Forget the Mayan calendar! Meet the 'preppers' who are getting ready for nuclear war, natural disasters, famine, and economic collapse

While most 'preppers' discount the Mayan calendar prophecy that the world will end this coming Friday, many are preparing to be self-sufficient for threats like nuclear war, natural disaster, famine and economic collapse.

These preppers aren’t necessarily driven by a fear that the world will inexplicably end because of the ancient Mayan prophecy – and the calendar that ends two days from now – theirs is a more subtle, agricultural movement of self-reliance.

Many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm, so while these 'preppers' often stockpile food, they also grow it, farm it, and harvest it.

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers, though, are worried about no government.

A wide range of vendors market products to preppers, mainly online. They sell everything from water tanks to guns to survival skills.
Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers' message when he tells listeners: 'It's never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it.'