As promised! The is by a 15 year old in 9th grade English class. Yup, my sweetie Quoting: whiteangel
A World without Technology
February 13, 2013
Imagine a world without technology—it seems impossible to even think about. The world has been living with technology for what seems like a long time, to the point of where it is all the current generation knows. You can’t go anywhere nowadays without seeing at least one form of modern technology. Someone is either texting, talking on the phone, watching television, or driving a car. Just imagine waking up one day; a solar storm had knocked out the electrical grids while you were sleeping the night before. When the electrical grids are fried, the electricity is completely out—no coffee to help you wake up, no checking your Twitter feed, and no watching tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead. You’d probably be able to last for a couple of days without your phone or TV, but not without your refrigerator and freezer. The United States Government (FEMA) says to have at least three months worth of food in case a disaster happens; we also need a backup plan in case something happens to our technology. We need to know what to do if something happens.
On September 1st, 1859, Richard Carrington witnessed a solar flare erupting from the Sun that was pointed directly at Earth—or what is referred to as Earth-facing. A few hours before the Sun rose the next day, auroras erupted, so incandescent you could read something outside as if you were reading something in broad daylight, even though it was supposed to be dark. Birds had started chirping and workers thought they were supposed to get up to go to work. An aurora is a luminous atmospheric phenomenon visible around the northern or southern poles of Earth (Northern Lights and Southern Lights). These auroras observed during 1859 were seen even in the tropics, such Hawaii and Cuba. That is a very isolated event, and has only happened one time since, in 1989. The telegraph systems around the world had gone mad. Sparks from the telegraphs shocked and burned the hands of the operators. Even after the batteries were pulled from the machines, they could still send and receive messages. But, the communications didn’t work right after they had come back on line. The “Carrington Event” was, and still is, the largest solar storm to have ever stricken Earth. Even in the 1800s, it caused complete mayhem; just imagine what it could do now.
As an illustration of what could happen today, look at what happened almost ten years ago—the Halloween Storms of 2003. Around that time of the year, the Sun is usually quiet and few sunspots are seen. Sunspots are dark spots on the Sun that are visible from time to time, but if they don’t have the correct magnetism, they won’t produce a solar flare. Sunspots get all the attention for solar flares to cause coronal mass ejections (CEMs) but prominence and filaments also cause CEMs. On October 19th, 2003, the Halloween Storms began. Seventeen major solar flares erupted from the Sun that hit Earth’s magnetic field on and around Halloween. “The effects of these storms were ghoulish enough that [aircraft controllers] had to re-route aircraft, it affected satellite systems and communications, and it also caused a power outage in Sweden for about an hour,” Dr. Holly Gilbert, a solar scientist, said about the calamity. Auroras could be seen as far south as Florida. It wasn’t as big of a deal as it could have been—it could have knocked out power for a lot longer than it did. That just gives a general conception on what could happen.
After the 1989 Quebec storm, John Kappenmann found more than three-hundred fifty transformers—no, not the robots—at risk of permanent damage. Transformers are what controls and distributes our electricity. If they go out, we have no electricity. America doesn’t have enough surplus to replace the transformers in the country. If they went out, we would have to order new transformers from, say, China, since the mass of them are now made there. We wouldn’t be able to due to of the loss of electricity. No phones, no emails, et cetera. No transformers equal no electricity. No electricity, no communicative services. No communicative services, no calling China. No calling China, no new transformers. You get the picture. Families across America—no, across the world need a plan in case something happens. World governments need to be planning for the future. Grocery stores would quickly run out of food and supplies, so we would need to get that stuff quickly, as they only have about three days worth of food for the surrounding area. They can’t get more food and supplies because they can’t order anything. Even if they could somehow mail order forms, semi-trucks can’t drive across the country to deliver to a King Soopers in Thornton. They wouldn’t work. The average American family only has about three days worth of food in their homes. Society would fall apart in a matter of a week. The reliance of technology has become a necessity of modern life and if something happened, none of us would know what to do. Remember the Boy Scout/Girl Scout motto: be prepared.
You should always be prepared. It is better to be prepared and not need it, than to not be prepared and needing it. A solar storm could hit at any point. Sunspots come and go all the time. At the current being, there aren’t any sunspots aimed at us, but one could pop up and we could be in trouble. It’s always a good idea to be watching the Sun’s activity, and to plan. Don’t be freaked out if the power goes out, just plan. Have food and water stored, because one day, you could wake up and things could have gone haywire the night before, and you wouldn’t have known it until you were trying to get that cup of coffee…
Edit: sorry it posted as one big blob
Well, I'd give an A++, held my attention the whole way, she has a knack for writing, tell her I said, good job WA!