Apocalyptic events have been promised by all sorts of people in the past few years and the preppers have become so prevalent that they’ve got their own TV show. With the latest warning coming from scientists instead of someone with a crystal ball, you might want to take a lesson from the preppers.
Express U.K. reports on August 1 that scientists are warning of a solar storm so catastrophic that it can wipe out modern day technology and destroy life as we know it today. A solar storm like the one that hit earth in 1859 would bring civilization to a grinding halt for sure. When that massive solar storm hit over 150-years ago, very little technology existed, but what was in place at the time was thrown into turmoil.
In 1859, the world experienced the “Carrington event.” It was a massive super storm of solar flares that had telegraph machines sparking. The little bit of electricity that was around in that era started fires and went down from the flares. Electrical operators were injured. Fire balls were seen hurling across the atmosphere and people thought it was the end of the world. While a storm of that size won't wipe out the Earth of life, it will however change the way modern day life exists today.
The Washington Post reports that in July of 2012 two massive clouds of plasma were released by the sun. It barely missed Earth, but had it hit the planet, we would still “be picking up the pieces today," reports Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado. If that eruption was just one week earlier, Earth would have been in a position to be in the direct line of fire.
Life was so simple back in 1859 that this electrical storm didn’t shut down stores or stop travel, but today it would be totally different. You couldn’t so much as buy a gallon of gas if the technology goes down, which it would with a solar storm of that size.
Stores would close, communications would shut down, and money in banks wouldn’t be available to access. The electrical grid would go down and satellites could be fried. Ashley Dale, a member of international task force SolarMax has identified the risks of a solar storm and how it would affect life as you know it.
Without power, the online world would be unobtainable and basically that runs the show today. Whether paying for groceries or gas, machines won’t be up and running to dispense what you need. Water and sewage systems would even be affected.
“Scientists warn communication systems will be crippled, vital services such as transport, sanitation and medicine will close, and loss of power will plunge the planet into darkness,” according to Express UK.
This warning coming from Britain were prompted after they experienced one of the hottest summers on record. The “highly unusual activity” on the sun’s surface has already sent smaller solar flares the Earth’s way.
Dale warns that the planet is facing a repeat of the 1859 event, but this time there is so much more to lose from communications to sewage systems. Dale said:
“We are looking at a major major event, it sounds like scaremongering but we’re not, there are very serious implications.”
NASA scientists report that the solar flare event of 1859 happens every 150 years and the Earth is currently five years overdue for another one. “The likelihood of this happening in the next decade is as high as 12 percent.”
All that food, water and fuel that the preppers have gathered, as seen on the TV show, might not be just wasting space today. Another flare event like the one in 1859 is likely to occur and the preppers may be the only ones ready for such event.