[T'wit]

Good. Everybody will die and we don't have to worry about global warming.

[martin_fierro]

My tinfoil hat is already calibrated. I am prepared.

[RandyRep]

Geez, the UN has to do something quick about this...

It MUST BE electro-magnetic emissions that is causing this.

I know, we could have a Sapporo treaty to reduce radio broadcasts, TV signals, telephone, garage door opener, TV remotes, wireless computer networks, electrical power plants, etc. back to year 1900 levels in order to save our planet.

Oh, wait, perhaps a better sunscreen will solve the problem?

[tubebender]

The late Emil Sepic from here in Eureka wrote a lot on this subject. While doing a google for Emil I came across This

[the invisib1e hand]

everybody hold on!

[Kirkwood]

So has the left blamed President Bush yet?

[Petronski]

If a flip did take place, it would be over the course of several thousand years, and scientists say it would likely reduce the protective ozone layer, cause glitches in satellites and electronic products, and create a flurry of navigational anomalies as compasses would "cease to be a simple means of navigation," according to Bloxham.

WTF is the point of this article?

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

How will this effect that nuke powered Lightning Gun of Eakers, and it's power ZOT?

[hole_n_one]

Meow!.......................Meow!

[Reagan is King]

If we'd only signed the Kyoto accord all this could have been prevented...

/sarcasm>

[Mike Darancette]

The UN must convene a conference and investigate the effect of electric generation and transmission on the Earth's magnetic field.

It surely must be the fault of the developed world and the USA in particular. The USA must pay and pay!

[Beck_isright]

"The consequences would be the same if a reversal takes place or the field continues to diminish, with one researcher estimating an additional 100,000 cancer cases annually as people would be subject to more of the sun's harmful rays."

Let me know the date when this is due to occur. I want to start smoking. Might as well die of lung cancer instead of skin cancer.

[WoofDog123]

"If a flip did take place, it would be over the course of several thousand years, and scientists say it would likely reduce the protective ozone layer, cause glitches in satellites and electronic products, and create a flurry of navigational anomalies as compasses would "cease to be a simple means of navigation," according to Bloxham. "

The fields simply moving around would cause aurora to appear in places they have not been seen in human history....or not more than a few times in all human history, at any rate.

[M Kehoe]

If a flip did take place, it would be over the course of several thousand years,...

At what point would the compass point west/east?

5.56mm

[txzman]

Uh, this is serious science, although absolutely no one knows the timing. Don't dismiss until you understand why the controversy started in the first place.

[yonif]

Its the Jewish hold on Earth that is causing this...../sarcasm

[CommandoFrank]

Does this mean when it gets to zero just prior to the 'flip', we'll all float off into space?

Will we have to rename the America's? (N. America will become S. America)

Where will the Northern Lights go?

Will whirl pools rotate in the other direction?

Will pigeons lose their way?

The song "North to Alaska" will no longer be valid...

[Redcloak]

So if the poles flip, does that mean shiney-side out or shiney-side in?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Is this new news?
SAGA magazine had an article about that in 1969, complete with artwork showing crashing skyscrapers.
The theory was when the poles flip for a short while the earth will have no stablizing spin so the crust, where we live, will float around like ice in water till t\he flip is complete.

[happydogdesign]

A recent episode of Nova featured this story, and basically said there may be a higher risk of cancer, but the technological advances by that time would probably be able to cope with it, and there should be lots of really cool auroras.

Excerpt:
"If all the compasses in the world started pointing south rather than north, many people might think something very strange, very unusual, and possibly very dangerous was going on. Doomsayers would have a field day proclaiming the end is nigh, while more rational persons might head straight to scientists for an explanation.

Fortunately, those scientists in the know -- paleomagnetists, to be exact -- would have a ready answer. Such reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, they'd tell you, are, roughly speaking, as common as ice ages. That is, they're terrifically infrequent by human standards, but in geologic terms they happen all the time. As the time line at right shows, hundreds of times in our planet's history the polarity of the magnetic shield ensheathing the globe has gone from "normal," our current orientation to the north, to "reversed," and back again.

The Earth is not alone in this fickleness: The sun's magnetic shield appears to reverse its polarity approximately every 11 years. Even our Milky Way galaxy is magnetized, and experts say it probably reverses its polarity as well. Moreover, while a severe weakening or disappearance of the magnetic field would lay us open to harmful radiation from the sun, there's little evidence to date that "flips" per se inflict any lasting damage (see Impact on Animals).

It might sound as if scientists have all the answers regarding magnetic reversals. But actually they know very little about them. Basic questions haunt researchers: What physical processes within the Earth trigger reversals? Why do the durations and frequencies of both normal and reversed states seem random? Why is there such a disproportionately long normal period between about 121 and 83 million years ago? Why does the reversal rate, at least during the past 160 million years, appear to peak around 12 million years ago?

All these questions remain unanswered, though experts like Dennis Kent, the Rutgers University geologist who supplied NOVA with updated figures for the time line, are hard at work trying to answer them. In the meantime, not to worry. Reversals happen on average only about once every 250,000 years, and they take hundreds if not thousands of years to complete.

Even the weakening currently under way may be a false alarm. The field often gets very weak, then bounces back, never having flipped. As Ron Merrill, a magnetic-field specialist at the University of Washington remarked when asked whether we're in for a reversal: "Ask me in 10,000 years, I'll give you a better answer." So hang on to your compass. For the foreseeable future, it should work as advertised.--Peter Tyson"