“We only have 12 years to save the planet,” we may hear. “Man may only have 10 years left if we don’t ________” (fill in the doomsayer prescription). The truth, though, is that we don’t know if humanity has still one year or six months — or less.
And this reality was brought home by something that occurred March 12.
It was on that day, not two weeks ago, that there was a huge solar eruption. It was perhaps 100 times more powerful than the Carrington Event in 1859, which rendered inoperable a good part of the “Victorian Internet”: telegraph lines. So why was The New American still able to publish this article, and how can you now access it?
We dodged a bullet because 3/12’s event occurred on the Sun’s far side.
Still, though, it was powerful enough to affect Earth.
NASA reported on the event, writing March 14 that a “massive eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME, was detected escaping from the Sun at 11:36 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2023.”
American Thinker’s J.R. Dunn points out that this was just like the Carrington Event — only more so. As History wrote of the 1859 occurrence (as presented by Dunn):
Suddenly, [British astronomer Richard Christian] Carrington spotted what he described as “two patches of intensely bright and white light” erupting from the sunspots. Five minutes later the fireballs vanished, but within hours their impact would be felt across the globe.
That night, telegraph communications around the world began to fail; there were reports of sparks showering from telegraph machines, shocking operators and setting papers ablaze. All over the planet, colorful auroras illuminated the nighttime skies, glowing so brightly that birds began to chirp and laborers started their daily chores, believing the sun had begun rising. Some thought the end of the world was at hand….
History called it “A Perfect Solar Superstorm.” The 3/12 CME would’ve been even more “perfect,” however, had it occurred on the Sun’s near side. In fact, we would’ve been done, according to Dunn:
Early estimates suggest that this explosion was ten to a hundred times more powerful than the one of 1859. Such events — if not quite so extreme — are not uncommon. …If it [3/12’s CME] had been facing in our direction, if the earth [sic] had borne the full brunt of that blast, we can scarcely imagine the results. It’s likely that all operating electrical systems would have been immediately destroyed, the same as the telegraph systems in 1859. Any active electronic instruments — and possibly even those that happened to be shut down — would have been fried, transformed into useless hunks of plastic, metal, and silicon. The electrical and electronic networks (e.g., the Net) that form the framework of Third Millennial civilization would have been annihilated. Once they were destroyed, all power would vanish. Industry would grind to a halt. Massive amounts of data, including almost all financial data, would simply disappear. All methods of communication beyond voice range would no longer exist. It wouldn’t be a matter of waiting to be rescued by a government of any sort. Government would have shrunk to little more than a notion. The very tools on which relief, and even recovery, depend would simply have vanished. The consequences beggar the imagination. A new Dark Age would have been the best option to expect.
That won’t happen (yet), but the CME did have its effects. Dunn states that, for example, brilliant auroras were witnessed farther south than is common and radio transmission was interrupted throughout the Arctic Circle. Moreover, the event might even have affected computers; Dunn was on duty 3/12 eve and noticed that, shortly after 11:30, his computer and the American Thinker website began behaving oddly.
Nonetheless, while media will natter on incessantly about climate change, they hardly noted this event. Dunn says this is likely because it can’t be “blamed on capitalism, industry, or the GOP,” and he’s right: Fixation on actual End Times phenomena — naturally occurring disasters — can’t as easily be leveraged into greater power or money for the pseudo-elites.
Yet, as Dunn points out, here’s what it does do: lend perspective. This is much needed, too, as evidenced by a Friday article about “climate doomers.” These are young people, mostly, inclined to give up on life — questioning whether they should even go to college or have kids, for instance — because they believe global warming irrevocably dooms the world.
Aside from the nihilistic and hedonistic behavior this mentality could breed (“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die”?), it reflects a sad lack of perspective. Yes, history teaches that disaster will periodically befall us. But first, what will actually happen is not what most people worry will happen.
How many foresaw WWI, WWII, the Great Depression, or Rome’s fall in 476 A.D.? This errant-crystal-ball phenomenon hasn’t changed, either; most doomsayers aren’t that prescient.
Many natural disasters could “end the world,” too. Aside from CMEs, asteroid impacts (see dinosaurs, et al.), gamma-ray bursts, rogue black holes, the “collapse of the vacuum,” flood-basalt volcanism, and the reversal of Earth’s magnetic field are also possibilities. Should we stop living?
Repent! The End of the World Is Nigh!
My young friends, do you think you’re the first generation to believe the world was ending? People have been predicting it for millennia. But they didn’t stop living life and having children.
What’s more, existence was far more perilous ages ago. People didn’t say, though, “Barbarians raided us two years ago, killed many of our men and took some of the women; it could happen again, too, in six months. So why better myself, get married, and procreate?” They lived — until they didn’t.
The last line’s meaning? Of course the world will eventually end! Impermanence is the material fold’s lot. Even more significantly, our own personal End Times, our death, will come soon enough. So why do anything?
Because we’re meant to — and because we’re only truly fulfilled when we embrace God’s will for us. Yes, faith is instructive: This world will pass way, and we will pass away from it. Until then, live.
Don’t end up being that 78-year-old lady in the company of cats in a dingy apartment, knowing her life is past, her opportunity gone, and her dreams and divine mandate unrealized because she once listened to the wrong people. Live.
