Something to Worry About Today

Uh-oh.

 It’s already started: the first in what promises to be a year of huge solar storms.

Described as an enormous ball of gas travelling at 2000 kilometres per second, a “coronal mass ejection” struck the Earth on Thursday, causing fears of navigational disruption, satellite damage and even power grid failure.

True to its 11-year cycle of stormy activity, the Sun is belching out masses of charged radioactive particles, some of which hit us. With an unusually weak magnetic field wrapped protectively around our planet, our local star’s tetchy behaviour could wreak havoc with our technology and our way of life.

This combination of a weak magnetic shield and solar hyperactivity doesn’t happen very often. When it did, in 1859, telegraph lines burst spontaneously into flame all over North America, and the sky was so bright with an extended aurora borealis that workers got up in the middle of the night, thinking it was morning.

Telegraph was the only sort of electronic technology at the time. But now we have a civilisation almost entirely dependent upon digital technology.

Uh-oh.

Something to Worry About Today

Wouldn’t you just know it? Here we are, cringing at the thought of the horrors that unchecked global warming might have in store for us, and the scientists come up with yet another Doom scenario to keep us awake.

Bill McGuire*, of the Aon Benfield Institute at UCL, has revealed that the melting of ice caps can do more than just flood us and possibly release methane clathrate gas to superheat the atmosphere.

It can cause earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

The ice layers at the cold ends of the Earth are kilometres in thickness. But even that depth isn’t secure.  Recent studies show that thousands of metres have already been lost, bringing harmful gases that much nearer the surface.  Worse still, these ice deposits have been holding in check large areas of rock, including entire mountain ranges. When they break free of the ice, they create earthquakes and expose the superficial parts of the magma that explodes in volcanoes.

Next time you leave the lights burning too long or plan buying a large engine car, consider how the ground may be shifting under your feet.

*In our book, The Coffee Table Book of Doom, we erroneously referred to Bill McGuire as Ben. That must be because of the proximity of his name to Benfield. For that blunder, we most humbly apologise.

Something to Worry About Today

Just 3 weeks into 2012 and destructive solar flares have started.

NASA scientists have confirmed that the strongest solar storm since 2005 began on the 22^nd. This will disrupt satellites and any astronauts who happen to be in orbit will get a radiation dosage that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Aircraft flying near the poles will also be affected.

But the bad news is that the Earth’s magnetic field continues to weaken, removing the protective blanket that keeps most bad solar radiation off us. Scientists predict that the flares will continue to strengthen throughout this year and peak in 2013 (if any). There is a possibility that all digital equipment could be damaged or rendered ineffective. Yes, air traffic control, television transmissions, the Internet—even your smart phone.

Look out your window.  Those pretty green streaks in the sky are the Northern Lights. What are they doing way down here?

Something to Worry About Today

Okay, this is it. 2012. Time to become a prophet.

Just a few reasons to believe the end of everything will happen this year:

• The Mayan calendar ticks away till December 21^st, then stops for the first time in 5,125 years.
• An ancient prediction says that the world will end during the reign of the 112^th pope.  The present one is the 11^th, and he’s in his eighties.
• The Earth’s magnetic field is dangerously weak, maybe presaging a pole reversal.
• The Sun’s surface will erupt in unusually violent storms beginning near the end of the year.
• Volcanoes, mega-storms and earthquakes from space are likely, scientists say.

So, depending on whether you quote vanished Amerindians, St Malachi or NASA, you are eligible for a robe and placard that says The End is Nigh.

Or maybe just, “We’re toast.”

Something to Worry About Today

          The tundra is on fire. And we’re next, say the scientists.

          In 2007, lightning struck the Arctic tundra at a place called Anaktuvuk, setting it ablaze.  This was formerly impossible, because the mixed lichen and very hardy plants were always too moist to burn. But global warming has helped dry out the frozen landscape, leaving us perilously close to a thaw that will send enough greenhouse gases to heat up the world to terminal levels.

          Beneath the permafrost in the polar wastes are enormous deposits of methane and other forms of carbon. If the melt continues, the accumulated gases may drive up Earth’s temperatures at an unsustainable (and unstoppable) level.

          The fire at Anaktuvuk released more carbon in a single go than is emitted in two years by a city the size of Miami.

         So, please: no more jokes about flatulent cows. 

Something to Worry About Today

The looming problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has doctors worried.

Until recently, we relied on medical researchers to stay one step ahead of mankind’s oldest enemy, but now we hear we’re losing the fight. The miracle drugs that allowed us to scoff at maladies that killed our ancestors by the million are losing effectiveness as the microbes mutate and get stronger. One cause in particular seems difficult to tackle.

Germs get horny too.

According to bacteriologist Hugh Pennington, germs can reproduce without climbing all over each other like randy teenagers, but they do it anyway. As they do, they spread an enzyme that can make penicillin-related compounds useless.

The problem is so serious that in places like Scandinavia and Holland, doctors assume that patients transferred from British hospitals already carry the MRSA bacterium. As the enzyme, NDM-1, spreads, formerly curable infections with such germs as E-coli become all but untreatable.

Promiscuity in people is a hard enough nut to crack, as population planners and AIDS prevention professionals know. But you can’t get microbes to take cold showers.

Something to Worry About Today

 

Aliens are here, an international conference said last week, and they want your gold.

Ace doom spotter BKG tells us that a meeting called the UFO Science and Consciousness Conference, appropriately held in gold-rich Johannesburg, has concluded that extraterrestrial visitors came to Earth 300,000 years ago and have returned periodically ever since. Their purpose? Why, collecting gold of course.

Their strategy was to alter bits of their DNA, thereby creating humanity, and to use us as miners for the precious metal. In explanation, conference organizer Michael Tellinger said, “We are all obsessed with gold.”

So if you get tempted to hock the family jewels this recession, look carefully at the guy behind the counter.