Packs for Survival Blog

Two years ago the National Academy of Science produced a report titled "Severe Space Weather Events--Social and Economic Impacts." It discussed how susceptible we in our 21 century society to these increased solar activities that are on the horizon.

This is the 4th consecutive year that policymakers, researchers, and legislators have gathered to share ideas and discuss what is necessary to improve our nation's ability to prepare and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

Unlike many other countries in the world, the US still needs to take action to protect it's power grids from these types of events. They have been warned for years that a potentially intense solar flare could knock out our power grids, and not just for a couple of hours or days, but potentially months. A similar event happened in the late 19th century, fortunately the only power or communications that were knocked out was the Telegraph wire system. Today's above ground power lines still hold the same susceptibilities as those of the previous century.

Check out these articles:  http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/04jun_swef/