Episode Summary

This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Elizabeth talks to Margaret about coming into preparedness as an urban PTA mom, building family preparedness, teaching kids about disasters, and flipping the prepping narrative to focus on building inclusive communities and resiliency.

Guest Info

Elizabeth Doerr (she/her) is a writer and parent. You can find her work at https://www.elizabethdoerr.com or her newsletter on Substack at https://crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com or on Instagram @crammingfortheapocalypse or on Twitter @ElizabethDoerr

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Elizabeth Doerr on Family Preparedness

**Margaret ** 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host this week, Margaret Killjoy. And this week, I have Elizabeth Doerr on to talk about her journey into preparedness. And, I think y'all are gonna get a lot out of this conversation. I'm really excited to have it. I first talked to--I guess I'll get to that later during the actual interview. But first, here's a jingle from another show on the network Channel Zero Network, which is a network of anarchist podcasts. So here's another one. Dah dah duh dah duh dah [singing the words like a simple melody]

**Margaret ** 01:31 Okay, and we're back. Okay. So if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then maybe like, how you got started on your preparedness journey? 

**Elizabeth Doerr ** 01:40 Sure. Um, Hi there, my name is Elizabeth Doerr, and my pronouns are she/her. And, I got started on my preparedness journey mainly because we moved to Portland, Oregon in 2016 where there is going to be a huge earthquake that can devastate the city. And, then subsequently had my son and became--and had already been concerned about climate change, but then that fear of climate change really kind of ratcheted up a lot more with having a kid. And so, over the last few years, I've really been trying to do more to prepare, not just for the earthquake but really for climate change in general, and trying to figure out what that means just in terms of society, in terms of the way we can--not just in personal action--but how we can really just change the entire system altogether. And, so that has turned into a Substack called Cramming for the Apocalypse, which is also going to be a book eventually, as well. But, for the last year, it's been in newsletter form. 

**Margaret ** 02:54 Do you ever have this thing where you're like, "But you have to hurry up and make it a book because what if the apocalypse happens before you get the book out?"

**Elizabeth Doerr ** 03:01 Well, it's funny because my agent was kind of...she's like, "It's an evergreen topic." But she's like, "It always feels