The invention of the Internet, by science guru Al Gore in the early 1970s, coupled with higher costs of anti-psychotic drugs and the economic crisis in the US, are having some interesting side effects.
The Internet, is giving a platform for everyone, and I do mean everyone, to voice their scientifically unbased opinions. The lack of anti-psychotic drugs on the other hands, is driving the kooks to write a multitude of scientifically inaccurate, and diabolically alarmist blogs, that innocent people will read, and might even believe.
Case and point: This guy. In his blog, he writes that solar flares will cause Armageddon. Now correct me if I’m wrong, (please) but to write up a piece comparing solar flares, beautiful and mostly harmless, with a catastrophe of biblical proportions, is irresponsible. He even goes as far as to title his article “Sun to rain death from above in solar storms.”
It’s just solar flares, not f**king Napalm.
While yes, in 1989 there was a power outage in Quebec, which was caused by a magnetic aurora effect, paired with a human error, the situation has been corrected since and in the event of another magnetic aurora effect, a new and improved protocol has been implemented, which will prevent any actual damage to the grid. In other words, besides the possibility of a small power failure of limited duration, we’d only be treated to a beautiful red or green glowing curtain effect, as the electrically charged particles collide with high altitude atoms in space.
The key word, in bold, above is in space. As long as we remain on Earth, and that the Earth has a magnetic field, we’re ok. Yes, some electrical systems in our orbiting satellites might be disrupted, satellite communications including television rebroadcasts might be pixelated for a while, and some GPS systems could also be shut down momentarily. It’s important to know though, that these GPS systems, are redundant, at this moment according to sources, we have 31 GPS satellites in orbit, spread across the planet. This means that even in the unlikely event that a monster solar flare might hit the planet and cause some of them to become unresponsive, at least half of them will have been protected by a huge hunk of water and rocks known as the Earth.
Oh, and cell phones? Sadly for drivers, they’d remain mostly unaffected.
