Americans learn skills to survive the climate crisis – in a wilderness course

Societal breakdown has not arrived, but the contours of such a collapse aren't too hard to imagine - which is why some are taking part in a survival course

There are several ways to react to a summer of harrowing climate disasters - from indifference to simmering angst to deflating the tire of an SUV - but for Eve Simonsen, the most logical response was to take her two children two hours from home to learn how to build a temporary shelter made of sticks and heaped leaves.

Simonsen was one of about 30 people to take part in a recent wilderness survival course held in a patch of forest in upstate New York, which I joined. Several of the participants who scoured for twigs to make a fire and labored to set traps for unsuspecting animals said they wanted to learn such skills to help prepare for the cascading impacts of climate breakdown.