Gardeners can teach gardening, and schools and landlords can provide space for community gardens. The more bicycles there are, the better the transportation system will be if fuel supplies were suddenly cut short. The more people who are trained in short wave radio, CPR, first aid, and other emergency preparedness skills, the more resilient the community will be in a ANY catastrophe. Environmentalists and technologists can work together to make sure that any computer failures do not result in dangerous toxic releases near their community. Individually and collectively, we can plan to bounce back and grow stronger through hard times.
Prudent people prepare for hard times even if they've known only good times.
And most of us Americans don't. The exceptions, of course, are those of us who lived through the Great Depression, or came from a devastated country, or are trapped in one of America's impoverished urban or rural enclaves. What most of us Americans think of as economic hardship would be considered royal affluence by billions of people in the world. Learning once again how to live well with less and how to depend on neighbors and nature will help us be more resilient. We'll be better prepared to face not only Y2K, but all the other economic, environmental and social challenges of the twenty-first century.