Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - one is due in just THREE years

dailymail.co.uk ^ | April 19, 2009 | Michael Hanlon

[Free ThinkerNY]

The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.

Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies.

Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground.

Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power.

By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air.

Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.

A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history.

By the end of 2013, 100,000 Europeans have died of starvation.

The dead go unburied, the sick untreated.

It will take two decades or more for the first green shoots of recovery to appear - recovery from the first solar superstorm in modern history.

This catastrophe is not some academic one-in-a-million chance scenario.

It is a very real threat which, according to a report in the latest issue of New Scientist, remains one of the most potent, yet least recognised, threats to the future of human civilisation.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

It’s here, it’s name is Barack Hussein Obama.

[unkus]

ping for later read

[ssaftler]

Didn’t Nicholas Cage just do a movie (”Knowing”) with this script?

[WireAndWood]

Rush Limbugh’s fault.

*grin*

[WireAndWood]

LimbAugh....

*sigh*

[airborne]

Obama’s fault!!!

[Mr. K]

keep some tinfoil handy

(seriously a huge supply- surround any electrical appliance you want to save and the electrically induced currents would stay OUTSIDE the surface of the shield. - look up ‘Faraday Cage’)

[CPOSharky]

Must be we can forget about global warming and all that ecofreek bs.

[EGPWS]

A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - and one is due in just THREE years

We're saved from global warming, WooHoo!!!

Now can we quit paying taxes?

[SampleMan]

Guns: check
Ammo: check

OK, let ‘er rip.

[mgc1122]

Alternate headline “Global Warming Averted” .... LOL

[OB1kNOb]

Coming soon to a SciFi channel near you?

[LucyT]

This catastrophe is not some academic one-in-a-million chance scenario.

It is a very real threat which, according to a report in the latest issue of New Scientist, remains one of the most potent, yet least recognised, threats to the future of human civilisation.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Not 2012 again... sheesh

[EGPWS]

(seriously a huge supply- surround any electrical appliance you want to save and the electrically induced currents would stay OUTSIDE the surface of the shield. - look up ‘Faraday Cage’)

As long as it's properly grounded but what is the ground reference in this scenario, Earth?

[LucyT]

Catastrophism ping.

[BuffaloJack]

Wow, tinfoil futures are about to soar.
Lots of hats to be made.

[Tzimisce]

With BO in office, we won’t have to wait for fire from space. The Iranians will have tons of fire right here on Earth. :D

[EGPWS]

Not 2012 again... sheesh

Oh, oh...

The fun is winding down already. : - D