Oh vast, Eternal City, your ruin approaches
Your walls, your lifeblood shall crumble
The populous places will be uninhabitable
Earth’s forces give way to a new power in the sky
Oh vast, Eternal City, your ruin approaches
Your walls, your lifeblood shall crumble
The populous places will be uninhabitable
Earth’s forces give way to a new power in the sky
The headline above sounds like something out of a disaster movie doesn’t it? Only it isn’t fiction. It is a real threat and we are not prepared to deal with the potential outcome of such an event.
If you think back a few years ago to August 2003 when the great Northeast blackout hit much of the East Coast and parts of Canada, it was a real wake up call to what would happen to us in the event of a major power outage.
55 million people were affected when the power went out in over 8 U.S. states just after 4 pm. It was at the time, the second most widespread electrical blackout in history.
I was in New York City then and I can tell you that it will be something I never forget. There were no functioning street lights, no power to any buildings, no elevators, no restaurants or stores functioning properly, and food melting in freezers where people had them. Toilets would only flush until they ran out of water..same thing for water faucets, and the water stopped flowing pretty fast. Hotels were jammed and people were forced to sleep on sidewalks or in buildings huddled together for security if they couldn’t get to a permanent domicile. I had to climb 15 flights of stairs until I made it to one of the only hotel rooms left in my hotel.
Mass transit systems were stopped in their tracks. Cell phones had no signal, with the exception of Verizon service which amazingly was operating, and even that service was sporadic as the communication system was overloaded by panicked people trying to call someone.
Even police radios were not functioning.
If you could get a cab to stop, and you got in, you risked potential injury from an accident (both as a passenger or as a pedestrian) as the city lights were out and you were riding in pitch black with people wandering the streets in the darkness trying to figure out how to get home. In short, it was absolute chaos at best. And it was not just for a few minutes. It ended up being hours. Nearly 24, and it wasn’t completely restored until much longer than that. Nighttime in New York City that period was truly dangerous.
55 million people were affected when the power went out in over 8 major cities just after 4 pm.
So could it happen again? Yes. Did we make changes to prevent this type of scenario in the future? No.
NASA has been warning us of an impending solar event since at least 2008. If NASA is worried about this we should be too. They know their stuff. In fact, they warned us to prepare for a “once in a lifetime solar storm event” and those warnings were updated as recently as June 2010.
Hear the interview and see the videos:
NASA Scientists Warns of Awakening Sun
Solar Flare Could Paralyze Britain
Dr. Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics division in a June 2010 interview with the NY Daily Post, the Daily Telegraph (UK), and other major newspapers said that “It’s very likely in the next 10 years that we will have some impact like that described in the National Academy report”.
Here is a link to a few of the articles:
The report Dr. Fisher is referring is entitled “National Academy of Sciences, Severe Space Weather Events” and it was issued in 2008 by the National Academy of Sciences, a highly regarded international organization of scientists and thinkers.
In the report, it talks about the potential danger to the U.S. power grid in the event of a space weather event (such as a geomagnetic disturbance that can come from a solar event). Concerning the U.S. power grid, it says that it not only has the potential for large scale blackouts, but also the potential for permanent damage leading to “extraordinarily long” restoration times. This might mean weeks, or months, or worse.
NASA article on latest Sun activity
Why are the warnings coming now? It is all about cycles. The Sun goes through cycles of activity every 11 years. We just emerged from a Solar Minimum cycle (one where the activity is low and few sunspots are created which have the potential for creating mayhem with the satellite constellations). We are now starting Solar Cycle 24, which is a Solar Maximum cycle – one in which the solar activity becomes intense and reaches maximum levels, many with potentially disruptive capabilities. This cycle is not expected to end completely until 2015 (see the chart at the upper left of this article ).
So what could happen if such an event were to occur and be sustained over a period of time?
Not possible you say?
Wrong. It has already happened at least once, in 1859 with global implications and in 1989 but confined to Canada.
At that time a solar storm of tremendous geomagnetic force hit the Earth during a Solar Maximum period. It was called the Carrington Flare, and it burned out the telegraphic wires in the U.S. and Europe and caused severe disruptions to communication and navigation capabilities across the globe. There was only 18 hours warning and no one realized the impacts.
That was in 1859. No cars then (1885), no electric lighting. No computerized systems.
And it also happened even more recently but with a less severe affect in March 1989 when a geomagnetic storm hit Northeastern Canada’s Hydro-Quebec power grid collapsing it in 90 seconds and leaving millions of people without electricity for up to 9 hours and again in 2003 when a solar flare hit South Africa and knocked out 14 power stations, temporarily crippling their power grid.
Now imagine what could happen 152 years later…..
Chaos, severe social and economic disruptions and a return to life before electricity.
In a society that has evolved from hunter gatherers to one in which we expect to just pop down the street for dinner or to pickup groceries, the effects could be catastrophic.
I think this is enough to think about for now…
Next up…..the hole in the Earth’s Magnetosphere and why we are even more vulnerable to a Solar Event then at any time in history…..
Pravda is reporting that scientists have discovered two large whirlpools off the coast of South America that weren’t there a short time ago. The whirlpools are approximately 400 meters across. Until this discovery these were not known to exist on Earth.
Scientists are studying whether these can affect the weather in this region. Here is a link to the story:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/12-04-2011/117547-ocean_whirlpools-0/
1. Why are we suddenly seeing massive earthquakes on a scale never before seen?
2. Unusual weather patterns?
3. Mass animal die offs?
4. What is the real reason the U.S. Shuttle program has been stopped?
5. Why are there no manned space launches planned after the shuttle program ends?
6. Why did we cancel Project Constellation?
7. Why does the SOHO observatory mission end in December 2012?
Start asking yourself these questions and wonder what might be the answer.
More to come….
Asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass close to Earth on November 8th, 2011. This large asteroid (1,300 ft/ 400 meters) will pass Earth within 0.85 lunar distances. This is extremely close and very big. It will approach from the South.
More details to come as it gets closer.
http://www.space.com/11310-huge-asteroid-2005-yu55-passing-earth-november.html
Our predicted date range for this earthquake event ends tomorrow.
On March 13th (find in the Predictions tab above or via this link) we predicted an earthquake between 5-8 magnitude at 25 degrees North in the land of New Navarra to occur between the time of March 20th and April 10th. While the date range was accurate we missed the location by 5 degrees.
There was a significant 6.5 magnitude earthquake that did occur during our predicted range on April 7th at 17 degrees North in the area near Veracruz, Mexico. While we were off by 5 degrees, this did strike in the general vicinity of our prediction and we believe this event fulfilled the prediction.
Fortunately, because the earthquake was deep, there was a small amount of damage and no loss of life. This event was eclipsed by the unfortunate 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Japan which happened 1 hour later.
A massive solar eruption commonly referred to as a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) was spotted earlier this morning (4/3/2011) and has been verified late this evening by NASA solar observatories. The massive sun eruption was not directly facing Earth at the time but the eruption does have a chance of hitting the Earth and causing a glancing blow to our magnetic field.
It is expected to reach us on April 6th.
See the link below to see the eruption:
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/browse/2011/04/03/ahead_20110403_cor2_256.mpg