The cost of increased complexity results in societies becoming less capable of dealing with challenges and threats over time leaving societies vulnerable to social col apse.
The complexity of modern technological systems also has an inherent vulnerability as Robin Hanson has observed:
[The] intricate coordination that makes a society more productive also makes it more vulnerable to disruptions. For example, productivity in our society requires continued inputs from a large number of specialized systems, such as electricity, water, food, heat, transportation, communication, medicine, defense, training, and sewage. Failure of any one of these systems for an extended period can destroy the entire system.229
Mike Adams has put it thus: “[t]he more complex a society becomes, the more the loss of efficiency in just one small area of service or manufacturing ripples across the entire economy, magnifying its negative effect.”230 Thus, the long-term disruption of the supply of even one resource, such as rubber, would grind modern transportation systems to a halt. Any number of events may cause 227 Joseph Tainter, The Col apse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988).
228 As above, pp. 118-120.
229 Robin Hanson, “Catastrophe: Social Col apse, and Human Extinction,” in N. Bostrom and M. M. Ćirković (eds.), Global Catastrophic Risks (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008), pp. 363-377, cited p. 366.
230 Mike Adams, “Is the Fabric of Industrialized Society Starting to Unravel? Highly Complex Civilizations are More Vulnerable to Col apse,” Natural News.com, December 29, 2011 at http://www.naturalnews.com/034517_complex_societies_col apse_2012.html.
96
THORFINN SKULLSPLITTER
supply-line disruptions, but they may also occur by what Sidney Dekker cal s the “drift to failure.”231 The “drift into failure” occurs when an organization, by a “slow incremental process,” “gradual y borrows more and more from the margins that once buffered it from assumed boundaries of failure,” so that over time, under conditions of competition and scarcity, the very pursuit of the organization’s mandate “creates the conditions for its eventual col apse.” Complex systems often have a sensitivity to small influences (chaos), so that system instabilities may arise once some “critical state” is reached, making systems catastrophical y unstable.232
Self-organized criticality applies to the Earth’s biosphere as wel .233
Barnosky (et. al) have argued that local ecological systems have been known to shift abruptly and irreversibly across critical thresholds once “tipping points” are reached, and that global ecosystems also exhibit state shift changes when human influence causes the planet to reach critical transition points: “[c]ritical transitions lead to state shifts, which abruptly, override trends and produce unanticipated biotic effects.”234 Global scale forcing mechanisms operating today—
including human population growth, habitat transformation, energy production and consumption and climate change—exceed both the rate and magnitude of the last global-scale state shift. That was the last glacial-interglacial transition, 14,300-11,000 years ago. It involved a rapid warm-cold-warm fluctuation, caused by Earth’s orbital changes, that affected solar insolation, leading to the extinction of around half of the species of large mammals and several species of large birds and reptiles. Present global-scale shifts may have already been initiated, leading us to a new period of mass extinctions. Homo sapiens may be one more species that ultimately bites the dust.
231 Sidney Dekker, Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems (Ashgate, Surrey, 2011).
232 P. Bak, How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organised Criticality (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996).
233 M. Schafer (et al.), “Early Warning Signals for Critical Transition”, Nature, vol. 461, 2009, pp. 53-59.
234 A. D. Barnosky (et al.), “Approaching a State Shift in Earth’s Biosphere,” Nature, vol. 486, June 7, 2012, pp. 52-58, cited p. 52.
97
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOW!
The Mechanisms of Col apse
More will be said below about the environmental crisis as a major mechanism of col apse. Systems col apse can arise from a number of other trigger events and there is a considerable literature covering a number of disciplines from theoretical physics, cosmology, geology and biology. Scenarios include natural events, however unlikely or distant in time, such as time itself “leaking away,” collisions of galaxies (e.g. the Milky Way colliding with the Andromeda galaxy); solar collisions (e.g. with a white dwarf), hostile extra-terrestrial alien invasion, the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field leaving the planet vulnerable to cosmic radiation influx, and Hol ywood’s favorite, asteroid impacts.235 Other doomsday scenarios are linked to runaway physics and scientific experiments, such as nanotechnology and the “grey goo” problem, and physics catastrophes such as the formation of a small black hole in the lab that swallows the Earth, the formation of negatively charged stable strangelets which convert ordinary matter into strange matter, and the initiation of a phase transition of the vacuum state, destroying the universe. Bioterrorism, cyberwar/cyberterrorism, runaway artificial intelligence (e.g.
Terminator scenarios of the revolt of the thinking, killing machine), biotechnology and genetic engineering disasters, also present doomsday scenarios. The probability of the occurrence of many of these events is low or unknown (e.g. extra-terrestrial invasion).
Disaster could come from geophysical threats such as the eruption of a supervolcano, which could end the problem of global warming, but confront humanity with the new threat of global “volcanic winter,” as temperatures drop, world agriculture production crashes and famine becomes the principal horseman of the apocalypse, the great new Grim Reaper, culler of the human race.
Optimists general y believe that asteroid/comet impacts with the Earth are not a major threat since no large asteroids or comets are on a collision path with the Earth for at least two centuries. Think again.
235 Alok Jha, The Doomsday Handbook: 50 Ways the World Could End (Quercus, London, 2011).
98
THORFINN SKULLSPLITTER
There has been a revision of the number of smaller asteroids believed to be capable of impacting with the Earth; there are up to 10 times as many medium-sized asteroids less than 50 meters in diameter capable of striking the Earth. The Chelyabinsk meteor is estimated to have been less than 20 meters across when it exploded in the atmosphere on February 15, 2013.236 It had the energy equivalent of 500 (±100) tons of tnt. This rock was about 12,000-13,000 tonnes when it entered the atmosphere from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in a region of the sky inaccessible to ground-based telescopes. It would only have been visible during the daytime but the sky is too bright to see such small objects.
Bill McGuire, Benfield Professor of Geophysical Hazards at University College London and Director of the University’s Benfield Hazard Research Centre, in his book, Surviving Armageddon, has discussed another less known geophysical threat . 237 The Cumbre Vieja volcano is on the western Canary Island of La Palma. An eruption in 1949 led to large fractures in the volcano’s flank. It is hypothesized by McGuire and others, that the entire flank could separate from the rest of the volcano and slide into the North Atlantic. Measurements by McGuire’s research team from 1992-1997 found the landslide at La Palma to still be moving slowly, although the small recorded values are within the range of instrument error. The mass of rock is as large as the UK’s Isle of Man and if and when it crashes into the North Atlantic, it will “trash half the planet” with “an enormously destructive mega-tsunami.” Much of the modern civilized world is built on coastlines and is vulnerable to mega-tsunamis.
One of the physical scientific arguments advanced by those believing that a global catastrophe may occur is based on anticipated severe space weather events. Here is the problem: in 1859 the
“Carrington Event” occurred which involved intense coronal mass ejections (cmes) from the sun
that produced auroras borealis visible 236 P. G. Brown (et al.), “A 500-Kiloton Airburst Over Chelyabinsk and an Enhanced Hazard from Small Impactors,” Nature, (2013); doi:10.1038/nature2741.
237 B. McGuire, Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005).
99
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOW!
at the equator and caused telegraph lines, towers and stations across the world to catch on fire. The red il umination of aurora borealis was so bright that people in Cuba could read their paper in the early morning by its lights. The energetic particles also altered the chemistry of polar ice.238 As we will see, another Carrington Event could happen at any time.
Matters will be made worse because nasa’s themis satellites discovered a large hole in the magnetosphere, the Earth’s magnetic field, which normal y defends against such solar blasts.239 The hole is about four times the size of the Earth and 10 times larger than previously thought. In the past, physicists have observed breaches in the Earth’s magnetosphere in response to solar magnetic fields pointing south. The present breach occurred with a solar magnetic field aligned north. Normal y a north-pointing magnetic field impacting with the Earth’s magnetosphere directly above the equator, where the Earth’s magnetic field points north, would intensify the field preventing solar winds entering – but the opposite has occurred.
Such events load the magnetosphere with plasma and when a coronal mass ejection takes place, power outages and other destructive events can occur on Earth. This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than previously seen, as Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire has said:
We’re entering Solar Cycle 24. For some reason not ful y understood cmes (coronal mass ejections) in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a cme should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway.
It’s the perfect sequence for a real y big event.240
238 “Geomagnetic Mega-Storm,” Spaceweather.com, September 2, 2009, at http://
spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=02&month=09&year=2009.
239 “Great Breach in Earth’s Magnetic Field Discovered,” December 16, 2008, at http://
science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/16dec_giantbreach.
240 As above.
100
THORFINN SKULLSPLITTER
The sun is presently in a period of low activity, so low that some physicists such as Habibullo Abdussamotov, director of the Russian section of the International Space Station, believes that a mini-ice age could develop.241 However, as will be argued below, this does not rule out the occurrence of a new Carrington Event, and as will be discussed, a coronal mass ejection on July 23, 2012 of near-Carrington Event proportions, narrowly missed the Earth. Lower solar activity only lowers the probability of such an event, but does not eliminate it.242
A report by the National Academy of Sciences, Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Inputs (December, 2008), says that if a Carrington Event occurred today it would cause US $1-2 trillion in damage to our high-tech society and take four to ten years to completely repair, they rather optimistical y predict.243
Ex-cia analyst, Peter Pry has said that an emp, either natural or via a terrorist and/or military attack, could kill 9 out of 10 Americans.244
Disaster preparation expert Matthew Stein noted another alarming consequence of geomagnetic disturbances.245 He observed that all of the world’s almost 450 nuclear reactors are critical y dependent upon a functioning electric grid to keep their reactor cores cool to avoid meltdowns. In the case of a “grid-down” scenario because of a repeat Carrington Event, only back-up generators would prevent meltdown 241 H. Abdussamotov, “Bicentennial Decrease of the Total Solar Irradiance Leads to Unbalanced Thermal Budget of the Earth and Little Ice Age,” Applied Physics Research, vol.4, no.1, 2012, pp. 178-184.
242 P. Farquhar, “Sun Storm to Hit with ‘Force of 100 m Bombs,” News.com.au, August 25, 2010 at http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/sun-storm-to-hit-with-force-of-100-bombs/story-fn5fsgyc-1225909999465.
243 National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, (National Academies Press, Washington DC, December 2008), p. 77.
244 B. Hoffmann, “Ex-CIA Analyst: Attack on US Could Kill 9 Out of 10 Americans,”
May 12, 2015, at www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Peter-Vincent-Pry-power-grid-attack-U-S-/2015/05/12/id/644144/.
245 Matthew Stein, “Geomagnetic Storms, EMP and Nuclear Armageddon,” Nexus, February – March, 2012, pp. 21-26, 80; “The Other Electrical Grid Failure Problem,” at http://
survivalblog.com/letter-re-the-other-electrical-grid-failure-problem/.
101
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOW!
occurring. When these generators run out of fuel in a situation of widespread social chaos, or when the back-up generators breakdown, after a few days the water covering the spent fuel rods in the spent fuel ponds will boil away and a meltdown will occur. This, Stein says
“will end the industrialized world as we know it, incurring almost incalculable suffering, death and environmental destruction on a scale not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.” How likely is this?
In February 2011 a class x (meaning the strongest type of solar flare, with >10-4 watts/square meter) flash from a solar flare disrupted short-wave radio communications in South China.246 In March 1989, a geomagnetic storm knocked out the power over the bulk of Quebec for nine hours. In January 1994 Canada’s US $290 million Anik F2
telecommunications satellite was hit by a solar storm; it required six months and US $50-70 million to get the satellite working again. In 1998, a coronal mass ejection hit a communications satellite, causing it to crash in the middle of the United States. Another geomagnetic storm in October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged the South African power grid. Storms of greater intensity will severely damage power transformers and the grid. Stein points out that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor disaster arose not from direct damage from the Tohoku earthquake but because the facility’s backup diesel generators were destroyed by the tidal wave.
On July 23 2012, the most powerful solar storm in 150 years narrowly missed the Earth, but did hit the stereo-a space craft. One week earlier and it would have struck the Earth, turning civilization back to the 18th century.247 The emissions of x-rays and extreme uv radiation can produce radio blackouts and errors in gps navigation and electrons and protons can damage satellites, but the cme magnetized plasma, according to nasa “could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket…
246 “Is Class X Flash First Warning of 2012 Solar Storm?” News.com.au, February 8, 2011, at http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/solar-flare-jams-radio-satellite-signals/story-fn5fsgyc-1226007817482.
247 T. Phillips, “Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012,” July 23, 2014, at http://
science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/.
102
THORFINN SKULLSPLITTER
Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.” The cme hit with the energy of a billion hydrogen bombs, but it would also create a southward-orientated magnetic field that could interact with the Earth’s northward-orientated magnetic field (magnetic reconnection), rearranging the field and causing even more damage to electronics.
According to one research paper, the probability of another Carrington Event occurring in the next decade is a surprisingly high 12 percent . 248 Although humanity has the technical capability of preparing for such an event and largely mitigating its effects, the political will to do so, by spending money, is lacking.249
Another paper hypothesizes that our sun is capable of superflares.
&
nbsp; A study by researchers at the University of Warwick, using nasa’s Kepler space telescope, was made of wave patterns of solar superflares emitted by the star kic9655129, in the outer edges of the Milky Way galaxy. The flares seen on this star are similar to our own sun’s solar flares, probably having the same basic physics, with the main difference being that kic9655129’s flares are more powerful, with the energy of 100 billion megaton bombs. Such a superflare occurring in our solar system would destroy the electronic society (question: what about neural electronics?), but the probability of this is thought to be low.250 Other though believe that a superflare more powerful than the Carrington event may occur sometime in the next 100 years.251
John Kappenman, ceo of electromagnetic damage company Metatech, believes that the prevention of geomagnetic col apse can be done relatively cheaply by adding resistors to the ground connections 248 P. Riley, “On the Probability of Occurrence of Extreme Space Weather Events,” Space Weather, vol. 10, 2012; S02012; doi:10.1029/2011SW00734.
249 A. Taggart, “Former CIA Director: We’re Not doing Nearly Enough to Protect against the EMP Threat,” June 7, 2015, at http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/92943/former-cia-director-were-not-doing-nearly-enough-protect-against-emp-threat-.
250 C. Pugh (et al.), “A Multi-Period Oscil ation in a Stel ar Superflare,” Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 813, 2015: doi:10.1088/2041-8205/813/1/L5.
251 Y. Notsu (et al.), “Do Kepler Superflare Stars Real y Include Slowly Rotating Sun-Like Stars? Results Using APO 3.5 m Telescope Spectroscopic Observations and Gaia-DR2 Data,”
Astrophysics Journal, May 1, 2019, 876: 58.
103
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOW!
of transformers, as recommended by the US Electromagnetic Pulse Commission’s report to US Congress.252
Zombie Apocalypse Now! Page 11