Something about Space Weather

[Duper]

Hey guys, I don't know how much ya'll are into this kinda stuff, but I watch it with an eager eye. For over a decade...nearly two... I've wondered how the Sun and the rest of space effects our weather and the like. A buddy of mine sent me a link to this daily vid web log (which where "blog" comes from) that watches the weather. He does a great job of providing source info and isn't weird.

Suspicious Observers

He just put up a quick overview of things that he mentions from time to time that present the "big picture". Most of his daily stuff is calling out weather alerts from around the world, earth quakes and solar weather and what kind of impact to expect when something like a solar flare comes our way. Interesting stuff and one of the most level headed people on the net I've seen to date.

Here's the link to that overview. It's only about 3 minutes. Clik!

More in-depth look at stuff (and much longer) Be sure to pause it and read the opening. ^_^ Clik!

[vision]

Some pretty funny stuff there.

[Tunnelcat]

The earth normally gets a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, although it's been twice that long since our last one occurred. And when they flip, it's not a quick switch. Little poles come and go all over the earth like errant goosebumps until the full shift gets settled in. Then our compasses will point south. So while that's happening, which is a loooooong time, we're vulnerable to solar radiation, especially from large solar coronal eruptions. In fact, there was a big one last May 26. Scientists even believe some past extinctions happened because of it. So prepare to get nuked....sometime in the future.

PBS NOVA Magnetic Storm

Recent Coronal Mass Ejection Event

Magnetic Striping

[snoopy]

No!

It's global warming!

You must buy my carbon credits.

[Alter-Fox]

Oh, stop yerrrr mocking, lad.
When this happens, like TC said, we'll be able to tell what's happening and hopefully be able to do something to protect ourselves and the rest of the life on this planet. Because unlike global warming, this is something we know about well in advance and have time to prepare for.

[Sirius]

If it's happened before, especially if it's happened many times, we apparently survived it.

I'm not worried

[Alter-Fox]

Ummm... nope, we haven't survived it before.
The last time it happened was long before humanity appeared on the planet.
As TC said it was over 600 000 years ago since the last one (if I read her post correctly) and humanity has only been around 50 000 or so years.

[Avder]

Eh, the stuff humans evolved from was probably around 600,000 years ago. Same thing. We'll be fine. If anything all we'll need to do is build faraday cages into all of our housing designs or design some kind of electromagnetic shielding, which is already partially a reality and in use on some military vehicles as I think an anti grenade device? Anyway, we can do it.

[Duper]

We survived the last solar shutdown resulting in a mini-ice age back in the 1600.
It was called the Maunder Minimum


Buy a few extra wool blankets and high efficiency solar panels.

[Tunnelcat]

Mass extinctions, probably not a concern. Screwing up our technology and electrical infrastructure, very much a concern, and not from just the solar radiation exposure either. The magnetic flux that occurs during the reversal period may be a bigger problem for us.

http://palaeomagnetism.geologist-1011.net/

[Alter-Fox]

Eh, for all we know by the time this happens we'll have already wiped ourselves out.

[Duper]

An overview was posted today on odd things happening around the solar system.

[Tunnelcat]

What's really going to be the end of us is a large asteroid strike. It's far more likely to happen in the near future and be devastating to all life on earth. We probably won't even see it coming until it's too late and it will be too big to nuke. Smack! Armageddon!

[Top Gun]

Yes, a Michael Bay movie probably will represent the end of our civilization.

[Sirius]

I have to figure humanity is probably harder to kill off than people give it credit for... but still just as easy to hurt. Most likely (in the near future) cataclysms would end our way of life and cause massive death tolls, but someone would be left - probably still quite a lot of people - and find a way to adapt to the new reality.

[Duper]

I'm not worried about the end of everything. I find this stuff interesting as I've never really bought into man made global warming.

Eventhough, all that aside, what's going on in the solar system is pretty wild and cool in its own way.

They guy that posts the vids regularly says that humans have lived through this stuff before and will very most likely do so again .. just with a bit of possible chaos attached due to tech dependency.

[vision]

...but someone would be left - probably still quite a lot of people - and find a way to adapt to the new reality.

Yes. I think there is this imagined idea from pop culture that a global catastrophe would return people back to the Stone Age. This is ridiculous. Even rudimentary knowledge of the technology available today would be enough to rebuild civilization with whatever is left. Humans would be making spaceships again within 100 years -- if even that long.

[Spidey]

Depends on the global catastrophe, I would think.

[Duper]

yeah, you know.. Sun going nova, focused local gamma burst, rogue planet plowing into ours. Random encounter stuff. Glad God doesn't use a 20 sided dice.

Didn't Einstein say something like that???? ;D

[Alter-Fox]

Lol, maybe life is just a divine tabletop rpg. Kind of like a more obscure one I've heard about, read fanfics (and not-so-fan fics) for, and never managed to find a copy or anyone to play...

Spidey, you're into Skinny Puppy?

[Sergeant Thorne]

...but someone would be left - probably still quite a lot of people - and find a way to adapt to the new reality.

Yes. I think there is this imagined idea from pop culture that a global catastrophe would return people back to the Stone Age. This is ridiculous. Even rudimentary knowledge of the technology available today would be enough to rebuild civilization with whatever is left. Humans would be making spaceships again within 100 years -- if even that long.

I think a good 80% of people alive today are in the stone age, it's just that these stones allow them to text each other while driving the bank's car. Unless someone has been through higher education, and applied themselves, they don't have ★■◆● when it comes to technology OR modern civilization.

[vision]

I think a good 80% of people alive today are in the stone age, it's just that these stones allow them to text each other while driving the bank's car. Unless someone has been through higher education, and applied themselves, they don't have **** when it comes to technology OR modern civilization.

I can appreciate the humor, but I just want to reinforce the point that the average highschooler, and even the stupid ones, have vastly more conceptual knowledge in their brain than anyone who lived life before the Industrial Revolution. A 15 year old kid who has a rough idea of how an internal combustion engine works would be considered a genius beyond any scale in the Iron Age, let alone the Stone Age. Kids graduate 8th grade with more knowledge of math and science than adults even 100 years ago. So what I am saying is that civilization will be able to recover thousands of years of progress in decades. We simply aren't going back to the way things were. Humans are destined to reach the stars.

[Sergeant Thorne]

There is a concept in Christianity that I have become familiar with, to avoid self-deception, and that is you don't really have what you don't use. It's common to think that just because you know of something, that you grasp or have it. I disagree with you. I don't believe our high-schoolers are anywhere even remotely close to the ones who actually discovered the concepts they have had drilled into them in math or science, and they don't know 1/10th as much as the individuals who invented or perfected the internal-combustion engine, and a societal melt-down would reveal as much. Sure they know it exists--they know it's been done--they know it's out there, but it would take a great deal of effort and time to get from there to reinventing it. To actually have a grasp on something is so far beyond conceptual knowledge... There is but a generation or two between ours and the dark ages, and all we have to do is lose the people who are actually working in science and technology in those specific fields, and the whole illusion comes tumbling down.

[vision]

Sure they know it exists--they know it's been done--they know it's out there, but it would take a great deal of effort and time to get from there to reinventing it.

But that's just the point, they don't have to reinvent it. These things have already been invented. Humans existed for thousands or millions of years before inventing the wheel. What are the chances we are not going to have wheels in an apocalyptic future? Everyone knows what a wheel is. Even a rough approximation of how an airship works will get you way closer to creating one than never imagining it in the first place. Enough kids know the basics of optics that if only children were left to run the planet they would have micro/telescopes almost immediately. Some of the most significant advancements in civilization come from stuff we consider basic, all of which puts us in a technological utopia compared to Stone Age life. And we wouldn't have to recreate everything the way it was before. Just knowing about things like the internal combustion engine make problem solving easier. You don't need a fully working engine to solve problems with combustion and torque. Many different things create combustion and torque, and there are countless ways to combine them.

There is but a generation or two between ours and the dark ages, and all we have to do is lose the people who are actually working in science and technology in those specific fields, and the whole illusion comes tumbling down.

Hogwash. I hate to put the religious slant on this, but the Dark Ages were defined by religious power struggles that overwhelmed rational and technological progress. We will never be in danger of "losing the scientists" and going backward if we all just learn some science. Duh. The more that human beings move toward science and rationality and away from religious mythology and new-age woo-woo, the better off humanity will be in event of a global catastrophe. Kneeling and praying doesn't solve problems -- running experiments and crunching numbers does.

Your Negative Nancy worldview doesn't give people enough credit, especially children.

[flip]

It wasn't "people" who invented these things, it was individuals of vision that did

[Duper]

Kneeling and praying doesn't solve problems -- running experiments and crunching numbers does.

Actually, that's not exactly correct. Prayer and action, most of the time, go hand in hand.

If I pray for a job (for example), I had best get out there and LOOK for one, not sitting around at home on the Xbox (or whatever) waiting for one to come knocking on the door.