Well known physicist Michio Kaku joins the Fox Business News Channel to discuss the probability of a serious solar flare event and what effects it may have on society.
(Video follows excerpts and commentary)
Every 11 years the [sun’s] north pole and the south pole flip, releasing a burst of radiation. But, every 100 years or so, a monster Tsunami from the sun emerges which could literally cause trillions in property damage.
…
It could paralyze the economy of the planet earth. In 1859 we had a gigantic solar storm which knocked out telegraph wires back then, 150 years ago. If that had happened today it would knock out almost all our satellites, knock out power stations, there would be food riots around the country because refrigeration would stop, airplanes would probably crash without radar.
…
And again, this is a once in a century, once in two centuries storm…
We do have them and we have to worry about them.
…
We’d be thrown back 100 years.
Among the many naturally occurring SHTF / TEOTWAWKI events that could happen, we may not rate a solar Tsunami EMP event as a global killer like say, an asteroid the size of Texas, but it would definitely rate a 9 out of 10 on our SHTF severity scale.
As individuals, families and communities we may not be able to survive an asteroid impact, super volcano, or pole shift induced geographic earthquake, but a solar flare is something we can actually prepare for.
Our biggest concern with food will not necessarily be because of a lack of refrigeration, but an inability of our current just-in-time delivery systems to transport goods. A strong enough flare could potentially knock out the electrical components in the trucks that transport our food, the computers used to manage the inventory, and the ability for businesses to transfers payments to and from each other.
If the electrical grid in the United States were to be taken out by a solar flare we can expect months, not days, of downtime. In 1859 the fall out was limited to telegraph systems, because those were really the only electrical components of any significance.
Today, our entire world is intertwined by electricity, satellites, routers, switches and computers. Even a minor disruption to some of the components, like our GPS networks, could wreck havoc.
We’re not sure what the odds are of a solar flare taking out society as we know it, but we trust the views of some of the world’s leading scientists like Dr. Kaku and researches at NASA. Some of the brightest minds in the world have indicated that this is a real and present danger, so we’re going to store some reserve rations (and other preps) just in case.
Related: NASA Plans for Large Scale Failure, Power Grid is “Particularly Vulnerable to Bad Space Weatherâ€
Dr. Michio Kaku Discusses the Probability and Effects of Solar Flares:
Um, the poles flip about every 250,000 years but haven’t in about 750,000 years. We’re overdue for a flip, and it might be happening, but will take 1000 years to complete.
Incorrect.
Someone from NASA said the truth.
You are spreading BS based on your own insecurities.
Prepare, or perish.
Will every country on earth be effected or only those countries being hit directly by the solar flares? How many hours, days or weeks will the earth get hit by the solar flares?
“Every 11 years the north pole and the south pole flip” LOL!!! Funny how my compass has been auto-compensating all these years.
Poles of the SUN Einstein!
The military-critical satellites are hardened against this, as are the nuclear weapons, so no one could hit us when we’re down, unless it’s a flare like the one in the movie ‘Knowing”. At that point it wouldn’t matter.
I wonder if a solar flare or CME would affect just the side of the Earth facing the sun when it hit or if the duration of the event would cause the entire surface to be affected.
The only thing for certain is that there will be anarchy. I would say that an event like this would knock us all back a lot further than 100 years. A hundred years ago people knew how to do stuff that is completely forgotten by 99% of the population today.
Lord…please hurry!
But in the meantime get yer beans, bullets and band aids stored, cuz yer really gonna need’m soon.
Damn glad that I know how to build, fix, maintain and repair things. The banksters and stock marketeers will probably quickly starve to death in this sort of a world. “Your wife will do WHAT for me if I fix your stove for you???”
@ **GiveMeAForkingBreak**
I know this feeling well Bubba! The REALLY interesting times are right around the corner. Please Lord ……. stick the enema nozzle in there right in the middle of the Wall Street Financial District! These are the folks who really need that ‘special’, priority treatment ….. they’re so full of ca-ca that the ‘whites’ of their eyes are turning brown!!!
If you couldn’t laugh about what’s headed our way …… you would surely have to cry. Ya gotta love it!
There is a new web bot report out – and you can get the last six bundled for $20. Â They are describing a downtime for the Internet which could very well be this.
They talk about it in all the reports, and it’s timing is evidently consistent.
http://www.halfpasthuman.com
and check out
http://www.urbansurvival.com for updates
Good luck everyone
also, buy a SUN OVEN!!
Grow some food and store water!!
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Ain’t gonna BE no solar flare and ain’t gonna be no war with Iran.Â
But they iz gonna be higher taxes and higher bills.  Get ready!
@Gary – My bad, that referred to the sun’s poles, not the earth’s. Am making the change in the article now.
Comments…..If the solar flare were strong enough it would encompus the whole earth.
It would be the difference with cooking in an oven or cooking with a controlled blow torch.
Hope this doesn’t happen, but I’ll be getting that sun oven, solar chargers, more storeable food, etc just in case.
Good Lord! If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Maybe it will all happen at once.  Lets time this for dropping some nukes on Iran too. What the hell, won’t matter anyway.
No worries………Messiah Oreo who resides in the White House will save us with another line of bull shit. <sarcasm off>
Anyone interested in the probable aftermath of an x-class CME and EMP, check out http://www.onesecondafter.com/
It’s no joke.
Oh,My !!!
Better sell the defibrillator!
How does this effect that racist tax on indoor sun tanning for Americans.Â
Shit happens….what? Â Me worry? Â It’s all “what ifs” Â Â Hell, I may die tomorrow, too.
Maybe they’ll put us all in the same concentration (I mean FEMA) camp.
It’s not to smart to put all of the wise people together….
Let us learn the valuable lessons from NY in 1976 when they lost power,from the LA riots and from New Orleans.
Guns and groceries are the first things,then comes avoidance of “those neighborhoods”.
@ Ken and Gary:
“Um”, Ken, the article said the SUN’s poles flip every 11 years, not the Earth’s. When preparing a snarky comment about an article, be sure you’ve actually read the article first.
If setting us back a 100 years, meant loosing all the laws and regulations that have been enacted during the last 100 years, Â then bring on that solar flare!
Just think, 100 years ago, there was no income tax, and no Federal Reserve. Â No, or very little, Fed regulations, that have killed this nation’s economy…..just dreaming
Oh, Lord! Please hurry. I’m tired of waiting!
God, Guts, Guns, Groceries, Gas and Gold.
Always put God first.
Have the Guts to live like a man.
You’ll need Guns to protect your Groceries, Gas and Gold.
Use it all to survive. As you survive, help your neighbors survive.
It’s really hard to say. Since we don’t really know what it will do or how powerful it will be we are basing our guesses on assumptions. It could wipe out all GM cars and not hurt Chrysler vehicles. It could hit the East worse then the West. It might not affect places like West virginia but devastate Kansas. It may be worse if it occurs/hits during daylight hours so it depends where the earth is in relation to the sun. It may hit the Sourthern hemisphere harder. It may simply cause static while listening to Rush. No one knows.Â
Who gives a shit?   Ass clown Obama set us back by 300 years.
Hahaha, nice comment Paul Revere. Too true…
Yea, I live in New Orleans, so power outages, telephone lines down, internet down, crime, drive bys, you name it, I’m used to it! I think we’ll survive longer than anyone down here because we already live in the wild wild west.
BTW, I love this site.
Solar flare is unlikely to damage most vehicle computers. The cars are grounded in most cases. Some computers are more sensitive but a lot are not. They take constant abuse and are designed for it. The Canadian military did extensive tests and found unmodified civilian vehicles survive a large EMP quite well.
Other things will go down no doubt but not everything.
You know what else is great about this once in a century or two solar storm? It’s also occuring with another rare event called the galactic alignment that happens once every 25,800 years so really what we’ve got on our hands for 2012 is something that occurs once every 64 Million Years or so (right around when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, wonder if this has anything to do with their extinction…?)
goodcall and LOL to Paul Revere’s comment too btw, I missed that one but couldn’t agree more about Obama sucking
Well now, if such an event happens there is nothing anyone can do about it. I would worry more about what the Obama administration and the idiots in Congress are doing to us, God help us.
Comments…..When I see the links on this site, it is pretty obvious that this is one big network of cry wolf folks re the economy and anything else they can find to try to increase fear and uncertainty FOR ECOMIC and/or POLITICAL GAIN. Â The threat is real, just not the doomsday implications that these people like to paint. Â Reality = 9 months before preparation, and they say 3 months and potentially food, water shortages…These are republicans trying their best to drive the VIX up and the economy down during a democratic administration. Â Criminal jerks! Â We always have threats; prepare, then get on with your life. Â These paranoid people will drive you nuts.
Comments….. Nothing new! Just fearmongering which is standard for FoxNews. Somebody have interest to distract people from the current real problems in this country and the real reasons for the situation. Sollar activity is a phenomena with billions of years history and yes it is ciclical due to the nature of the processes inside the star. The Earth always been exposed to this influences. Yes it is now the time when the results will be very visable and severe if big burst hapend because of our dependency of the electronics devices. But the same we can say for any catastrofic cosmic event. Why somebody need right now to plant panic among population? From the other hand in this publication and coments we can see a lot of nonsence and incorrect facts cited. The sollar poles do not change every 11 years (this is banchmaek sollar spot cicle) but every 22 years or every two 11 years cicles. Second the coments are so out of the facts that I have the filling thet nobody reading this matrerial evar heard about sollar activity. It is a shame that this county do not provide enough education to the population (may be purposly) . Michio Kaku refer to solar poles not Earth poles. So before making comments on something you do not understend think who sending the message and what the message cary and what gool the messanger has??
I would like to know, where can I find information on steps I can take to prepare as best possible for a solar event as stated. Is there any type of material ione can use to protect electrical equipment, such as diesel plant, portable radios, etc
Thank you,
Who knows what will happen. Perhaps things will get bad perhaps not. All I can say is there was a huge government and media hype on the y2k, swine flu, and a thousand other events which turned into nothing. There was also denial of the recession, tech bubble, stock bubble, housing bubble, financial crises…Â
I sure wish there was government hype on 2012 warning us of some impending doom. Then I would know 2012 was a fraud. Unfortunately instead of the government ignoring it or validating it as a real threat each of which would make me feel better and believe that nothing would happen. They are denying it. Damn something is up. Compulsive liar’s can be counted on to lie and that is about it.
Anthony, here are some ideas for your EMP research.
I originally typed up a nice response and then Firefox shut down on me and I lost all the info, so I am going to paste the links from the pages I was going to refer you to below:
EMP Forum Thread
Surviving a Nuke Attack (After effects on electronic are similar to a solar flare EMP)
Build a Faraday Cage for essential electric items and components
EMP Proofing Vehicles
and if you haven’t yet, read “One Second After” to understand the possible after effects (to economy, society, etc.) in the event of an EMP-induced down-grid scenario.
Hope that helps!
Comments…..Have enjoyed this site more than any other! Your comments are hilliarous! Yes, there are solar events, but comments relating to the damage, barry soetoro (barrack obama) is doing, is many times worse than what nature is doing!!
& yes brig us back 100 yr, so we can do it right this timee!!!
Comments….. I might worry if the story came from some place besides Fox News. I’m sure your insurance agent will be calling you soon to sell you a solar flare rider. Y2K part DUX
No one knows if the economy will collapse tomorrow, after the election or in a couple of years. But it surely will collapse and may already be collapsing. The national debt is so big we could not possibly pay it back. We have played around with interest rates which has the effect of reducing the payment on the debt. But instead of taking advantage of this lull and making some attempt to stop running deficits and to pay down some of the debt we did the opposite and tripled our deficit. And at the same time we printed a couple of trillion dollars with nothing to back it. Sooner or later this time bomb will explode. As inflation increases the fed will be forced to increase interest rates. As rates go up our payment goes up. Soon the payment on our debt will be the single largest federal outlay. It could exceed $2 trillion a year if double digit interest rates come back. The worst part is it cannot be fixed. The incredibly high deficit spending of the last 20 months has put this problem over the top. It’s over, done, we cannot recover, it’s just a quaetion of time.
Of course the debt can be paid. Just print as much worthless fiat money as needed and make the payment. A billion marks for a loaf of bread in Germany before WW2 shows what money creation can do.
As for surviving such a event it is simple. You will need guns,ammo,gold,silver,water,canned goods,dry goods,and a book titled “how things work”.You will also need the will to use the guns and ally yourself with like minded prepared people. Any questions?
Would you please give a bit more info on the book “How Things Work” such as the Author and Publisher?
Thanks
Comments…..MOST AMERICANS HAVE THERE HEAD SO FAR IN THE GROUND THET DON’T KNOW SHIT AND DON’T CARE TO. FOR THE REST OF US IT MIGHT KILL YOU NOT TO AT LEAST PREPAIR. WAKE UP AMERICA,HAVEN’T WE BEEN SCREW ENOUGH.DR. MICHO KAKU SAID HE HAS NEVER BEEN TO WASHINGTON, SO WHAT THE HELL DOES HE HAVE TO LIE ABOUT. HE HIS DAME SURE SMARTER THAN WE ARE. WAKE UP PEOPLE. NO ONE IS GOING TO HELP YOU BUT YOU…
Comments…..SORRY ABOUT THE SPELLING.
aaaa
No one knows if Y2K would have been bad because we spent billions and fixed it before it happened.
Very reasonable scientists believe the electric grid would fail in this low probability / high risk event. It would cost a few hundred million to fix it. A senior investment banker at Goldman could do it out of pocket just from last years bonus.
Now think about the effect on society of no electricity for 6 months or so. It’s possible the very absence of electricity itself would prevent fixing the grid.
Whether you believe or not, we have certainly spent money on stupider things than prevention of grid failure.
Its not a few hundred million to protect the grid. Though my friend works for BC Hydro up in Canada and says an EMP wouldn’t do much of anything because they have very few electric switching gear equipment. But to protect the substations would cost hundreds of millions of several billion in just BC alone.
It is possible to mitigate the problems of a large solar flare, but not completely prevent them.
Comments…..The bankers and the REAL rulers of the world will be in underground cities,while those on the surface will be in darkness for at least three days and nights.100 years in the cycle of solar flares in nothing but when you look at the signifigance of the date ( Mayan 2012 prof ) something alot bigger is gonna happen.Remember this also,with the heavy metals they have been pumping into our bodies with the technology they have we cant hide anywhere.We glow like glowworms,so when they come out of there underground cities to mop up whats left it wont be a difficult job to do.
New World / New World Order/ Job Complete.
Harry: Keep drinking that cool-aid. Wow. Least I sound normal compared to you about how bad I think the government is. The sad part is, building anything larger then a small bunker is hard to keep secret. Too many people involved. Most of the underground bunkers the US had were known for years. Maybe not to the masses but it was available.
Maybe try reverse osmosis on your water to get rid of those awful metals they’re putting in you too.
If we had an EMP today within hours the workers in the electric utility/generation industry would begin repairing the problems. Depending on the effects of the EMP the workers could have some portion of the system up and running in hours and perhaps the majority of it up in weeks. I presume someone will conuter my arguement by claiming it would be the “mother of all EMP’s” and destroy everything. In that case the workers would have some portion of the grid up and running in hours and the majority of the grid running in weeks to months. The basics of our electric grid is not rocket science or so technologically difficult that it cannot be repaired.  The people who maintain it know how to fix it and that is what they would do.  Did you really think they would not fix it?
The problem is not in your neighborhood transformer it is in the large transformers at power stations. The world has a very small capacity for producing these each year. (a hand full).
Now imagine that dozens of them are gone.
Now imagine the power grid is down at the transformer plant.
you keep talking about THEY fixing things but THEY live in the same world we do.
If the transmission lines and large transformers go..it won’t be hours my friend.
Talk to someone at a power company instead of making blind assumptions.
GoneWithTheWind – If an EMP was set off high enough it could disrupt a large portion of the USA (40-50% if up around 135 miles). A lot of people argue that vehicles (including the worker trucks needed to lift new transformers, switches, etc) would be disabled. Unless you know how to lift hundreds of pounds of equipment into the air without them, their is no fixing the system.
If you remember a few years ago when New York and a decent enough portion of the Eastern US was due to a computer glitch. This took days to fix and the system had to be brought up in a very specific order or it kept collapsing. The chances of, with no communications, of this taking place is next to nil.
A better argument would be that the likely hood of an EMP attack is even less then nil. France, Russia, Great Britain have nuclear weapons with the ability to launch them to reach the USA (India/Pakistan do not have that ability at all at this time).
So relax. The last worry I have is an EMP. I live in the North West, so earthquake is my major concern.
Also, my friend works for BC Hydro (in Canada) and he says on average power companies keep less then 2% of the total power systems equipment in spares. So if they lost 5% or more the grid would likely not be coming up again anytime soon. And we need power to make the equipment. Lovely catch-22 🙂
You people need to learn how to spell. And also how to use then/than correctly.
Sunflare may be a blessing in disguise. This would get rid of all spyware ,implanted microchip.survaillance control system spysat.everywhere smartreader, …..freedom freedom at t last. ……”
That would give a knock out chance to change the system. Get rid of the banking kartel,elluminati killing machine.etc
A true bible prophecy comming true ….the clean up by fire.
A true blessing