In our last couple episodes, we've talked about this idea that there are multiple possible futures for us.

There's a future where we get it together. We layer on all the possible solutions,

we adapt to a changed climate, but we avoid the worst impacts of catastrophic

warming. We work the problem. And then there's the future where we don't, where society collapses, it's every person for themselves, it's the walking dead in a couple of

generations in parts of the world where the world is in fact uninhabitable.

And out in the Southern California desert, past the moving geysers and the receding

salt and sea in the boiling hot geothermal plants, is a place that's a little bit close to that second possible future.

It's called Slab City.

I visited this summer with producer Caitlin Esh.

This looks like the apocalypse already came, right?

This is where people fled the end of the world.

And they know how to stay alive, they know how to take care of themselves?

Yeah.

The Slabs, as it's also known, is a squatters community built on the slab foundations of

buildings from an abandoned military base.

It's made up of survivalists, artists, and vagabonds who live entirely off the grid.

I'm really trying to figure out if that person's naked. He's doing a little car work.

He's definitely naked.

There's no official electricity, no running water,

no trash pickup, and no law enforcement out here.

There is a wooden sign off the side of the road that reads,

The Last Free Place.

...