Mother Nature is no longer speaking softly.

For years now, she’s been dishing out a variety of signs that perhaps she is somewhat to very ticked at humankind. She’s unleashed natural disasters, new and creative ways to make us sick and blazing hot temperatures when we expected sweater weather.

Despite all that, it is the threat of a pork shortage that has made the meat lovers among us stand up, take notice and call her a dirty swine.

Now she’s carrying a big stick and hitting us where it hurts. She’s gone and messed with bacon.

If we survive Dec. 21, 2012, the day some say the Mayan calendar predicted the world will end, many of the world’s more bacon-obsessed citizens will keel over and die come 2013.

The U.K.’s National Pig Association says the globe will be hammered with a pork shortage next year and there isn’t much we can do to avoid it.

Farmers are cutting back pig herd size because of the rising cost of feed — partly from droughts that affected the corn and soybean crop in North America and Russia.

Half of the counties in the United States were declared primary disaster areas this growing season because of extreme dryness and heat, according to the Associated Press.

A pork shortage means more expensive bacon and no doubt the coming of the Bacon Apocalypse predicted by Nostradamus or some such person in the 1500s.

The bacon-deprived masses will roam the countryside in search of stray Baconators. The movie “Babe” will play in every heart.

Some say a bacon shortage will be a good thing and we shouldn’t eat pork or any meat for that matter. I respect that point-of -view to a point but add that only a fool would keep a woman with rind on the mind away from her bacon.

All reasoning is out the door the moment the smell of bacon frying hits my nostrils.

Besides, this particular column isn’t about condemnation. It is about prevention and readiness.

I encourage all who love bacon, pork chops, pork roast, pork rib and pork loin to prepare to hunker down Y2K style.

You remember Y2K don’t you?

Back in 1999, everyone feared computers would shut down, killing our electricity-dependent society, when the year 2000 rang in.

That didn’t happen — but I for one was prepared.

I rolled around town that New Year’s Eve with a trunk full of bottled water, boxes of mac and cheese, canned meats and Little Debbie Snack Cakes.

Brace yourself — this road could be rough this go around.

Stock up pork lovers — or better yet (and less gross) buy your own pig herd. Hide it in the backyard or on an island like a pirate’s chest. Pigs like uninhabited islands. Ask anyone who has read “Lord of the Flies.”

The risks of not being ready are too great.

I would hate to hear about good wholesome folks dabbling in the pork black market. As a rule, it is a bad idea to buy meat from a man in a trench coat.

All the worry likely is overblown.

Chances are that the bacon shortage won’t be devastating. People will likely go cold turkey (bacon), pay more or cutback on eating pork products which may not necessarily be a bad thing.

That said, why chance it?

Like the saying I just made up goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of bacon.

What do you think? How will you survive the Bacon Apocalypse?