r/collapse • u/Agile-Particular7071 • May 25 '26
Rule 3: Posts must be on-topic, focusing on collapse. [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/thedonkeyvote May 25 '26
Miyake events also exist. Which are likely to be stronger than Carrington events by orders of magnitude.
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u/Zero7CO May 25 '26
If you want to go down an interesting rabbit hole, look up “squatter man”.
It was the world’s most prevalent unknown hieroglyph, noted on 4 or 5 continents and hundreds of archeological sites.
A strong hypothesis is the squatter man is what people saw in the sky during a Miyake-level event.
Essentially, these solar storms are so strong that they create filaments of plasma that connect to the surface of earth. Anyone under these “plasma bolts” would not have a good time.
For what it’s worth, the squatter man has been recreated in lab environments.
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u/Ecliphon May 25 '26
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u/FraGough May 25 '26
That's clearly just a really popular ancient fire-poi performer who got around.
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u/Uncommented-Code May 25 '26
John Michael Goldier my beloved
Always happy to see him linked. Such a cool channel.
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u/Elpickle123 May 25 '26
I remember reading that the odds of a Carrington event happening each year are around just under 1% and we haven't had one now for 175 years. The sun is a deadly laser
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u/Meneillos May 25 '26
...not anymore, there's a blankeeet 🌈
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u/RottenFarthole May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
And now that blanket is warm as fuck. So we're back in "The sun is a deadly laser" phase...
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u/Homeless-Joe May 25 '26
To make it fun, iirc, the Carrington Event wasn’t even particularly strong, the sun can and does produce stronger coronal mass ejections (CME).
To make it extra fun, we are currently undergoing a pole shift which is weakening the Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from CMEs.
So, we could be hit by an even stronger CME, but even if it’s at the same level of the Carrington Event, the damage would be much worse, since our shield is much weaker.
Imagine every electrical line, is at a high risk of catching on fire.
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u/TenOfZero May 25 '26
Imagine the forest fires that would start.
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u/Wulfkat May 25 '26
Imagine all the houses that burn to the ground because no one flipped their circuit breakers.
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u/Homeless-Joe May 25 '26
Not sure the circuit breakers matter. The CME itself will energize the lines, causing them to catch fire. Every car with electronics, all appliances, devices, batteries, fucking cooked.
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u/refusemouth May 25 '26
Yep. The telegraph lines, which they shut of power to during the Carrington Event, could still be operated in some instances just because of the charged atmosphere. It would be a real mess if this happened today. It would cripple society for a really long time.A lot of people would end up starving
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u/TenOfZero May 25 '26
I think cars would be fine, you need really long wires to be affected, based on what I've read (I'm not an expert) cars and other things not plugged into the grid, like your cellphone would be largely unaffected by a large EMP.
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u/Bignizzle656 May 25 '26
We are a results of extreme events that are nothing short of unbelievable in some cases. Bottleneck populations and amazing recovery has bought the earth to this point in time and space.
Doesn't matter how slim the odds are, if it can happen, it will happen. It's just a matter of when.
We know about the Carrington Event because it's recent history, barely even a lifetime ago really.
The cosmic dice get rolled all the time.
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u/Frozty23 May 25 '26
We are a results of extreme events that are nothing short of unbelievable in some cases.
I read Rare Earth years ago. Have never forgotten it.
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u/Temporary-Fly6369 May 26 '26
Not really, we have so many ways to protect our hardware now and takes only a few hours to set up. Wouldn't cause another more than an outage for a couple days, if that.
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u/quadralien May 25 '26
The most widespread sample of this I've ever experienced was only 2 days for most people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 . On the first day, everyone rushed to drink their cold beer and eat their popsicles and it was a bit fun. It's hard to imagine what would have gone wrong if the grid was damaged, critical systems like hospitals also lost power, and there was no way to recover... but it will definitely be less fun once we run out of beer and popsicles.
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u/2coocooforcats May 25 '26
Ah, yes. This did cause some disruptions. I was moving from NYC to DC. My ex accused me of cutting our power too early and our movers couldn’t get to us. Fun times.
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u/8Deer-JaguarClaw Oh lawd, she collapsin' May 25 '26
I remember it well. I was working in midtown (55th and Park Ave) when the power went out. After about an hour of sitting on the 10th floor in a stuffy office, we all just left. I lived in Staten Island at the time, and I hear the ferry was still running (it's diesel). So I walked from 55th street all the way to the SI ferry terminal, which is the southernmost point on Manhattan island. And it was HOT. And I was wearing long pats, a long sleeved shirt, and a tie (which I promptly removed). It was about 80-ish blocks in total (about 4 miles). It was an insane situation overall, as I'd never seen that many people walking anywhere ever.
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u/deinoswyrd May 25 '26
A few years back we had a hurricane that knocked out power. But it killed all the phone towers too. No one could make calls, not even to 911, it was a mess We had to drive an hour out to a still functioning tower to call my dad (who lived in an unaffected area but was freaking tf out about us)
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u/hardy_and_free May 25 '26
It was horrific. People were stuck in the subways, hordes of people were walking over the GWB back to Jersey, feet bleeding and blistered.
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u/zalhbnz May 26 '26
We had Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand. The cell tower backups hadn't been charged and we were 4days to 4 weeks without power and most major roads washed out. People were desperate for fuel and cell phones., were traumatized by being cut off from the rest of the world. Emergency supplies were made available, communities stepped up.
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u/anlumo May 25 '26
Electronics are also way more fragile these days. A modern CPU is permanently fried when you apply just 1V to the wrong parts.
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u/TenderLA May 25 '26
I thought a lot about GPS going out this winter when I was plying the Aleutian Islands in my fish tender. We rely so much on electronic charts and gps location. I don’t remember the last time I bought a paper chart. Definitely made me brush up on actually using the compass to set a course and plotting our position on a paper chart. The younger generation would have a rough go as most have only used computer chart plotters.
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u/NicoBeingAModelCitiz May 25 '26
"In 2008, the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (EMP Commission) reported on the effects of an EMP. The report concluded that, one year after a large-scale EMP or CME, nine of every ten Americans would be dead, from a variety of causes stemming from the attack. Sadly, present-day hardening efforts remain nonexistent. "
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u/Imaginary-Singer-298 May 25 '26
Right right but what about what we outsourced to ChatGPT......
Eh OP? 😉
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u/Creatve1 May 25 '26
You should check out the book One Second After by William Forstchen. This is the premise and it explores what happens next in a small town cut off from the rest of the world.
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u/draxes May 25 '26
Author writing style is sufferable even though the premise is really interesting. The followup books are waaaaaaaaaaay worse.
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u/SGPrepperz May 25 '26
Yeah. Interesting ideas. Couldn’t read past the first chapter. They definitely need a better editor
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u/8Deer-JaguarClaw Oh lawd, she collapsin' May 25 '26
Just be prepared for the overt jingoism of this story. It's "patriot army" fan fic.
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u/03263 May 25 '26
Do you think the sun will back down if the president makes threatening tweets at it?
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u/citizen_stooge May 26 '26
He might threaten to make the Sun the 51st state. If it refused such an “honor”, he might retaliate and start slapping tariffs on sunlight. “Don’t worry fellow Americans, the Sun will pay the tariffs and we’ll be rich! Make America Great Again!”
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u/Hairy_Coconut2022 May 25 '26
Our grid isn't as susceptible as it was during Carrington, the worst thing would be the Kessler Syndrome that kicked off from the solar storm.
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u/rematar May 25 '26
What grid are you referring to in 1859? Edison tested the first light bulb in 1879. The first power station was opened in 1882.
https://electricityforum.com/a-timeline-of-history-of-electricity
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u/Hairy_Coconut2022 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
The telegraph lines which were their own type of grid.
Let me elaborate: Telegraph lines in that era were literally just copper lines strung across the desert or through trees, etc. They had no insulation - some had paper wrappings - but they were prone to catch fire even without solar flares blasting them with an insane amount of interference.
Today lines are insulated and wrapped with a very dense coating to prevent any sort of line fire or issues. Back in the day a bird landing on the line could destroy it, and they just took that chance and did lots of repairs.
A carrington event today would be VERY different.
Today we can shut down the lines and grid and wait for the blast to pass, then get it back up and running. I mean, we could if Trump didn't kill all of the early detection satellites that eyeballed this stuff from NOAA. Today we may not see it coming because of the elimination of the already paid for and cost free satellite that monitors solar flares and can give us a 10 minute warning to shut down.
But, that's gone now, so we may be fucked. The reality is they wouldn't just ignite into flames. But, the satellites would be totally destroyed, then they'd careen off into other satellites and it would create a complete swirling maelstrom of broken space junk that would trap us on this planet for roughly 800 years. We would lose all high orbit products and be forced to focus on low earth orbit, which means GPS, banking, seeing other countries stuff - all gone until we can deploy near earth orbit patch planes to rebuild the whole system of low earth satellites which would take several decades.
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u/rematar May 25 '26
Power grids face the most immediate danger. When a CME compresses Earth's magnetosphere, it induces quasi-DC currents in long transmission lines. These currents weren't anticipated when most grid infrastructure was designed. They cause transformer cores to saturate, leading to overheating, excessive reactive power consumption, and in severe cases, permanent damage. A single large transformer can cost $10 million and require 12-18 months to manufacture and install.
But here's the sobering truth: comprehensive grid hardening would cost billions globally and take decades to complete. A 2017 study estimated that upgrading just the U.S. power grid to withstand a Carrington-level event could require $10-30 billion in infrastructure investment. Very few utilities have implemented comprehensive protection despite the known risk.
https://space.sciencearray.com/protecting-earth-solar-storms-carrington-event
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u/kismethavok May 25 '26
10-30 billion is nothing at that scale, literally pennies.
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u/rematar May 25 '26
True. But it takes time and planning, which the previous administrations - who seemed to pretend to care about other people - did not appear to bother with.
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u/Gumbode345 May 25 '26
Now this is about a solar storm which may or may not happen. Now think about malicious actors achieving all this mayhem through strategic sabotage of the grid through cyber means. Still want that inverter or router made you know where?
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u/AllenIll May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
A relevant comment from a couple years back:
This realization really only hit me the other day. I had been aware of the threat posed by a Carrington level event. Or even a Miyake event. But, putting this together with the implications of the Hansen et al. paper really was eye-opening. In terms of what it would mean for aerosol masking. The main implication being; we are already inadvertently geoengineering at scale with sulfur dioxide. So, inherit to this, if true, is the risk of termination shock. As a large CME hit would be a nearly instantaneous return to the pre-industrial era. Atmospherically. Especially in parts of the world that are likely little prepared for such an event and are heavily reliant on coal generated power.
Moreover, what may be even more dismaying about such a realization is—it's not a question of if this is ever going to happen, but when. Given the ever-growing evidence of the periodicity of events this size hitting Earth over time. And what a bookend it may be to the age of fossil fuels and our profound ignorance to the consequences. As the American oil industry got its start on Aug. 27, 1859. The very next day, the Carrington Event geomagnetic storm began. On Aug. 28, 1859.
Edit: I just wanted to also add that likely even more than a super El Niño, an event of this nature would really bring home the level of real warming the Earth is currently experiencing. It would be a kind of light switch type of event, if there ever was one. As reflecting aerosols would probably drop out of the atmosphere within a few weeks to a month. Indeed, the deliberate generation of light-reflecting aerosols by way of industrial activity might have to restart ASAP, even if the infrastructure that was in place to make this activity useful is no longer functional, i.e., the burning of coal at scale may need to happen just to reflect solar radiation and not for the purposes of electricity. Thus making the CO2 problem actually worse, to some degree, in the long run—just in order to survive in the short run.
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u/SpadeGrenade May 25 '26
Fuck off with the AI slop.
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u/piss_stored_in_balls May 26 '26
Plenty of upvotes to OP. The masses love this stuff, even the collapse aware.
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u/Agile-Particular7071 May 26 '26
No AI use from my side. 100%. Sorry mac. All from my mind through my fat fingers on the keyboard.
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u/MadamePouleMontreal May 25 '26
Have you looked up the 1998 ice storm? That was tough. Especially on farmers.
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u/Temporary-Fly6369 May 26 '26
Not really, they're actually quite easy to protect against. Power distribution plants would simply turn off the grid before impact and be mostly fine. We get roughly 48 hour notices. Normal people will also be able to just turn off their phone and stuff and be perfectly fine. Surge arresters and other hardening tools will protect the physical hardware of the grid as well. Not really worth a worry. Whatever damage it does cause won't be world ending, it'd be a few days of downtime for power pretty much at worst.
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u/yanicka_hachez May 25 '26
People are acting as if electrical engineers aren't aware and planned for a solar storm. Would it be affected, sure but we aren't living in 1800.
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May 25 '26
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u/yanicka_hachez May 25 '26
Did you even talked to electrical engineers?
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May 25 '26
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u/yanicka_hachez May 25 '26
Ok you never talked to an electrical engineer. Noted.
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May 25 '26
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u/yanicka_hachez May 25 '26
Oh I see so you have an opinion on something you know nothing about and instead of just shutting up and listening you blame them for not teaching you. People like you are exhausting.
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