The Carrington Event (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

Just learned about this gigantic solar flare event that happened in 1859. It was so powerful that it created auroras so big and bright that they were seen as far south as Hawaii and allowed people in the South in the US to read a newspaper by its light.

What's truly terrifying is that it could destroy our electrical, satellite and communication systems if one were to occur today. We're talking going dark for up to years. Think about how much we rely on electricity and computers. Virtually our entire financial system is a bunch of ones and zeros. If electrical systems were down for a month, how would you buy food? How would you get to work? How could your job even continue? A single one of these, and we could basically be thrown into total anarchy. And we have zero protection against something like this.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/

 

[rockaction]

"Paper Ballots and Gold" would be a good bluegrass tune for the nostalgia de la bivouac kids at RISD.  

But to your point, yes, we are very vulnerable. The level of vulnerability is an indication of how we put capital-t Trust in our current interconnected system. In the event that it fails, we're a bit screwed.  

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Just learned about this gigantic solar flare event that happened in 1859. It was so powerful that it created auroras so big and bright that they were seen as far south as Hawaii and allowed people in the South in the US to read a newspaper by its light.

What's truly terrifying is that it could destroy our electrical, satellite and communication systems if one were to occur today. We're talking going dark for up to years. Think about how much we rely on electricity and computers. Virtually our entire financial system is a bunch of ones and zeros. If electrical systems were down for a month, how would you buy food? How would you get to work? How could your job even continue? A single one of these, and we could basically be thrown into total anarchy. And we have zero protection against something like this.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/

Yeah, it's pretty awesome to think about.

 

[Jules Winnfield]

I think I wore Carrington in the 80s

 

[Wrigley]

Read One second after

 

[jerry jones]

I wonder if anything has changed in the 6 years since this story was written?

 

[Parrothead]

Read One second after

 

[Quez]

Hearing about things like this, and the Yellowstone Super Volcano gives preppers a hard on.  All of our cellphones are going to be worthless, chaos will erupt, and they will be in their bunker paradise eating freeze dried foods, and sucking out of life straws.

 

[jhib]

I wonder if anything has changed in the 6 years since this story was written?

There was actually one of these events a year later (5 years ago) that missed us by about a week. 

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

Hopefully, a lot of shielding is being installed on a lot of critical hardware. 

 

[Uwe Blab]

This has  actually gotten a lot more attention lately.  There is always the thought of an EMP weapon detonated in space taking out a ton of military tracking and infrastructure.  Then smaller scale: a nuke detonated way up in the atmosphere above a region taking out power to a megopolis like NYC or DC.  I'd like to think there has been a lot of ramp up on protection on that. 

 

[Poke_4_Life]

Read One second after

Great concept for a book, but I thought the execution was subpar.  3 out of 5 stars.