Article Archive for September 2011
Power Grid Down… What Happens to Money?
I’ll keep saying this until I am blue in the face: the US power grid is old and overloaded. A once-in-100-years solar storm can wreck it, and replacing all the transformers could take six months. The US government recently decided not to fund an upgrade. This could be the worst mistake the US government has ever made. If the grid goes down, there goes heating and cooling, and the USA has some extreme weather. Gas stations won’t work, and places that will be relying on diesel generators, like hospitals, could be without power within days. Water won’t be pumped any more. Most likely millions will die. And what about money?
The first problems are obvious. ATMs will stop working, and banks won’t have access to account records. That means no more cash will be distributed. Few people carry more than a week’s worth of cash.
Credit and debit card payment systems won’t …
My 2012 Bucket List
The popular Bucket List meme is wholly appropriate to 2012 and achieving goals within your limited (perceived) remaining time. Just as 2012 is a great excuse to prepare for the great array of potential catastrophes, it also gives one license to get things done. Here’s an idea of what my list would encompass:
Visit the ancient monuments of the world – especially pyramids. Bizarrely the only pyramid I have seen is one of the least known (in Samoa). Like many things on this list, family and work take priority – I simply can’t disappear for 3 months. And as a responsible parent, visiting Egypt right now would not be wise… but Xian, China could work, maybe a quick week?
Streak. I’m nudist-curious and have dabbled. Combined with my love of alternative music, the Meredith Gift is local and achievable.
Record an album, utilizing modern backing track technology, casks of wine and Auto-Tune. A …
Chinese Budget Bunker
Not the prettiest ark… but in China, alongside eating any insect/scorpion/brains from roadside stalls, I guess they are similarly practical when in comes to budget survivalism. I’m not sure if the 2012 movie inspired them, but 2012 doom scenarios are big in China. And so this oil tank is being re-purposed:
The 20,000RMB cylindrical waterproof Ark (formerly a less evocative ‘oil tank’) is 2.5 meters in diameter, 8 meters in length, and comes complete with windows, vents and a hatch. Its interior will be divided into a bedroom, storage room (for all the instant noodles) and restroom, and reputedly can hold up to 20 people (read: at least 45, since it’s China). The next phase of construction involves the installation of beds, power generators and kitchen appliances.
I do not know if basements exist in China, but if they do, that’d be my preference over this …
Tambora Awakens
In 1815 Mount Tambora erupted, killing 90,000 locals and affecting the weather of the entire planet.
Aside from a few minor bursts in steam in the 1960s, the mountain has been quiet for much of the last 200 years. Gede Suantika of the government’s Center for Volcanology said activity first picked up in April, with the volcanic quakes jumping from less than five a month to more than 200.
“It also started spewing ash and smoke into the air, sometimes as high as 1,400 meters (4,600 feet),” he said. “That’s something I’ve never seen it do before.”
Authorities raised the alert to the second-highest level two weeks ago, but said only villagers within 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the crater needed to evacuate. [Washington Post]
In theory it takes more than 200 years for such a volcano to erupt with the same intensity as last time. So we probably shouldn’t be concerned…
Satellite Crash Alert
On September 23 2011, give or take a day, a 6.5 ton satellite will come crashing to Earth. This is fact, and the information is from NASA. The prediction is that at least 26 large pieces will survive the journey through our atmosphere. They aren’t sure exactly where they will hit, but have calculated the odds of a human being struck at 1 in 3,200.
Read about the The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) at Wikipedia.
Over at Space.com there is a video showing the predicted zone of impact possibilities:
http://www.space.com/12982-dead-nasa-satellite-falling-earth-sept-24.html
From viewing the video, it seems that Australia and northern Europe are safe, while parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas are at risk. The greatest likelihood is that it will crash in the Pacific Ocean, so hopefully that will be the result and not something worse (like hitting a nuclear power plant).
This reminds me of SkyLab which crashed (safely) into Australia in 1979. The odds …
Survivalism and the Law
As the above video shows, it sometimes isn’t enough that you keep to yourself and harm no one. It is important that planning of your safe spot / survival retreat includes an understanding of all the local and federal laws. Officials who have no understanding of what you are trying to achieve might decide to throw the book at you. Consider how the law regards:
Self-sufficient electricity
Old machinery lying about
Fencing
Private Property signage
Tidiness
Length of your grass
Plants that could be classified as weeds
Are you allowed to have that chicken/goat/horse in your zone?
Do you have to have connections to utilities?
Is your house legally habitable?
Is your portable toilet sufficient?
Do you have business license for anything you produce
Are your guns legal and stored safely?
And so on… you really need to look at every aspect of your place that appears different to your neighbors. However, all of these problems are less likely to affect you the further …
Complicated Crop Circle: Man-Made – Proven
No need for any commentary here. As much as a video can be evidence these days, here’s proof that an intricate crop circle was made by a bunch of people using planks and ropes.
SHTF vs EOTW vs TEOTWAWKI
This isn’t just a 2012 problem – in newspapers and tabloid television, “experts” can find it easy to dismiss a topic by misrepresenting it and then debunking it. This is unfortunate because most of the public learns about conspiracy-type topics from these experts. Let’s take a little look at how 2012 is misrepresented in popular media:
Nomenclature
In interviews I almost always get introduced in the same manner – Robert Bast, who believes the world will end in 2012. And every time I correct their sensationalism – I think the end of the world, as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) could occur in 2012.
It really is a double-edged sword. Most 2012ers are preparing to survive or become light-beings or ascend. None of these are the end of the world (EOTW), in which everything ends. Yet the media uses EOTW. And the experts drolly state “the Maya only believe in cycles, not an end“. …
Come To Australia!
Yeah I’m biased, but Australia is considered one of the prime safe spots world wide, by many who do not live here. Check out these qualities:
No nuclear power plants, and safe from any northern hemisphere nuclear disaster
Because it is a continent, if the climate changes you can travel by land to somewhere nicer
Many rural areas near capital cities that are well-suited to self-sufficiency
A culture that will seem reasonably familiar to those from the UK and USA/Canada
No volcanoes that can cause widespread destruction
Virtually no earthquakes
Little in the way of civil unrest
Affluent
Well, affluent might be a quality for those already here, but it does mean the country is expensive for foreigners. If you are able to work here, your income will help balance things out. If you are just visiting for a few months (say late-2012?) then you might want to utilize low-budget accommodation or camping.
Some other negatives for Americans would be …
Tunguska-type Event in New Zealand?
In the South Island of New Zealand, near the small town of Tapanui, you can find the above crater. Well, some scientists believe it to be a small landslide… According to the great array of evidence provided by Dr Jan Pajak, Tapanui was the location of a Tunguska-type event. Well, he says seven UFOs exploded, but if you ignore that there’s great evidence for a cometary impact.
Dr Pajak dates the explosion to 1178AD, based on carbon-dating of the trees which were blown down. The event could also explain the demise of the giant Moa bird. The most common reason put forward is that the Maori hunted them to extinction soon after arriving in New Zealand. However the Maori claim the Moa all died in a widespread fire…
Over at Harvard is a copy of a paper by Duncan Steel & Peter Snow, The Tapanui region of New Zealand: Site of a Tunguska around …
Farewell Elenin
Confirmed today by Sky and Telescope, Comet Elenin has either broken in half or disintegrated completely. Astronomers have seen its brightness halving in the last week, and the bright core has become “elongated and diffuse”. The writer closes with:
I guess all those pseudoscientific bloggers who predicted planet-altering encounters with a cosmic visitor bright enough to be seen in broad daylight will just have to find something else to worry about.
Well, maybe, maybe not. Leonid Elenin has this to say:
Now it is absolutely clear that the comet’s drop in brightness, first noted by Michael Mattiazzo on Aug. 20th, was not coincidental – the decay process had already begun, and over the course of the next several days the comet changed greatly. Its pseudo-nucleus became diffuse and extended, and later vanished completely. On images from Sept. 1st in the comet’s coma there was no condensation …
Dark Comet: The Forgotten Threat
One of my best sources of information is Google Alerts – it lets me know all the new websites and web pages that show up for a particular key phrase. Alerts for keywords like 2012 cult or survival bunker provide so many new results each day Google only shows me the best. My alert for dark comet is particularly disappointing. Aside from results to do with what I suspect is a hacking tool with the same name, I cannot recall when I last saw information on the topic.
Two years ago there was a flurry of info, all resulting from the one scientific paper back in 2005:
Swathes of dark comets may be prowling the solar system, posing a deadly threat to Earth [New Scientist]
Comets could be the most significant impact hazard to Earth, with sky surveys underestimating the number that are potentially devastating by a factor of between 10 and 100 …
