People aren't bringing food with them...
Peter,
Then they'll die all the quicker.
... they're doing without it...
Which will mean they'll be able to travel a shorter distance or die faster.
... or finding a little along the way.
Sure. I'm marching south from Vancouver and all the people south of me in Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, and so forth kindly left food behind in kitchens, markets, barns, and fields for me to use.
Did you forget that people further south are bugging out because they're starving too? And the reason they're starving is because there's no food? So where are the ration you'll need as you move through the area?
Pretty much the same way they do there are disasters and civil wars in dirt poor third world countries. The number of refugees (people who successfully fled the bad things) is typically far greater than the number of people who are killed by the bad things.
Nonsense. As you yourself point out those people are able to successfully flee because international aid is just over the border. That isn't going to happen in
T:2013.
In fact North Americans should have it easier than say, Sudanese, because they're so much richer to start with.
Sure. We can eat all our money.
There are fewer other people to eat the food first, more food to find, and a fatter population who can better afford to go three months on one tenth rations in the first place.
One tenth rations? You have no earthly idea what you're talking about do you? We can feed you one tenth rations and watch you starve to death in bed in 90 days let alone on a daily march to the south.
Smokewolf said people are moving because starvation is staring them in the face. That means there is no more food to find no matter how many fewer people there are or how fat they were when they started.
There are also more animals (wildlife and domestic) to kill and eat along the way.
Sure there will. As if farmers haven't already butchered their livestock due to grain shortages and domestic pets haven't already disappeared from the hungry regions you're marching through. I'm sure there will be more than enough squirrels and porcupines to keep tens of thousands fed on the march, because the deer are going to run far and fast in the opposite direction once they catch of whiff of that mass of humanity.
Why on earth would you stop traveling after only ten days? If I'm heading south I'm not stopping for a thousand miles or more.
You'll starve before you make a 300 miles let alone a thousand. Ever hike in the wilderness or serve in the Army? Ever pack everything you need on your back and
walk any amount of distance? Ten days on minimal rations is about as far as you're going to get as an adult male and that's still dependent on you abandoning your wife and children to die.
It's a question of the relative levels of desperation. Hungry Americans go south because where they are going hungry is the best there is. Starving Canadians and Alaskans go south because hungry is better than starving.
It's a question of logistics, timing, and geography. Starving Canadians head south to where? The regions the Americans have already left. If people left Seattle because they were starving or feared starving, why should the same region suddenly be able to support people from Vancouver simply because they moved south? The further north you begin, the more stripped territory you'll need to cross. The "deeper" in a metropolitan regions you begin, the more stripped territory you'll need to cover.
And your differing levels of desperation idea fails even cursory scrutiny. Starving Canadians are only going to be able to so far south. There are no more fuels and they'll need to carry rations, so both of those things will keep them from traveling the distances you blithely assume are possible. So starving Canadians move south to an area the merely "desperate" Americans have already left. What's the real change? The Americans had left because there was a "pinch" in the food supply. How will the arrival of Canadian refugees effect that "pinch"? With their arrival, the food supply picture which had already been tight enough to send many Americans south, now becomes worse because more mouths have arrived. The Canadians have brought starvation south with themselves. Some change.
There are people moving ahead of you for the same reason and, because they're ahead of you, they'll find whatever food is available and eat it before you can arrive. You'll be crossing a food "desert" the further north you begin and the "deeper" in a metro region you begin.
If my brother in Redmond knows his three kids are going very hungry he'll head for Texas. If my cousin in Dallas is somewhat hungry he might head for Mexico.
The fellow in Redmond won't go far with three kids. No more fuel, remember? And the fellow in Dallas is going have to contend with the millions of people deciding to leave about the same time he does.
Why walk when you can bicycle, and go three times as far?
Got enough bikes for the family? How many hours a day can your child pedal their bike? How long can they keep balance when they haven't eaten for 3 or 4 days? You can still walk while you're nearly a zombie. Riding a bike is something else entirely.
Carrying capacity depends on standard of living. There is so much available in North America that even if we loose 90% of it our standard of living would still be the envy of the very poor. A 'poor' American might I earn less than $25,000 a year, but the world standard for 'poor' is more like 'Less than $3 per day'.
You simply don't understand, do you?
Yes, we're rich, but we're rich in goods and our agriculture is hideously concentrated. I live in rural New Hampshire and I can count the number of working farms in my town on one hand. Most of my meals come from farms and ranches thousands of miles away. I've got lots of material goods about, but I can't eat any of them when the food runs out and the food production where I live won't support a twentieth of the population. In the metro areas the odds will be even worse.
However the disaster in Twilight 2000, and apparently in Twilight 2013 is much less severe...
Less severe? You've got cities emptying out when people run out of food and mass migrations taking place. It's the same thing only in slow motion. The regions around the cities will be dead zones, only this time firearms will still work so there will be a lot more killing. Whatever hordes do make it out will swamp the surrounding rural areas whether the agricultural there can support them or not and, once again, because firearms still work there will be much more killing.
In fact, the slow motion and firearms aspects of the
T:2013 bug outs could make things even worse than in
Dies The Fire.
Regards,
Bill
