Best responses as UK among 5 countries most likely to survive global civilisation collapse

The UK is one of the best places in the world to survive a global societal collapse – but it isn’t as good as New Zealand.

A new study singled out the UK, New Zealand, Iceland, Tasmania and Ireland as the places best suited to cope with the “shocking” impact of the worldwide disintegration of society as we know it.

Researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” because of the environmental damage caused our interconnected and energy-dependent society.The study concluded the human civilisation is in a “precarious and perilous position with regards to its future”.

Island nations like the UK and Ireland have been described as “collapse lifeboats” due to their ability to support “significant populations”. New Zealand is best-suited because it uses geothermal and hydroelectric energy resources on a “large scale”and has plenty of agricultural land.

Countries have been ranked based on factors such as their ability to feed their current population with nationally-grown food, energy independence, renewable energy resources and manufacturing abilities.

Billionaires have reportedly been buying land bunkers in New Zealand in preparation for the apocalypse. “We weren’t surprised New Zealand was on our list,” Professor Aled Jones of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University told the Guardian.

Jones added: “We chose that you had to be able to protect borders and places had to be temperate. So with hindsight it’s quite obvious that large islands with complex societies on them already [make up the list].

“We were quite surprised the UK came out strongly. It is densely populated, has traditionally outsourced manufacturing, hasn’t been the quickest to develop renewable technology, and only produces 50 per cent of its own food at the moment. But it has the potential to withstand shocks.”