It’s hot. I miss air conditioning. I’m tired. I remember being able to just jump in my car and get an ice cream cone. I could spend Sunday afternoon watching the big game, surfing the internet, or talking to friends on my cell phone. I could even do it all at the same time. Things used to be good. Life used to be easy.
Suddenly, everything just stopped. My beer got warm. The lights went out. Life got hard. Scientists have been warning us for years that something like this could happen. A high-altitude nuclear explosion, a crippling solar storm, I’m not sure what happened. It’s not like I could turn on the news. I’m pretty sure it was an EMP.
An electromagnetic pulse is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by rapid acceleration of particles. It can be generated by a nuclear explosion miles above the Earth. It could come in the form of solar flares that fry satellites and shut down GPS systems. An e bomb could even be made by someone with the right knowledge—and for pretty cheap, too.
The Stone Age could be closer than you think. America’s power grid is vulnerable to an electronic pulse event, from either a natural or man-made cause. We’d quickly devolve to Third World drudgery, but what’s worse is that we are so dependent on electricity. Few have the needed skills to survive in a world of strictly manual labor.
Few if any gasoline-powered vehicles would run. Those with electronic ignitions or computer-directed systems will be rendered useless. You might get lucky and have a car garaged below ground. I hope you know how to siphon, because the gas pumps won’t be working.
Thankfully, an EMP shouldn’t kill humans outright. A pulse burns out circuits due to resistive heating. Anything containing a connected loop of wire could be vulnerable. You should be safe, unless you have a pace maker. Oh, and a hearing aid could end up giving you brain damage, but that’s strictly conjecture.
It’s not science fiction, but science fact that electronic components are highly vulnerable to such an event. Scientists, policy makers, and military leaders are familiar with the potential for destruction and disruption that an EMP could cause.
The power of an EMP is also known by our allies and enemies. Is there evidence that these EMP scenarios could happen? Is there evidence that an EMP attack is being planned? Is there still time to take action?
According to F. Michael Maloof, author of A Nation Forsaken, the answers to these questions are yes. So, is anyone doing anything about it? Maloof warns that U.S government officials have known about this threat to the electrical grid, but have done little about it.
He’s a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Security of Defense, with almost thirty years of federal service in the Defense Department. He gives his assessment of the current threat, and it doesn’t look good. It’s time to start taking this threat seriously before the lights go out forever.
It’s growing dark, and hard to see, and I’m hungry, but at least I still have my Kindle*. I’m getting pretty good with it. Now, if that rat would just stick his head out one more time, I can finally have supper…
*I would never actually own a Kindle. This is inserted for comedy relief. Everyone knows you use a rock for rats.
Easy peasy? Or Harden your heart? Email me @ From_my_shelf@yahoo.com and let me know. Miss a past column? Just visit http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com before it’s too late. Lots of extras await. Do the write thing and prevent a dark future. Read a book. It just might save your life…
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