Zombie Training for the Apocalypse and Climate Change

Katana in hand, Michonne slices off body parts from half a dozen stumbling zombies on “The Walking Dead.”

She smiles slightly as the chaos is complete in “Say the Word” episode 5. Reid Kerr of examiner.com says it’s her first smile on the popular AMC cable show. He foretells more in the next episode when the creepy governor, who leads a sheltered community, chases after her and she digs in with a bit of a defense.

The show is the latest in the zombie apocalypse genre that began so convincingly with George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968. Romero was the first to use zombies or “ghouls” as a metaphor. Elliot Stein of the Village Voice says that Night’s “gorefest” had the feel of a documentary. He says the location of his Pennsylvania farmhouse showed Central America at war, and “the zombie carnage seemed like a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam.”

cataclysmic metaphor

“The Walking Dead” updates the theme and adds multiple plot lines. The product intrigues so many people that the network warrants a talk show called “Talking Dead,” which appears after the airing of an original episode. Even Kerr’s Episode 5 Examiner story is a play-by-play character of who he did what and what was expected.

The power of The Walking Dead, at least for me, was the star of the series Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln. He is a small town sheriff who brings together a small group of survivors. Great stuff, especially the characters who, like Michonne, don’t let adversity get in their way.

However, in this latest episode, Rick Grimes has been reduced to a maniacal killer covered in zombie gore. He patrols the bowels of a prison for “walkers” and kills them, his humanity apparently a thing of the past. Then the phone rings.

But I’m getting ahead of the script.

Preparing for doomsday

The country, judging by shows like “The Walking Dead” and National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers,” is falling fast. Disaster is just around the corner. Climate change has not been directly linked to Hurricane Sandy. But the destruction left behind by the storm is a pretty good preview of what to expect from more extreme weather events.

Such a real disaster is what makes apocalyptic cliffhangers so engrossing. Zombie invasion is certainly pretty far out in the realm of possibility. But armed disease is not. Surely someone has thought of it. Someone who doesn’t really care about human life or looks at it from a different perspective. A cleaning, maybe.

Who knows?

parents worry

The other night, one of my son’s friends says that his mother is worried about civilization collapsing. No power grid means everything goes to waste. No fuel means no transportation and no food available. No food means people will fight over what’s left. John Grit, author of “Apocalypse Law,” sketches the scenario quite crudely. When people are hungry, they will kill to eat. This is no time to rely on the kindness of strangers.

How to prepare or what to do to avoid a disaster is an interesting exercise. If the books I’ve read on the subject are any indication, survivors need luck, tenacity, and resources. Most of us are screwed.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson says to ignore the concept of climate change for a moment and continue preparing for its effects. “We can sit back and wait for it to happen. Or we can start protecting our cities,” he writes.

Protect the status quo

Robinson points to measures that will protect cities from flooding, maintain electrical power and minimize costly disasters. But the concept extends beyond capital projects. Pursuing a more diversified energy policy in this country will lessen the focus on the turbulent Middle East and the likelihood that some angry mullah will call for our destruction and succeed.

Or at least that’s my thought.

Will solar panels save the world? I really do not know. I myself have not dared to buy them for my home, but I do support continued research into alternative fuels and clean energy. California is moving forward with its cap-and-trade system, which is designed to get industry to clean up its emissions or pay allowances that allow polluters to skirt regulations.

It will start slowly, but could lead to more such programs. The California Air Resources Board says “the system is designed to show what can be done in the world’s ninth-largest economy and provide a model for other governments,” according to the Washington Post.

Whether that is true is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, while the dead are unlikely to rise, keep your katana handy.

zombie training

I wasn’t going to add this, but what the heck. Right before leaving for college and leaving Anchorage, Alaska, Mike Dobey and I went to see Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” a modern take on his franchise. It was moving faster. The heroes hid in a shopping center. But the staggering dead did not stop at the gates.

After that night in 1978, he and I started running at night. The zombies were a motivator to increase our training. We would do five to seven miles in boots, jeans, and jackets. It was a cold and deep winter. The ground was frozen solid. One night we ran through the city cemetery.

We stopped in the middle of the sprawling dead plantation, surrounded by tombstones. And Alaskan nights are quiet. The cold makes it deathly silent. The temperature was about 12 degrees. Our breath blurred our vision.

On the floor

I saw half a dozen previously dug graves covered with plywood. They are dug when the ground is still soft. Winter turns the land into solid rock ice. When Mike looked away, I got into one. He was used to me playing with him, so he slipped in quietly but with obvious distress.

“Mike,” he said, his voice not much above a whisper. “Mike. Piece of…”

When he was maybe 10 feet from me, I scrambled out of that dirt pit meant for the dead and sped past him. To tell the truth, I was very scared. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I was 18 years old and I screamed: “!!!!!!!! as he ran by.

I’ve never seen anyone run away as fast as Mike did that night. He passed me and jumped over the 6 foot chain link fence as if he wasn’t there.

I never mentioned zombies to him again.