Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-from-catastrophe.html?full=true&print=true ^

[chessplayer]

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

[P.O.E.]

You could bet that political apparatchiks would get first dibs. The rest of us would be left to the marauders.

[PALIN SMITH]

I saw that movie when I was a kid......The Day of the Triffids.......salt water killed them......

Signs......fresh water killed them

Congress.....common sense kills them

[Paved Paradise]

This article is absolutely right on the money. Those coronal mass ejections COULD cause plasma balls and there is a great amount of magnetic properties. Even 25 years ago this would not have been nearly as devastating but we’re all so reliant on your satellites now and all our technology.

The sun is very interesting to study. Amazing really.

[Paved Paradise]

I mean “our” satellites. Not “your.” I am assuming you don’t own any.

[chessplayer]

And the odds of a Coronal Mass Ejection knocking us back 200 years are far higher than the odds of an asteroid hitting us. Scary how vulnerable our high-tech way of life is.

[chessplayer]

Now this is something I would`nt mind the govt. spending money on. To try to make our systems less vulnerable to such an event. But libs want to waste money on global warming, instead.

[higgmeister]

Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.

This seems to allude that modern technology will cause solar eruptions. A little less sensationalism is in order I think.

[higgmeister]

Now this is something I would`nt mind the govt. spending money on. To try to make our systems less vulnerable to such an event.

They do. It is the same shielding as is required to thwart a nuclear EMP pulse. It is just a lot more expensive than not doing it.

[Paved Paradise]

Well why work on things that are REAL when you can spend all that money on FAKE things. When the stuff is FAKE, then you can just make up how much money it will cost. When it’s real, then you can come up with REAL dollar figures.

Anyway, I’m with you. I’m actually studying all of this right now in Astronomy class - a great class. The math is not easy though. But, just like the little ice age we had here in the 1600’s which was caused by the sun’s cycles - the sun is something we cannot control so if it is hotter or cooler, we will just have to deal with it.

[baltodog]

Anyone out there read the “Time Odyssey” series by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephan Baker?

[Big_Harry]

At the risk of being accused of run away optimism, A techno crash would give freedom fighters the opportunity to take the country back. By 2012, taxpayers will be living a stone age existence anyway, this will be a great evener!

[Fiddlstix]

Bump
To read later

[bigheadfred]

I’m going to start stocking up on beanee-weenees now, just in case.

[DevNet]

No - they are saying that our way of life is much more vulnerable to such damage.

[DevNet]

It would be impossible to shield the entire power grid.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Please let the power go off in a major city...even for a couple of days.

Of course it will probably happen anyway if the "progressives" get their way.

[neodad]

Would that mean no FR?

[BenLurkin]

We’d have to write letters to each other.

[SunkenCiv]

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