Ever considered what would happen if every electronic device in the USA quit working all at the same time............well you should because weather by a nuclear explosion above the USA or from a huge sunspot most of us would be dead within 60 days!!!!! Its called a Electrical Mechanical Pulse or EMP for short....here's a link http://www.onesecondafter.com/pb/wp_d10e87d9/wp_d10e87d9.html
i just finished reading that 95 thesis and this is what i have to say. It's time to buy a 65 mustang and learn how to live like the indians lived. Or maybe i'll join the amish religion!
<Shrug> it's a dangerous world folks. Put it this way, there is no end of Doomsday Scenarios, everything from Bird Flu to a Dollar collapse, to EMP's to Bioterror, the plain fact is the Soviets had that ability 30 years ago, those of us who are a bit older recall the "30 minutes and the world will be destroyed via nuclear weapons exchanges". If anyone is particularly concerned about this, consider your vehicles radio antenna basically directs the pulse directly to your car's electronics.
As long as we could shoot it down, which I don't think we would have time to. We and the rest of the world were on notice N.Korea was going to launch and we were not able to shoot theirs down. The even scarier part is if it came in in a container through one of our ports like say..........Los Angeles
Amish would suddenly be the rulers of the country.....how ironic and prophetic For the record I would prefer a 68 Chevelle convertible, 396 big block, leather interior.............................wait..................................I'm getting of topic here
no you're not getting off topic. this thread has everything to do about what it would take to survive. i wonder how long it would take for someone to steal that car of yours.
No, because "modern" cars are completely electronically controlled, once the distributor or CPU is cooked, then your car is done. That assumes that your car is not in a garage or what have you that would shield it from the pulse, in a iffy situaion the antenna would merely highten your car's damage from a pulse. A older, non electronic ignition vehicle is protected because the distributor is mechanical, not electronic, there is literally a small switch in the rotator that shuts itself off and on according to the RPM's you are turning. The real sunny point is, as we all learned during Katrina, if the power to a town is cut, there will be no gasoline as the pumps will not work without power. Unless you know where the vents for the storage tanks are..
can i have one if this happens? wait i won't be able to get in touch with you after it happens. can i have one now?
That's hilarious. It doesn't surprise me not many people chimed in on this. It's a long read and goes right to your psyche. It gives you that feeling of hopelessness that the article talks about. Anyone know how we could prepare and shield ourselves from something like this. The article suggests what is protecting us is the reverse threat on annihilation. I say that thought is flawed because: 1. our missile defense or retaliation would be computer controlled. 2. if all communications were out how would we communicate 3. we would have to know who did it to retaliate Kind of hard to do the above if everything is shot out. Anybody know how to shield ourselves?????
Wear a suit of armor. There's nothing you can do except stop worrying about things you can't stop or help. Panic, besides being annoying, is more dangerous than any EMP.
Nobody watch Broken Arrow? Just do like Travolta and Howie Long. Turn off the engine before the pulse ...
However, as pointed out in his article, the Com.. Soviets and us were, and are under the MAD umbrella. We would launch "ours", before "theirs" detonated. It is the rougue nation that will likely be the culprit. Mad is a SERIOUS deterent.
I must ask.. what makes you think that.. we are certainly capable of knocking them down, it is the "potential" consequence.. war on S Korea, that prevents that action "at this time" Remember, Seoul becomes the first, and most certain casualty of such a war. On the container.. unless it contained a launch platform able to lift a nuclear device, it would only kill several million people, not wreck the nation (there is some toungue and cheek in this statement)
Put is this way, sooner or later we WILL, (or you will, I'll be craoked) have to deal with this. An attack from another nation or entity is not the "most certain" IMO, method of this effecting us. The side of the planet pointing towards the sun when IT blasts us will be totally wrecked, and that will eventually happen again.. Not if, but when. I'll address this soon.
the Doc covered this in his paper.. the relief would come way to late for millions of people, our transportation infrastructure will be KO'd by an attack. If it is caused by the sun, and we are on the unlucky side of the planet, better hope you can fish and hunt. Recovery will take years and years.
1. be proactive with a missile defense, as stated earlier by Zach. It IS our best defense, but it has serious complications.. the Soviets are totally threatened by this and have been for years. One of the scariest scenarios of the cold war was a preemptive nuclear strike caused by the fear of missile defense. In their eyes as soon as "they" cannot retaliate, they are open to attack. This was really a big deal in it's day, and is not over yet. 2. transistor radios? things unconnected to a power source and turned off during the event? I don't really know, the Doc had some comments on this. 3. That would be an issue with a rogue attack. Eventually we would know, every weapon has an atomic signature that can be read by scientists. Sometimes they can even tell which part of the reactor the fissionable/fusion-able material came from. The best shield against attack, IMO, is an airtight missile defense, some system aware in all directions and distances. Against the sun, for the time being we are screwed.
JD...that won't work, the magnetic "pulse" is going to attack the compenents whether or not the motor is running, think of it as a form of radiation.
That's just it.....no platform needed......it doesn't need to be detonated miles and miles in the sky.....all it has to due is be detonated so that it reaches out power grid and we are dust. Our grid will due the dirty work. Worse yet just about every electrical transformer would be dust, including cell towers, generators, wind mills, power stations, power hubs, radio towers, t.v's, radio's. Everything plugged into the grid. If you would like I can see if there are some kind of Nuclear physics I can provide you. In another thought.....I believe this would also result in the destruction of our nearby neighbors Canada and Mexico's grid systems as well.
Being a licensed Electrical contractor I can relate to the article and the part about the breakers. The pulse is so quick that it would be by the breaker before he breaker knew what happened. If we could develop some type of relay that senses the pulse down stream and disconnects the remaining part of the grid we may be able to save a lot of the grid, or a good portion of it. Unfortunately, that doesn't play well for those in the air on planes. With a little thought we probably could do quite a bit to protect ourselves. I am more concerned with the Sun then with a rougue terrorist........you?
according to everthing I have just read.. to be catostrophic, yes it does. A ground level detonation only affects locally. It is the charged particles that cause the issue, and you need altitude for that to occur. That is why they say 25 to 300 miles in altitude.
that is good news, I can't believe I just typed that. interesting I am honna due some more looking in to it.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm check this out....kind of down plays the possibility of it happening by Man due to size of the war head that would need to be.
My argument was more against 90% of the population being lost. I do agree in any event there would be catastrophic loss but I have a hard time with such a high number.
Well, casualties would be high simply because Insulin would take weeks to reach diabetics even if they could be sourced somewhere, the interstates would be jammed, ditto airports. My problem with the Book is the American People have been whiplashed around for years now, yes, terrible things "can" happen, that does not mean they will happen.
I posted this link in the other thread that we were taking off topic. A future Space Weather catastrophe : a disturbing possibility there is a 100 percent certainty that this WILL happen again, it is simply a matter of when. Every day we vecome more vunerable to this sort of event.. worldwide. The VERY good news is that we can know in advance.. the light will reach us before the particles allowing "some" protective measures to be implemented for the grid. A future Space Weather catastrophe : a disturbing possibility Posted by: JeffMasters, 9:42 AM EDT on April 03, 2009 I was wrong in my belief you had to be pointed at the sun to be affected, it does not matter, the entire planets electrical grid would be in jeopardy. For the moment the good news is we are probably safe until 2030 or so, the next predicted solar maximum. Time to protect the grid and the new energy sources coming on line exist, they simply need to be implemented.. dollars are an issue unless you compare what it would cost as opposed to the current money throwaway going on in Washington.
so do I, and that was the begining of this conversation between 2socks and I. I think we are seriously more resiliant and inventive than that. I know how to fish, hunt and preserve food the old fashioned way and it is quickly teachable. Anarchy might reign the day, but I have guns too.
I'm not worried about this scenario. Missile defense is nice and all but I'd rather divert that money towards non-human disaster scenarios... Like a huge asteroid wiping out nearly all life on the planet. That has happened and WILL happen again. It's only a question of when. Tomorrow? A year from now? Twenty years from now? A million years from now? With the limited technology we have to observe pending threats, my guess is as good as yours.
One thing I can tell you is that the older generation will have a lot of power again because they have that knowledge of canning, preserving etc... that most people my age do not and without the world wide web we have to turn to the people with the knowledge. Not at all saying you're a fossil Marty, but you have a different knowledge set than most of the current generation. Knowledge like you have becomes paramount in a situation like that.
I'm sure the powers that be are fully aware of something like this and the capabilities of our enemies to implement such a threat. I'm not that worried about it. I don't think something like this would have the casualty rate that is implied in this article. We have a very capable military and civilian emergency systems, it would be a disaster for sure but not like this article implies.
pretty darn good research so what are we waiting for??? This supposedly according to what I have read is top 5 on our list of threats to the USA. I am perplexed
Read CNC66's post.......think we could muster 150 mill to defend against this???? Hell, we threw away 300 x's that or 55 billion on GM and Chrysler
