I mean, on this date 160 years ago, a MAJOR solar storm hit the planet earth.
Known as the "Carrington Event" this storm caused havoc in the atmosphere and even affected and damaged the (relatively crude) telegraph systems of the day.
Think of what this would do today....
You'd have no internet, no telephone, no TV....(probably no national power to provide it anyway).
No distributed electrical power means:
No refrigeration....your food will spoil quickly, and your freezer will thaw after a few days.
No (or very little) food distribution...Fuel will run out quickly for those that don't have any stored. No communication to order it even if it could be delivered.
No banking (part of that "No communication bit) to pay for it even if you could order it and had fuel to transport it....
No AC for those in the Southern states.....No heat for those in the Northern states.
If it is harvest time, no fuel for tractors to harvest the grains or fruits or vegetables, much less get it to people that are starving.
And it will take years to fix the infrastructure to make parts to fix the systems that are damaged.
Now, it hasn't happened again in 160 years. Doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. Doesn't mean it will happen again in your lifetime.
But if it does, can you survive for longer than a month? It happened once. It CAN happen again.
Known as the "Carrington Event" this storm caused havoc in the atmosphere and even affected and damaged the (relatively crude) telegraph systems of the day.
Think of what this would do today....
You'd have no internet, no telephone, no TV....(probably no national power to provide it anyway).
No distributed electrical power means:
No refrigeration....your food will spoil quickly, and your freezer will thaw after a few days.
No (or very little) food distribution...Fuel will run out quickly for those that don't have any stored. No communication to order it even if it could be delivered.
No banking (part of that "No communication bit) to pay for it even if you could order it and had fuel to transport it....
No AC for those in the Southern states.....No heat for those in the Northern states.
If it is harvest time, no fuel for tractors to harvest the grains or fruits or vegetables, much less get it to people that are starving.
And it will take years to fix the infrastructure to make parts to fix the systems that are damaged.
Now, it hasn't happened again in 160 years. Doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. Doesn't mean it will happen again in your lifetime.
But if it does, can you survive for longer than a month? It happened once. It CAN happen again.
We dodged the bullet on one of these of at least equal strength as the Carrington Event a few years back. The only thing that saved us was that the solar storm occurred on the side of the sun facing away from Earth at the time.
ReplyDeleteIt's a matter of "when;" not "if..."