After the planes hit the towers, Paul added a to-do to his long survival list.

At the time, he was working on the eighth floor of a west-end office tower. So he convinced a guy at the local outdoors supplier to teach him to rappel. Then he bought 60 metres of rope and packed it, along with some climbing gear, into a briefcase. Then he tucked the briefcase under his desk.

"It seemed like the intelligent thing to do," he shrugs.

Three years ago, Paul heard about Peak Oil. This is the millenarianism of our recessionary time, a doomsday scenario with a wrinkle – scientific backing. In essence, Peak Oil states that the world's supply of crude will soon go into permanent, inexorable decline. This is widely accepted amongst experts. The main points of debate are exactly when this will happen, how quickly oil will deplete and what happens next.

Since oil powers nearly everything in our society – transportation, heavy industry, food production and, most importantly, economic growth – those same experts warn that any reduction in its supply will lead to financial destabilization and social upheaval. At best, they suggest, we're in for a seismic change in the way we live.

They leave the 'at worsts' to people like Paul.

"What did you expect?" he asked with a smile. "Head-to-toe camouflage?"

"Maybe," Paul said, humouring me. "But I don't think so."

"We were getting ready to disappear into the backwoods. Because of the nuclear stuff," Paul said.

"You never know," Boyle said.

"I'm hoping to have everything set up in five or 10 years. Who knows if there's going to be that much time?" Boyle said.

"They're just happy I'm out there doing something productive on the farm," Boyle said.

Boyle isn't a zealot. He hopes he's wrong. But he's doing what he can to prepare those who are nearest and dearest.

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"Maybe I'll sail over to Europe and visit relatives for a while," he said.

Aside from pessimism, self-reliance defines the doomer movement.