Jun
16
It’s the Sun’s Fault
Our sun is a giant and volatile fusion reactor. It can belch up flares that would engulf up to 10 Earths. The sun often goes through solar cycles which greatly effects our climate. That’s right, Earth has gone through many global cooling and warming cycles. Not many people know that Greenland was green and was inhabited during the Medieval Warming Period by Norse Settlers. Currently, our Sun is very active and going through another cycle which is warming out climate. This is a significant component to Global Warming, – whether CO2 emissions from humans are more significant than the sun’s cycle is still argued by experts. It seems, however, that its going to get a little hotter in here whether we like it or not.
Not only is the Sun making it hard to stay cool, but its likely to shut down all of our electronics. A recent publication by NASA warns us that the “sun is waking up from a deep slumber.” That sounds comforting, I never knew that massive reactor was ever asleep! On April 19, 2010 the sun had a massive eruption that -sigh- fortunately missed Earth. Some people think that means we missed near annihilation from a huge fireball that would have engulfed us all and brought the Second Coming, something like the ending of the movie Knowing (In case you haven’t seen it, your not missing much). To your relief, the sun cannot engulf us in a huge fireball like Hollywood portrays, but I can cause quite a catastrophe.
When a large enough solar flare hits Earth it has the potential of knocking out all electronic systems we now use. That includes everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, and even your iPod and iPhone. In the 19th century a solar flare knocked out all the telegraph systems, which were quickly restored. In our day, It could take up to a month for everything to get back working again. That means no iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, or DirectTV for a whole month? Yes! But that is the least of our worries. It also means no cell phone communication (no cell tower power), no driving (how you going to pay for gas?), limited food (grocery stores turnover inventory in only two days), and no air conditioning or heating (power transformers will be knocked out).
Our life depends on electricity. Having to live without it for up to month could really cause a pandemic. The UK feels this a worthy concern and is planning on taking preventive action. So far, the US government hasn’t enlightened us on preventive actions they are taking, while receiving repeated warnings from NASA. Well, if things don’t work out well, I wouldn’t be surprised to find politicians start blaming their problems on the sun.