In 2003 there was a major blackout that started in Ohio and took out the power grid for most of Ohio east to New York and up into Ontario. Around 55 million people lost power. This is the same as a hypothetical EMP (blackouts without structural damage) because there is no real EMP, just a full on nuclear bomb. Within 2 days the entire grid was back up like nothing happened. No civilization collapsed. This is fear mongering nonsense.
Watched half of the trailer and turned it off. 90% of it was stock footage and mediocre editing. If it's representative of the work done on the documentary I have no interest in seeing it.
This "documentary" looks like a factually incorrect fear mongering that twists facts to fit the author's narrative. After watching the trailer I don't believe this film is shot in good faith. Also have a feeling that interviews were cut unfairly.
Finally, this film looks like it's made from stock videos (of course China, Iran, Russia would be red on that map, tovarisch!). Come on, you got to do better than this.
Why is every one of these events "long overdue"? We are long overdue for huge earthquake in California, big volcano, huge asteroid, etc. Where is this notebook that lists these catastrophic events that are supposed to occur on some sort of regular timetable?
Maybe there is a solar flare incident that causes it, but as it relates to a cyber or EMP attack destabilizing a country into cannibalistic chaos - it isn't really in anyones interest, as most strategic policymakers understand that you get something much worse than the devil you know when you do. Even destabilizing so-called "minor" powers like Iraq, Libya, and Syria created international terror cells and radicalized sympathetic groups on every continent. It's a recipe for hell.
If an attack took out the whole US grid in an irrepairable way, the power vacuum would cause huge wars around the globe, and it would cost the aggressor at least a couple of major cities from a nuclear strike response. It would also cause mass casulties from refugee inflows taking advantage of the chaos. There would be so much death it's just statistics at that point - it's just not a rational decision for an aggressor country to cause an EMP or to leverage it. Imagine trying to occupy a country that had been EMP'd? It would be like 100 Afghanistans and a thousand Vietnams, just in America. In that total failure situation, everyone is going to die of starvation or infection and disease, so responding with violence at that stage to mitigate it is a relative mercy.
Understanding those consequences of destroying civiliztion, if I were a national leader, I wouldn't hesitate to order that counter strike, and I am sure the actual leaders apprehend that logic as well. If there were a question of attribution, the first one to move against our allies would have to lose their capitol. Aggressors only understand costs, and failure to impose them is an invitation . This Mutually Assured Destruction is the worst, but only guarantee against an EMP attack.
If it were a solar event, nations would still have to protect allies militarily, and I don't see anyone benefiting from the chaos enough to let it sustain, especially when the rational actors will escalate apocalyptic violence until some order is restored. Grim thoughts, but oddly hopeful because I think if people understand the inevitable horrific alternatives to keeping it together, we will have ample incentive to do so.
Lloyd’s has an (older; from 2013) analysis that is an interesting read:
https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the...
I think the linked page has changesd since the link was submitted. This is what I see:
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So the page now appears to be an advertisement for... childrens' furniture?
The novel "Black Out" by Marc Elsberg covers this topic as well.
Writing solid, characters slightly on the meh side, scientific research pretty ok (from an amateurs perspective, that is).
what they are describing is not possible. too much redundancy an decentralization. at worst it would be a few cities temporarily
This looks like it's frankly bullshit, but it does raise some interesting questions; not about EMPs, but people.
There's a question I occasionally ask people: what would you do if you woke up and the power was off and it wasn't coming back on any time soon? That's not an unreasonable scenario - it can happen in the US, as we've seen. I'm not talking permanently, but say it's indefinite: you don't know when the power will come back on, but not today or tomorrow or this week. No cell service, and - depending on where you live - maybe no water or heating either.
So what do you do? I mean specifically: what would you, not a theoretical person but you, do if that happened?
Most people don't have any idea, and a shocking number of them reply the same way: "I guess I'd probably just die." I've heard that from people of every race, age and gender. And they're not really kidding.
I have a lot of issues with the culture of "preppers", because there seems to be a lot of really nasty and unpleasant politics always lurking around there - like, I'll go find some sort of teehnical discussion of how to keep dry goods for long periods and halfway through the writer will start muttering about race wars or some awful fucking thing - but I do think there's value in at least having some skills and knowledge in that direction. I mean, I'm not Grizzly Adams, but in my thirties I realized that most of my skills involved computers, and that I'd be functionally useless in such a scenario.
So I started teaching myself basic carpentry and handyman stuff, learning how to make things with my hands and how to repair stuff, and how to build a basic shelter, do basic triage - Army survival manual stuff - and then how to wire up solar panels and charge controllers and all that good stuff. I figured out how to keep food - funnily enough, the Mormon church has some of the best community info about that for religious reasons - and safely store water, etc.
Nowadays, I'm the guy people say they'd go find if disaster struck, not because I have some compound with years of canned food and water tanks, but because I've actually thought about that question - what would I do if the power went out? - and tried to come up with good practices and strategies.
I'm working on a book about it, in fact - not a prepper manual but more a guide on how to think and act rationally in such situations, and the sort of information and tools you'd probably need. How to think about things we don't usually think about and come up with concrete plans, not just vague "Oh, I'd get out of town and find a place in the woods to hole up".
(How would you get out of town? If you don't have a car of your own with a full tank of gas, you're probably not going anywhere in a crisis, as public and mass transport will be instantly full. What "woods" would you go to? Some campground you vaguely remember seeing on the side of the highway once? You and a million other people. Planning on buying some energy bars and Dasani water bottles on the drive? Good luck, homie.) :-D
Maybe the Chinese will reciprocate and let us in advance of an EMP attack.[0]
[0] https://nationalfile.com/bombshell-milley-admits-to-secretly...
>Solar EMP’s typically reach earth every 100 years and Earth is 61 years overdue.
Comments like this seem like a red flag on the scientific accuracy and neutrality of this documentary.