Electrical blackouts could be rampant with solar flare destruction on December 21 2012
The flare and so called after-flare Solar Prominence.The solar disk was blocked in PS for a better visual effect.
Some people are spreading fearful projections that since the sun will be experiencing a solar maximum soon, IF there is a huge solar flares, as there were in 1859, the result could be the paralysis of our world. There are YouTube movies of predictions made a couple of years ago saying that on December 21, 2012, this projected solar maximum could cause the end of the world as we know it. In 1859, a solar flare caused telegram wires to melt. And, another solar flare of similar intensity could cause much greater havoc in the modern-day world in which we need electricity for just about everything.
However, I was in the Great Northwest Blackout of 1965 and lived through it. In 1965, I was quite young–a small-town girl in the big city. At the time, I was in downtown Toronto about to take a night class at Ryerson. I was walking down the college’s halls when the lights went out. There were a couple of young men at their lockers. I’ll always remember the sound of my heels on the hard-polished floor of the college hallway as soon as it became black. The only lights we could see were the headlights of a cars turning out of the parking lot outside.
I’ll also always remember that the first thing one of the young men said as soon as the lights went out was, “Are you OK?” He was thinking of me. It meant so much to me to know that a young man’s first thought would be the safety of someone else.
On the other hand, the scariest part of the 1965 blackout was people smashing the big plate-glass windows of downtown stores for looting. I wandered out of the college onto Yonge St., downtown Toronto’s main street. Outside, it was crazy. In the dark, I saw a man furtively running out of a discount clothing store clutching four sweaters to his chest. One man almost smashed into me. Fortunately, a policeman had been watching. He caught my eye, his gaze gleaming in the beam of the headlights on Yonge Street. I could see his concern for me, a young woman unaccustomed to the mania of crazy people under stress. I backed away just in time to miss being hit by the crazy thief.
I decided to get on a Dundas Street streetcar and stay put out of the way of flying glass shards and darting thieves. The streetcars had supplemental power of some sort so they had some light on the inside, but they weren’t moving. I remember thinking how strange it was that a person’s first thought as soon as the electricity went out was to steal something. And, to steal four sweaters. Really? He had to steal four sweaters? They couldn’t have been very expensive.
So, in one night, I experienced the best and the worst of human nature.
In any case, we are less than two weeks away from that fateful date, December 21, 2012, and I am not seeing news items about increased solar flares. In fact, the date for the solar maximum has been revised to be sometime in 2013.
If you’ve seen some of these scary movies with a scientist or scientists talking about increased solar activity causing the end of the world as we know it on December 21, 2012, in my humble opinion, it’s time to take a breath and relax. It doesn’t appear to be happening.
Carol Chapman, author of the End of the World 2012 Book, EBook, and Movie
