Green was weaned off natural gas when he bought the five-hectare site of an abandoned East German army barracks three years ago: the previous owner, who used it as an open-air museum for vintage tanks, had gutted the building with water and gas pipes. Green repaired the ceiling of the dining room and insulated the windows so that the temperatures inside did not drop below 5 C at night. He bathes by pouring a bucket of cold water over his head and cooks on a wood stove. A 49-year-old Englishman with a gray ginger beard and the word “Vegan!” Tattooed on his left arm, Green is unaffected by frayed supply chains because he lives almost entirely from the vegetables and fruit he grows on his land. If, as Green hopes, friends give him an oil press for his 50th birthday, he will soon be able to cut the occasional four-mile round trip to the nearest village for cooking oil. On these trips he is stocked with tea, coffee and chocolate, but these are luxuries he could forego in the event of a systemic collapse of supply chains. The fact that his food miles are still countable is due to the bottomless appetites of Fat Tony, Brunhilde Demagogue and Marilyn Monroe, his three Mangalica pigs. The coronavirus is not a concern – partly because Green has been vaccinated twice, despite his enthusiasm for herbal medicines, but mainly because he lives alone in the middle of a remote fir forest in Saxony, whose exact he keeps his coordinates secret and rarely receives visitors. Green is worried about this year’s extreme heat and drought, jeopardizing his struggle to fill his cellar with 100 pots of tomatoes, 180kg of potatoes and 22kg of dry beans to survive the winter. But this summer’s high temperatures may also lead more people to recognize Green’s self-sufficiency experiment as a role model for preparing for a climate disaster. A disaster, Green believes, that is inevitable and imminent. “When I was born, we had 324 parts of carbon dioxide in one million parts of air. This year, we hit 420. Change is coming, and if you’re not prepared for it, it’s going to be pretty awful. “What we are looking at is not the end of humanity but the end of capitalism,” he said, describing climate collapse as the common denominator behind the various political, food, energy and health crises that have begun to converge in recent years. “The collapse is going to happen and this is the year people are going to notice.” Green with the three pigs he saved. Photo: Christian Jungeblodt/The Observer Living in anticipation of the apocalypse is no longer a minority position. A YouGov survey carried out at the start of the coronavirus pandemic found that almost a third of respondents in the US expect a life-changing disaster in their lifetime. A separate five-country poll in 2019 found that more than half of respondents in France, Italy, the UK and the US believe that civilization as they know it will collapse in the coming years. In America, anxiety about a systemic collapse has fueled a trend of “preppers” stocking up on food supplies and weapons to take care of themselves and their families. During the pandemic, sellers of underground shelters in the US reported increasing demand. Green, who chronicles his reclusive existence on his Instagram account, The Pirate Ben, sees himself at the vanguard of a more positive and less egotistical European counter-movement: “happy wonder.” “The problem with preppers is: what do they do when they run out of beans? I don’t want to be afraid here – that’s where all the white power comes from.” He does not believe in the need for population reduction, and neither do some on the fringes where the far right and environmental activism overlap. If people can maintain or relearn their knowledge of how to work the land sustainably, Green argues, there should be enough food for everyone: “What I’m trying to do is preserve the best of our society for when let’s get out on the other side.” His decision to save his pigs from a butcher is more The Good Life than Extinction Rebellion – an act of “effective altruism” the three huge pigs are apparently reluctant to reciprocate. Their endless hunger for horse muesli mixed with hay pellets and stale buns from the nearest village bakery is what still prevents him from living a 100% self-sufficient and climate-neutral existence. What I’m trying to do is preserve the best of our society for when we come out the other end Ben Green “The pigs were the worst decision of my life,” she said, patting Tony on his muddy back. “It was stupid and clearly detrimental to my goals.” Eating them would be the logical conclusion, he admits. “But it’s not going to happen.” Calling Green a humanitarian would be a step too far, he said. Building a self-sufficient community after climate change requires discipline: he gets up at 6 a.m., feeds the pigs, tends his crops, mows grass, feeds the pigs a second time, then goes to bed around 10 p.m. And such discipline requires a strong belief in right and wrong. He blames climate change not just on a few powerful people, he wrote in a recent blog entry, but on all those involved in an economy that is destroying the world: “Every person who works for a fossil fuel company in any capacity will he should be tried for genocide. From the kids at the post office to the CEOs.” Green reiterated the point when asked about the blog entry. “A few staged genocide trials would go a long way.” What would be the punishment for genocide? “I think it’s pretty well established.” Before moving to the barracks in the Saxon Forest three years ago, the Brummie native pursued a successful career as an IT engineer. Spells in Austria, Spain, London and Berlin ended when he was sacked from his last job in Zurich in 2018. With his severance pay and savings, he bought the former barracks of the East German National People’s Army. Although he is fluent in German, the choice of location was the result of a rational cost-benefit analysis rather than any intense love for the East German state bordering the Czech Republic. “You want to be as far north as you can for the heat, but also as far south as you can for sunlight for the growing season.” Those seeking a self-sufficient lifestyle by setting up communities in Spain or Portugal, he said, were “insane” because they would struggle to work the land amid rising temperatures. Preparers take care of themselves. Green wants to set an example for others to follow, but for now the happy demise remains a movement of one. After starting with occasional volunteers helping him work the land, he currently runs the project alone. A strict no-drugs policy in barracks is designed to stem misogynist desertions. “The first follower should be very special,” he said, sitting in the dining room to escape the midday sun. “They’ll have to believe in the project in a way that I don’t.” Anyone seriously interested in joining the Green in the event of a climate-induced famine can pay €3,500 (£2,950) to be put on a waiting list, although there is no guarantee they will automatically secure a place. A person has already made the payment.
