2020: A YEAR OF CATASTROPHES

 

We ended 2019 with a problem that lasted for months and that damaged Australia: a terrible forest fire that destroyed millions of hectares. If 2019 left us with the Earth burning; 2020 was no less; indeed it was a year of misfortunes and catastrophes since the beginning.

 

·     FLOOD IN INDONESIA (early 2020) : a violent flood hit Indonesia flooding Jakarta; it caused deaths and evacuated.   

 

·   TAAL VOLCANO  (Philippines, January) : a small but dangerous volcano  erupted for weeks and caused earthquakes .

·     AN ALMOST WORLD WAR :  caused by many tension between the Middle East , USA, Russia; the European Union and China.  

 

·        COVID 19  ( January 9 2020) : unfortunately a pandemic has broke out in the Chinese province of Wuhan and is still active today all over the world.  

 

THE PREDICTIONS

Nostradamus, one of the greatest and most famous authors of prophecies, had already predicted, for our 2020 (defined ”annus horribilis”), big natural catastrophes, a serious financial crisis, climate changes and earthquakes, a probable world war and even a pandemic.  

 

SURVIVALISTS AND PREPPERS

The evolution of 2020 worries everyone but there are groups of people who have been preparing for this. These groups are the survivalists and preppers and they train the mind and the body to be ready for any catastrophes or apocalypse.

Both groups aim to survive but what makes them different are the techniques and the tools they use.

 

·     SURVIVALISTS : they have a number of techniques and skills to survive short, catastrophic periods. They know how to light a fire, how to build a refuge, to hunt and to nurse a wounded.

 

·     PREPPERS : the word preppers derives from the English verb “to prepare”. This movement was born in the USA during the cold war.

 Their aim is to procure stockpile of food, water and medicines; they build bunkers where they hope they will be able to survive any catastrophe.

 

CONCLUSIONS

After mid - 2020 we cannot say that this has been a very good year; there isn’t still a vaccine that will help us defeat Covid 19 and in this period the infected are increasing and our country is in difficulty.

As for natural disasters, unfortunately, we all know that mother nature is unpredictable.

Maybe the survivalists and preppers could be right. But, for sure,  2020 will affect many people and it will be a piece of history that has yet to be written.

                                                                                                                       MATTEO TOZZI, 3scB