I realize this is a nitpick but if you actually tried to fill a normal bedroom from floor to ceiling with canned goods, you’d probably collapse the floor. So you put the cans in the basement and put all your basement junk in the bedroom. More likely, this stuff would be stored in a cheap pole barn with a concrete floor. [This link](http://www.rhinobldg.com/specials/) suggests a 75x75 barn is around $20,000, which (based on **SuperAbe** ’s calculations is large enough to store 878 years (!) of food in it–something smaller would be even cheaper. Bottom line, space is definitely not a problem. I can’t find any sources on how much food the craziest preppers have stockpiled, because again they smartly don’t advertise. But the Costco price is a high end number–it includes delivery and isn’t in enormous quantities. A decade worth of food could be substantially lower than 10,000 a person. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/38 "2015-01-30T22:45:38Z")
I don’t think Cormac McCarthy himself knew or cared what had happened to the Earth (some brilliant wiseacre cracked that “the Earth was struck by a giant metaphor”) in _ **The Road** _. To me, at least, it wasn’t a science fiction story so much as it was a reflection on fatherhood, and what a man would do for his children. If I were alone, I’d have no great desire to survive long in the world of _ **The Road** _. But I’d do absolutely ANYTHING to keep my son safe. I’m an introverted nerd by nature, not a tough guy. But if my son were depending on me, I’d LEARN to be a tough guy. I haven’t been in a fight since grammar school, but I’d have to LEARN to fight for him. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/39 "2015-01-30T23:30:09Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > I’m not sure why you are positing that microbes would be wiped out with plants. For the reasons that I posted. > [@](#): > > And remember, it takes a minimum oxygen saturation of about 17% to support human life. The current O2 sat is about 23%, so only about a quarter of the earth’s oxygen would have to be used or displaced before we are in a world of hurt. That is either completely inaccurate or utterly meaningless. I can’t work out which. > [@](#): > > I don’t know the calculation, but I think it is more than a non-issue. Do a search on past threads, it’s a non-issue. Even with a full microbial flora, by the time that oxygen levels declined to where it is noticeable (not fatal) everything would belong dead of starvation. ---
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230/40 "2015-02-01T17:58:48Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > The current O2 sat is about 23%, so only about a quarter of the earth’s oxygen would have to be used or displaced before we are in a world of hurt. First of all, oxygen doesn’t saturate other atmospheric gases, that’s not what 0[sub]2[/sub] sat means. Secondly, atmospheric gas is composed of roughly 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% trace gases (mostly argon). I’m not sure when in grade school I learned this, but I think probably in 5th grade, maybe as late as 7th grade. Finally, you would probably have to go back hundreds of millions of years to find atmospheric gas on this planet containing 23% oxygen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-long-term-survival-for-a-the-road-style-scenario/711230.md?page=3)