Solar Micronova Stuff

[jaybreak]

Below are two images of pages from The Next End of the World, about the possible cyclical micronova event that is due to happen in the next few decades.

If we go by the rhythm of the severity of micronova events (the rainbow colored list in the first image), the next one won't be very severe, relatively. Plenty of bad things will happen, but it won't be humanity-destroying like Laschamp was. 

This is a separate event than what Ben (author) says about electrical grids going down from a CME. If the earth's magnetic field keeps growing weaker, a more common CME will take it all out. CME happen more often than we think, but our field was strong enough to block out the wave that charges up the Earth and any circuitry on it. See the Carrington Event for what that could mean. We obviously don't have historical records outside of Carrington because, assuming past civilizations didn't use electricity at the same scale, they weren't able to notice. Anyways, the more severe micronova's probably got rid of any records from past electrical civilizations, if there were any. 

The micronova itself would also for sure take out grids, but we'd be worrying more about earthquakes/tsunamis/volcanoes going off, etc, instead of how we're going to reheat last night's lasagna.

The second image is a summary of Ben's predictions. Not Sure Why It's Written In Capital Case LIke This Sentence Is, So You're Guess Is As Good As Mine.

Anyways, this is in alignment with Ed's and Iain's thoughts on the matter. I took the pages, and the general info Ben presents in the book, as confirmation. It "feels" right to me that the Lord would give one big final wakeup call (the grid going down permanently, worldwide), before the micronova finale.

[Ed Hurst]

Good to know. Thanks, Jay.

[jaybreak]

Sure thing. The book basically gives an over of the idea that most people could glean from Ben's daily videos. It's just more summarized, and these two pages are a good part of the summary.

One thing we can do is notice the lightning, mentioned in the book as an easily-noticeable first sign of either/both Earth's magnetic shield weakening, or powerful enough cosmic rays hitting the Earth (usually the former). If the Earth's magnetic shield is getting weaker, it will take on more cosmic ray energy, and it needs to release that energy, and lightning is the one of the primary ways. I was reminded of this because Ben mentioning lightning specifically in this morning's video.

[IainH]

There was a novel published in 2006: "One Second After" by William R Forstchen. The plot revolves around a group of people in Black Mountain, NC after the grid goes down and how they organize and survive. It's fiction based on the 2004 EMP report given to the US Congress. As a youth during the Cold War living on the edge of a Red Zone (as shown on the Civil Defense map of the UK in the post office in Dundonald, Ayrshire Scotland), I did a lot of reading about nuclear weapons and their effects and that's where I first came across the EMP phenomenon. So, it could be said that I've been prepping mentally for disaster for 45 years. Many times, I thought I was being foolish and certainly the people I would caution thought so. My legal pads are for planning the survival of the good folks in the holler. We have the land and the knowledge to grow our own food and in the pre electric old time ways. The older people around here grew up without electricity or indoor plumbing. I have experience in wilderness survival, "thanks Pop". I do believe that it is prudent to plan for the worst case scenario, anything less would be easier to cope with. Under preparing puts you in with the swarm of hungry people who will be desperate and, desperate people do the absolute worst things. I got plenty of tidbits of survival stuff. I'm going to share them with you so that y'all might find the flaws and I can adjust them. 
  Number one; learn at least one pre industrial skill. "I know things that can help you survive so, killing me right now is probably not the best idea. Hey, if it turns out I'm full of it, you can kill me later Mr Marauder".
  Number two; no plan survives contact with reality. 
Thattledo4now.

[jaybreak]

Even knowing how to start a fire without gasoline is gonna put you a step ahead of a lot of folks.

[Ed Hurst]

On a related note...

In my youth, it turned out that the kids I spent a lot of time with in play-n-pretend tended to survival scenarios. My Dad had some ideas on that, but only what little he experienced growing up poor and moving pretty often. Because of his habits, I grew up poor and moving pretty often, too. But I paid attention to some things he didn't, and developed an odd talent for making life tolerable through routines and comfort systems. I can grow stuff, but I'm a lot better at assessing what's available to make life tolerable against weather and other conditions. Oddly, it's more of a post-industrial skill, in that it required an industrial world to experience enough places and conditions to build an understanding. By the way, the broad general term for what I really enjoy doing is called "civil engineering." On top of that, I really do enjoy organizational theory and watching how people operate in different environments.

Not that I'm expert in either field, but it's a driving interest of mine. I once had a very old book on civil engineering, and someone stole it from me. It was full of instructions on how to calculate all kinds of things, and included sections on how to decide where to drill a well, and different ways you can do it with varying levels of technology. There were sections on common chemicals and interactions, assessing materials, etc. Lord, how I miss that book. Still, it's typical of how my mind runs. I automatically tend to assess problems based on what we can do about them with what's on hand. And everywhere I go, regardless of what's happening on the surface, some part of me is noticing and analyzing from that perspective.

It's a good thing to know yourself that way, to know what really interests you. Most people are surprised that what they honestly believed was their best career turned out to be something totally different when you look at their talents and driving interests. That was how I prospered in the military -- I was able to discern patterns in human behavior so that, regardless of what was dumped on us from the chain above, I always felt confident that the people involved in following those orders could be organized to make the most of it. It was just a matter of discerning what folks were good at and structuring the task to match the people.

[jaybreak]

Do you remember the name of the book? Might be worth tracking down a copy, or at least something similar. Assuming there's some length of time between the permanent blackout and the micronova, we're not going to be staring at any silly screens any more. Which is fine by me, more time to read and learn some useful things.

[Ed Hurst]

No, the name was not something I would remember. I found it at one of those "Friends of the Library" sales and it was published around the middle of the last century.