Ruh-Rho! Carrington Event Worse Than Thought

FACT: In 1859, before the advent of the electric grid, a giant solar flare reached the earth. Called a Carrington Event (named after the scientist who discovered it), the flare caused major static electricity in the telegraph network but little other damage.

Today, a similar event would -- literally -- take us back to 1870 but without the 1870's infrastructure. How many of us have horses? How much grain is milled by water power? The entire electrical grid would be wiped out. This would also occur if an enemy detonated an EMP bomb over the U.S. This blog has discussed this possibility on a number of occasions (click here for the most recent). 

As if the loss of electricity isn't bad enough, we are now learning that earth's temperatures might plummet to the extent that huge crop failures might occur. 

Let me ask our readers two questions: Shouldn't we be attempting to develop a way to forecast these events? Shouldn't we be hardening our electric grid (which we know how to do) against either possibility? Do you want to live in a colder world without electricity?

We don't even have to increase the federal deficit to do this. We need to dramatically cut what we spend on both the TSA and DHS. We need to modestly cut what we spend on speculative (i.e., forecasts for 50 years from now) global warming forecasts.

It is time to get our priorities right: Mitigate the most serious problems first.