Just another example of academic pandering for grants, contracts and other funding to “continue studying” a problem about which we can prevent nothing.
“If it had occurred earlier.....”, “ odds are....” “bigger than Katrina...” blah blah blah.
They certainly weren’t out there telling anyone about the CME event BEFORE it happened, were they? Even if they had, the chances the Obama Administration would have rolled the dice and said nothing is very high.
The only proactive thing we could do is to develop an infrastructure that could deal effectively disaster....maybe we could call it FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). THEN, if we were smart about it, we’d make sure it was run well, by somebody competent, say like Walmart? Regardless, under THIS administration, all we’d get is blame, blustering and bullsh!t.
Given enough warning, we could have covered the Earth in a layer of aluminum foil. Voila, a faraday cage!