331–340 of 418 posts
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Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
Ozone is still hole'ing[1]. The hole is no longer growing, sure, but that's a far fetch from "fixed".
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220321-what-happened-to...
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Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Are we not prepared though? Given other posts in this thread it seems to me that the effects are all calculated, expected and accounted for. I mean if it's strong enough to fry off-grid electronics then it's a different matter entirely, but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right?
Last big storm in 2003 did damage grid level transformers. They also don’t just have those lying around and they’re quite expensive so it’s particularly devastating.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/fin...
> but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right?
Much more complicated to answer, but no consumer electronics aren’t safe. Also not much use if the communication systems and electrical grid are down
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Kind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
Then why is there a global supply chain and global agriculture systems and internet
> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
Gall uses the web as an example.
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> it’s lack of strong enough political consensus But this _is_ the psychological deficiency of our species.
No, the fact people can have different opinions is a richness. The point of political activity is to align these opinions.
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Kind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
> The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives Doesn't this sort of assertion leave no room for the possibility of learning to do so?
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> it’s lack of strong enough political consensus But this _is_ the psychological deficiency of our species.
No, the fact people can have different opinions is a richness. The point of political activity is to align these opinions.
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I've got an assortment of backpacking/camping water filters, but don't live especially near a water source, so my days would revolve around walks to the nearest creek. (2 km away) A cargo bike would help a lot there. If the municipal water is still functional but non-potable, a LifeStraw Max gets you effectively unlimited water on-demand for most sources of contamination.
You could collect rainwater, but realistically water outages are usually not "the taps are dry", but rather "the water treatment plant failed so we can't guarantee the water is safe to drink."
This happened literally last month in the region where I live, and yes "the taps are dry" is exactly what happened.
The water treatment plant staff detected high levels of toluene in the river which feeds the plant, so as a preventive measure, they shut down the whole thing. It took several days until they managed to get the toluene levels in the river low enough that adding activated charcoal to the water intake could get rid of the rest. In the meantime, there was no water being pumped into the system, and once your building's water tank ran dry (the size varies depending on the building), there was no water anymore (unless you hired a water truck to bring water from a nearby city).
And that's not even the first time this kind of thing happened around here. A couple of years ago, another water treatment plant in the same region (fed by a different river) had trouble due to high levels of geosmin in the river, and they also had to shut down for a while. The result was the same, taps running dry once the building water tanks get empty.
Not to mention that pumping water needs lots of electric power. Not only at the water treatment plant, but several other places in the system need to move water against gravity, or increase its pressure.
Implications! - Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid. - Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems. - Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded f…
Yeah, there's usually no ill effects reported even from pretty strong ones, but lights in Stockholm, Sweden (which is itself pretty far south for an aurora in the first place) were reported to flicker earlier this evening. That's pretty remarkable.
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I've seen the flickering as well, but surely it's not CME-related? After all, it's already evening.
It takes a while for a solar storm to reach earth. It travels slower than light. But I don't know what caused the flickering in Stockholm.
Other people in the wider area saw similar issues, but mostly were local. Usually power is very stable.
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Humanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
Also good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
So no, neither of those problems are even remotely fixed. We’ve just done the bare minimum to check the “we’ve reacted to a crisis” box.