Hi folks. My take on this is that the intermediate scale is best to work at, rather than the individual or the urban. I live in a town of 4000, in the middle of nowhere. Since mostly giving up on academia (I can do research at home anyway - palaeontology's easy in that way!) and moving there a few years back, my wife and I have set up a repair cafe and a free community orchard through the local Transition group. The repair cafe brings together people with skills that have mostly been lost, and which we're going to need. The orchard... well, it's a start towards self-sufficiency.
The key point is that we're not working alone. One woman in the town did a Master's degree on the land areas needed to support the local population, and found it to be surprisingly small; she's now gathering volunteers to try to get some of it implemented among the local landowners. Others have skills in renewable energy, and are looking into viable sources for that on a local scale. We have friends with carbon-neutral houses, who share their knowledge on insulation, heating, and making best use of sunlight. A permaculture (fancy word for effective natural gardening and the philosophy that surrounds it) hub is being set up here, and there's an annual fair showcasing local cottage industries. We have a very good herbalist, and experts on wild food, etc., etc., etc...
This scale of town works because there is the diversity of skills needed to make a sustainable community viable. It's virtually impossible for one person to live a self-sufficient farming existence in any comfort, but the difficulties don't scale. In bigger towns and cities, you have a lot more problems, partly because the population has mostly lost all the skills, and the sense of community to make it happen. The doom of human society will, in my view, be urbanisation.
What can individuals do, though? Loads. I've been giving talks about the near-term potential of climate change (not extinction-level alarmist, but worst-case realistic, which is quite alarming enough), and running courses on ecology and natural history. I've been learning foraging skills, and putting together a database of useful edible fungi and plant locations. More importantly, though, is just to get out and do things. For example: want a repair cafe? What you need are a couple of people to help, insurance (use some local umbrella organisation that already has it), a venue (village halls, cafes etc. - look for somewhere that benefits from having lots of people turn up once a month), and posters around the town to rope in some fixers. After that, just keep it ticking over. No need to make it complicated. Just get out there and do it.
If you don't want to do anything social, look into native food plants, processing and storage. I made acorn bread from scratch in one afternoon, and it was rather nice. Develop skills that will be needed when you can't get plastic any more, the lights go out, and the fridge doesn't work.
Basically, I think Bruce is spot on. I do think we're going to hit societal collapse pretty soon - at least within my lifetime, and I'm 40. I also do think that humans will survive, and in some areas will survive well. But populations will crash, and cities will burn, and only those communities that are prepared will manage to thrive. Individuals, in a country like the UK - I'm afraid they'll have to be very lucky. Now is the time to start re-educating ourselves, and preparing to work as local communities again.
