2012

There's a doomsday prophecy bouncing around in my head right now that is making me think about planning for the worst.

Now I know doomsday prophecies are usually rooted in serious use of halucinogens or the waving of chicken bones over alternating lines of salt and sand but this one has some scientific legs that are tied to the cycle of solar flares and magnetic storms.

The sun, according to accepted astronomy, operates in regular 11 year cycles. Right now, we're coming out of a "quiet" period, so quiet that some astronomers have called it "the calm before the storm", and so quiet that 2008 was the first year since 1900 that the sun had a period during which there were no sun spots. Solar flare and magnetic storm activity will gradually rise over the next four years, reaching a peak late in 2012.

You probably already know that solar flare activity can interfere with radio communications and can even knock out satellites. What you may not know is that there can be a profound effect down here on the ground too.

Time for some quick science... The earth, as you know, is magnetically polarised. They don't call them the North and South Poles for fun. We're like a giant magnet floating in space, and our magnetic field deflects and traps charged particles ejected from the sun. Without the magnetosphere, we'd be bombarded with radiation and life on earth would be in trouble.

The sun also has a magnetic field, called the heliosphere, only instead of being relatively stable like ours, the sun's magnetic poles shift around erratically.

Each time there's a solar flare or magnetic storm eminating from the sun, it's magnetically charged. If it's oriented one way, our magnetic shield happily blocks it, creating a very pretty dancing light show in the far north and far south of our planet.

If it's aligned the other way, billions of watts of charged particles bombard the earth. The atmosphere is, literally, electrified. A single storm contains enough electrical energy to power all human activity on earth, and without protection from that much energy. trouble is at hand.

In 1859 a super magnetic storm fused the coils in many telegraph stations, shorted wires and started fires. In fact, if it hadn't been for those telegraphs, we probably wouldn't have noticed because you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of other electrical appliances in use at the time.

Today, though, we live in a different world, where everything, and I really do mean everything relies on electricity and/or electronics.

Which brings me back to 2012...

Astronomers estimate that an 1859 style super storm comes every hundred years or so. That means we're 50 years past the due date, and if the next magnetic storm is "the big one", and if that "big one" is oriented the wrong way, every microchip on earth that's not properly shielded will cease to function.

Copper coils will fuse. Some will even melt as they absorb the massive energy from the atmosphere. Copper coils... you know... like the coils in generators, electric motors, power transformers, radio transmitters and even on your computer's motherboard.

The last time it happened was in 1989 when a relatively minor solar storm shut down the power grid in the North Eastern US and Canada. "Minor."

Are you getting the picture?

If the next cycle of solar storms produces "the big one", and if it's oriented the wrong way, everything we rely on to keep our civilisation functioning will stop working.

First, the power generation system will go down. The huge transformers that convert power coming out of the generators to power we can plug out TVs into will be destroyed, and because this equipment is so specialised, there's only enough manufacturing capability to turn out a couple a month to replace the thousands lost.

No electricity means no refrigeration. No refrigeration means no food in the cities. Food supplies will be gone in just a few days.

Food? That's nothing. Water purification and pumping will also stop. No running water. No water treatment. No sewage system. Drinkable water supplies will disappear within 24 hours.

Pumps will stop working, which means subway and road tunnels will quickly flood.

When the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410AD, they destroyed the aquaducts that fed water into the city. Almost overnight, the population of Rome dropped from more than a million to a few thousand and the city became unlivable. It was the end of Civilisation as they knew it, and the end of the Roman Empire.

Radio communication will also shut down. That battery powered radio you have hidden away somewhere for major emergencies will pick up nothing but static, if it works at all. No TV either. No phones, mobile or otherwise, and no internet. In fact, no electronic communication of any kind. No newspapers or printing presses either. No means other than word of mouth for getting any message or instructions from anyone in charge to anyone else.

No banking. All of our banking records are held electronically, and while the data won't be lost, the bank's won't have an ability to retrieve it. That means no money, which means commere will cease.

Transportation systems, from your car up will no longer function. The electronics will be fried so you won't even be able to get them started. Actually, that's not entirely true. Some properly shielded military vehicles will run though they will be overwhelmed. A few really old diesels will run too, but you'd need to hand start them first and because of the compression of a diesel, that's no mean feat.

Of course, nothing will be flying for the same reason.

A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences estimates that such a storm could "shut down the United States" for months, if not years. They estimate that recovery from such an event could take ten years or more.

They're being conservative, but even if the shut down was only partial and even if it only lasted for a few weeks, the death toll will be far beyond any natural disaster we've ever experienced.

Guns will still work though. That's a bigger problem in the USA than it is here in Australia, but it's a problem everywhere because governments will have no capability to co-ordinate any law and order effort. For the first weeks after the event, it will be survival of the best armed.

Now here's the spooky bit...

The Aztec Calendar Stone, properly called Cuauhxicalli Eagle Bowl and created in 1479, predicts "the end of the world" on December 24, 2011.

The Chinese I-Ching calendar is said to predict the "end of the world" at about the same time.

And finally, the Mayan calendar, on which the Aztec calendar was based, ends on December 21, 2012.

Hmmmm... better disconnect from the grid, get the bunker stocked and the household electrics shielded. Don't complain that you weren't warned.