I read National Geographic while Brett makes us waffles. This month’s magazine has a cover article about solar storms and the effect they might have on the electrical grid in the future. Because of how connected everything in our world is to an electronic grid, a solar storm like the one that happened over 100 years ago and knocked out some telegraph stations would knock out not just electricity, but water, sewage, gas, communications, all kinds of stuff, and possibly for months. And they are expecting another big set of storms next year (there’s a cycle to the storms). So that got me thinking about how prepared we are in case of a disaster.
We’ve got some dry food storage – pasta, rice, beans, sugar, flour, wheat, powdered milk. We have a lot of cans of salsa and spaghetti sauce and some canned fruit. I have a bottle of chocolate syrup. Can you really call yourself prepared without chocolate? We have blankets if it’s cold and we have a house for shade if it’s hot.
But we could probably use a few other things. Like water. Lots and lots of water. And fuel (our BBQ charcoal won’t go too far). I’d really like one of those solar ovens. If not for a disaster, so I can make bread in the summer without heating the house. And I should probably make sure a large magnetic storm won’t destroy the only copy I have of a lot of electronic memories. You can’t count on online storage to have a back-up if the whole grid goes down.
It’s amazing to think of how much stuff we do in life that’s related to electricity. What have you done that doesn’t involve electricity today? I can think of two things I do that don’t involve electricity – reading books and knitting. Everything else involves electricity in one way or another. Knocking out the grid would really help me meet my reading goal to read all the books I own.
I am an educator and PhD. I quilt, belly dance, run, read, and try to grow things. I am a Mormon. I am infertile. I am a daughter, sister, aunt, grand-daughter, friend, wife, and mom.
Brett L. Dennis
Mama g
Giggles
AmandaStretch
And maybe it would give me an excuse to sleep in. :brett:
Have you read the Great and Terrible series by Chris Stewart? I had a hard time with the first book *The Brothers” because I gave me some new ideas on the pre-existence. That book is the story of the battle between Satan and Christ. As I have pondered it, I really think that there was more to the story than the great council in Heaven. The rest of the books were here on earth and very realistic. I got frightened when I read them and realize that I am not at all prepared. I read the series after I had my knee surgery and couldn’t do much so I had time to read. Peyton read them when he had his shoulder surgery.
Just a thought, what would that do to a solar oven?? :sun: 😀
Turn it in to a solar microwave? :sun:
… and zap, you would have toasted bread crumbs. (But only if you were cooking bread.)
:sun: