With the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea hovering over East Asia, several Japanese cities have begun holding evacuation drills to prepare for a potential missile strike.
The possibility seems very real, with North Korea launching ballistic missiles that left and reentered the atmosphere nine times this year.
North Korea threatens the United States as well. The communist country previously launched two satellites that orbit over the U.S. and are capable of performing a surprise electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack at an altitude and trajectory that would evade U.S. National Missile Defenses, according to national security expert Peter Vincent Pry.
What’s more, when North Korea performed its first underground nuclear test, American scientists scoffed because it produced an explosion of less than one kiloton, a small fraction of what U.S. nuclear bombs produce.
However, that explosion was the perfect size to trigger an EMP event, according to energy expert Jeffrey Yago. And North Korea’s nuclear tests have gotten bigger since then.
“To think that they’re not looking at this as one way to retaliate against any activity we might take is just fallacy,” Yago told WND.
Japan may be preparing for a missile attack, but Yago is far less concerned about a ground-level nuclear explosion than an EMP attack. While most analysts agree North Korea does not yet have a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental U.S., Yago said it’s clear North Korea does have the technology to create an EMP weapon and detonate it over the center of the United States. An EMP weapon, he said, is easier to make and would be more devastating than a nuclear bomb.
“The EMP weapon, if it’s detonated high above the United States, can cause havoc from one end of the coast to the other, whereas a surface nuclear bomb would certainly be devastating to an area, like a city, but it would be limited to that geographic area, whereas the damage from an EMP could last up to a year and affect the entire country,” Yago said.
An EMP weapon would have the power to knock out the U.S. electrical grid, likely causing chaos among the population. Lights would go off, computers and televisions would shut down and cell phones would go dark once their batteries ran out. All electronic appliances that plug into power outlets would cease to operate. Water and gasoline could not be pumped, causing plumbing and vehicular transportation to shut down. Food could no longer be delivered to stores. Credit card readers and cash registers would not work.
In Yago’s view, this is all a real possibility in the U.S., but the country is not prepared for it.
Which is not to say the federal government has no plan to protect itself from a major disaster. Federal officials and their families have at least three major underground facilities to flee to in case of emergency: Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania, Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia and Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. The three bunkers were set up during the Cold War to ensure continuity of U.S. government operations in case of a nuclear attack.
“So I think our government has done a lot to prepare and protect themselves, being able to continue the government of the country, but literally nothing has been done for the citizens,” Yago said.
Yago, a licensed engineer and NABCEP certified solar professional, said many of his clients in Virginia have built underground shelters. However, he pointed out the problem is that most underground shelters are built to deal with a nuclear explosion, not an EMP attack. An EMP attack would not decimate buildings and bridges, but it would decimate the power grid.
And the government is powerless to take care of Americans in the event of such an attack, according to Yago.
“I have two long-term clients who come to me for solar hardware or advice on how to install backup power systems,” the certified energy professional revealed. “One of them works for FEMA and one of them works for Homeland Security in Washington, D.C. And I talk to these guys, I’m like, ‘Why are you coming to me? I’m a nobody. I’m a guy who’s here in this little town of about 200 in the middle of nowhere, and you work in Washington, D.C., with FEMA and Homeland Security and you’re coming to me for advice?’ And both of them have said they just don’t have the faith in their agencies to be able to do it.”
Yago said most of the people he runs into who are doing the most prepping are former officials and members of government agencies the public believes are there to protect them from disaster. Such people are more aware of the risks the country faces, yet they realize their agencies can’t possibly help everyone in a time of crisis.
They don’t want ordinary Americans to know that, Yago said.
Yago believes the grid will go down at some point, whether it’s from a North Korean EMP attack, a computer hack or a combination of the two. He worries about the widespread devastation it will cause, especially in major cities, if Americans choose to rely on the government and fail to take their own steps to prepare.
“The kinds of things that keep me up at night are not so much the power going out, but the long-term effects that would have on the population,” he warned.
As our sun’s activity slows and the star gets quieter, scientists’ fears of solar minimum are coming to the forefront. It isn’t the lack of activity that is terrifying those who study the sun, it’s what happens next that worries them all.
There would be nothing any of us could do if the sun’s activity decreases to the point that it causes the outermost atmospheric layer to collapse. No amount of taxation in the name of “global warming” will save anyone on earth from this outcome. But first, scientists have to worry about the sun reaching “solar minimum” and the possibility of losing the outermost layer of the atmosphere thanks to the rapid cooling.
Solar minimum is when the sun goes through a cycle of minimal activity, and right now, it’s on the verge of reaching this point. Our sun will near solar minimum in about 2019 or 2020. Unlike the name suggests, this lack of solar activity could cause an outer layer of the atmosphere called the thermosphere to contract and it’s not entirely clear what the effects of this could be on our planet.
The roughly 11-year cycle of the sun is reaching its low point, and soon. This means less energy is going to be released from our star in the form of solar flares, but it will mean we have solar winds to contend with. Professor Yvonne Elsworth at the University of Birmingham says that the next solar minimum could “be in about two years” but before then, the sun is expected to unleash significantly more radiation towards Earth. She also said that this cycle could mean that a “fundamental change in the nature of the [the sun’s magnetic] dynamo may be in progress.”
And she isn’t the only scientists who believes that this could amount to doom and gloom. Her theory is backed up by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s daily snaps, which have shown a spotless sun for 44 days in a row.
Solar minimums are known to spark lots of cosmic ray activity that can penetrate our atmosphere. These cosmic beams cause “air showers” of particles when they hit our atmosphere. They pose a health hazard to astronauts, and a single stray cosmic ray could cause a satellite to malfunction. As well as wiping out communication systems, a solar blast could down power grids.
It’s not entirely clear why low solar activity causes our thermosphere to collapse; or what it might be doing to our planet. Without having any effect on the sun’s cycle which will ebb and flow, “man-made global warming,” took some blame. Back in 2008 and 2009 when the sun was going through this same cycle, climate change alarmists claimed that the global warming was “adding to the cooling and contracting in the upper layer of our atmosphere.”
“This is not how it used to be and the rotation rate [of the sun] has slowed a bit at latitudes around about 60 degrees. We are not quite sure what the consequences of this will be but it’s clear that we are in unusual times. However, we are beginning to detect some features belonging to the next cycle and we can suggest that the next minimum will be in about two years,” Professor Elsworth said.
Not many are prepared for a massive power grid failure thanks to the sun’s cycle, but it’s a growing concern among many preppers, and scientists are now validating that anxiety.
The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) has warned of imminent nuclear war following a US live-fire bombing run near its border on Friday, speedily implemented as a response to Pyongyang’s July 4 demonstration of what Washington believes to be its ability to strike the US mainland with an ICBM.
In a Sunday editorial in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the DPRK accused Washington of engaging in "military provocations" designed to initiate nuclear conflict in the region.
"The Korean peninsula is the largest gunpowder area in the world with the highest risk of nuclear war, and is the largest hot spot in the world where there is always a risk of nuclear war," reads the DPRK editorial, cited by RT.
"[Washington] is surely spreading into a new world war," the Rodong Sinmun editorial asserted, adding that American military moves in the region were merely an attempt to distract from US President Donald Trump's "serious crisis of power" on Capitol Hill.
Following Pyongyang's launch of what it claimed to be its first ICBM, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting and the US deployed two B-18 strategic bombers to the region, carrying out live-fire bombing runs at a South Korean training range on Friday.
The B-18 bombing runs were escorted by US, South Korean and Japanese fighter jets.
The Pentagon, through its Pacific Command, tweeted that the runs "demonstrated America's ironclad commitment to the defense of our allies," according to RT.
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