{"id":3639,"date":"2012-07-17T18:16:48","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T08:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=3639"},"modified":"2012-07-17T18:16:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T08:16:48","slug":"newt-gingrich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2012\/07\/newt-gingrich-3639.html","title":{"rendered":"Newt Gingrich on Vulnerable Power Grid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, has written an opinion piece<\/a> for the Washington Post. It’s a great reminder of how perilous modern society can be:<\/p>\n

Callista and I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, and, like many in the region, we lost power in the\u00a0recent storms. The\u00a0blackout,\u00a0combined with a record heat wave, made homes nearly uninhabitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
…It is almost unthinkable, yet possible, that an enemy could detonate a nuclear weapon over the atmosphere over the continental United States, triggering an electromagnetic pulse. This would short-circuit our power grid, taking power off\u00adline for months, perhaps even years.<\/p>\n
A similar crisis could be sparked by a solar storm like the Carrington Event of 1859, a type of geomagnetic disturbance that occurs about every 75 years. Statistically, we are long overdue for such a storm.<\/p>\n
…Suppose that, rather than being a temporary disruption in our lives, the power outage lasted weeks or months, or even years. Consider what state all of us, from the richest to the poorest, would be in if we were still literally in the dark. Millions could be trapped in houses or apartments that were never designed for this climate without air conditioning. No cool air; months with no food shipments and every pharmacy shut down \u2014 no refills for life-sustaining medications.<\/p>\n
In a crisis, many in the Washington area could not even flee because the impact of an EMP attack would disable most cars and public transportation. The water supply would go dry without electricity to pump water from rivers and wells.<\/p>\n
Imagine if you could find a bottle of potable water for, say, your children. How much would you pay? What would you pay with if every bank and ATM were shut down?<\/p>\n
Public safety? Forget it. No power means no police cars, no communications and no 911 emergency service. For criminals, it would be time to run rampant.<\/p>\n
Could such a scenario be in our nation\u2019s future? It might, if we do not learn from this experience. Preparation begins with demanding that our governments \u2014 local, state and federal \u2014 prepare as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
A new American TV series based on the same scenario, Revolution<\/a><\/em>, airs in September. The U.S. government is well aware of the twin threats EMP attacks and solar storms pose – they have discussed funding gird improvements – and yet they do nothing. The average person is ignorant to the risks and would be lucky to have just a few day’s food and water on hand.<\/p>\n
The countries closest to the poles, and those with the oldest and most over-loaded power grids are the most vulnerable. So be wary if you live in the USA, Canada, northern Europe, Australasia or South Africa. Basically everyone who reads this blog!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, has written an opinion piece for the Washington Post. It’s a great reminder of how perilous modern society can be:
\nCallista and I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, and, like many in the region, we lost power in the\u00a0recent storms. The\u00a0blackout,\u00a0combined with a record heat wave, made homes nearly uninhabitable.\u00a0
\n…It is almost unthinkable, yet possible, that an enemy could detonate a nuclear weapon over the atmosphere over the continental United States, triggering an electromagnetic pulse. This would short-circuit our power grid, taking power off\u00adline for months, perhaps even years.
\nA similar crisis could be sparked by a solar storm like the Carrington Event of 1859, a type of geomagnetic disturbance that occurs about every 75 years. Statistically, we are long overdue for such a storm.
\n…Suppose that, rather than being a temporary disruption in our lives, the power outage lasted weeks or months, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-power-grid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3639"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3643,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639\/revisions\/3643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}