Hate to break it to you, but if it's really the end of the world tomorrow (or tonight), as Harold Camping and his followers attest, you're almost certainly screwed. So what will ease your suffering in the post-Rapture world? A lot of the same things you're already doing to save the environment.

  • Dense living. Apparently the end of the world is going to come as a giant earthquake, which means that the Left Behind who live in walkable communities will have an easier time accessing resources, just like in any other natural disaster.

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  • Bike transport. You are not going to want to drive a car. For starters, the highways will probably be littered with abandoned vehicles whose drivers just got Raptured right off their beaded seat covers. (Unless Revelation is right and there will really only be 144,000 people taken, in which case we'll probably barely notice. But if there's anything I've learned from Camping, it's that numbers in the Bible probably need to be futzed with a little before they're right. After all, his first calculation had Armageddon taking place in 1994.) Cyclists may be able to stave off Mad Maxiness for a while.

  • Sustainability. Resources may be scarce, so if you've got a backyard or rooftop garden, rainwater collection (for the Tank Girl scenario), and ways of minimizing or reusing your waste, you're probably in good shape. Of course, at first we can just use whatever the righteous leave behind, but eventually you may find yourself in a scenario where either you know how to grow your own food or you end up accidentally shooting Bill Murray. Nobody wants that. 

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  • A sense of humor. If you're reading Grist, you've probably got one — certain commenters excepted. And even though its probably advisable to tone down the mockery if the Rapture doesn't come — yeah, it's absurd, but some of the believers have stopped saving for their children's college or deliberately blown their nest egg, which you gotta admit has pathos — you're really going to need to stay lighthearted if it turns out to be Judgment Day after all. On the plus side, though, if the world is destroyed, that'll mean we halted climate change for good!

See you after Armageddon, folks! Our servers may have some downtime.