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Tag Archives: doomsday
A Massive EMP Could Collapse The Economy In A Single Moment
By Michael Snyder | From PrepperCentral.com | On Friday, January 3rd, 2012
What would you do if all the lights went out and they never came back on? That is a question that the new NBC series “Revolution” asks, but most people have no idea that a similar thing could happen in real life at any moment. A single gigantic electromagnetic pulse over the central United States could potentially fry most of the electronics from coast to coast if it was powerful enough.
This could occur in a couple of different ways. If a powerful nuclear weapon was exploded at a high enough altitude, it could produce an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to knock out electronics all over the country. Alternatively, a massive solar storm could potentially cause a similar phenomenon to happen just about anywhere on the planet without much warning. Of course not all EMP events are created equal. An electromagnetic pulse can range from a minor inconvenience to a civilization-killing event. It just depends on how powerful it is. But in the worst case scenario, we could be facing a situation where our electrical grids have been fried, there is no heat for our homes, our computers don’t work, the Internet does not work, our cell phones do not work, there are no more banking records, nobody can use credit cards anymore, hospitals are unable to function, nobody can pump gas, and supermarkets cannot operate because there is no power and no refrigeration. Basically, we would witness the complete and total collapse of the economy. According to a government commission that looked into these things, approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population would die from starvation, disease and societal chaos within one year of a massive EMP attack. It would be a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before in U.S. history.
Most Americans are totally clueless about what an EMP attack could do to this nation, but the threat is very real. There was even a congressional commission that studied the potential effects of an EMP attack on the United States for eight years…
The US Congress in 2000 established the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. In 2004, the committee produced a 70-page executive summary on the EMP threat, and it issued a final report on the matter in 2008. According to the report, “several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication.”
Dr. William Graham was the chairman of that commission, and he says that an EMP attack could knock the United States back into the 1800s in just a single moment…
An EMP attack “could not only take down power grids, which are fragile anyway in this country, and telecommunications networks, and financial networks, and traffic controls and many other things, but in addition, there is a very close interrelationship among those national infrastructure capabilities,” Graham says.
“So, for example, we need telecommunications to re-establish the power network, and we need the power network to keep telecommunications going for more than a few hours. And we need the financial network to continue to operate to maintain the economy, we need the transportation system, roads, street lights, control systems, to operate just to get people to the failed power, telecommunication and other systems,” he adds.
Life after an EMP attack “would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people,” Graham says. “They wouldn’t have power. Food supplies would be greatly taken out by the lack of transportation, telecommunication, power for refrigeration and so on.”
Unfortunately, very few of us are equipped to survive in such an environment. We have become incredibly dependent on technology, and most Americans would have no idea how to do something as simple as growing their own food. Most people would be in a very serious amount of trouble in a very short period of time.
An article by Mac Slavo detailed some of the things that we could expect in the aftermath of a massive electromagnetic pulse…
The first 24 – 48 hours after such an occurrence will lead to confusion among the general population as traditional news acquisition sources like television, radio and cell phone networks will be non-functional.
Within a matter of days, once people realize the power might not be coming back on and grocery store shelves start emptying, the entire system will begin to delve into chaos.
Within 30 days a mass die off will have begun as food supplies dwindle, looters and gangs turn to violent extremes, medicine can’t be restocked and water pump stations fail.
Are you prepared for such an event?
If not, why not?
And actually, high altitude nuclear explosions and solar storms are not the only things that could produce sizable EMP bursts.
For example, the U.S. military has developed “a directed electromagnetic pulse gun” that can take out all electronics within a limited area. This kind of weapon can be fired from a plane, a cruise missile or even a drone. The following is from a recent WND article…
A pre-programmed cruise missile not too different from a drone has been proven to be capable of blasting out an EMP-type microwave that was able to destroy personal computers and electrical systems inside a building over which it was flying.
The U.S. Air Force and its contractor Boeing have created the High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, which was just tested over a Utah desert.
Other nations such as Russia and China are busy developing similar weapons. The ability to instantly take out the electronics of the enemy would be a very powerful advantage.
Even North Korea has been working on this kind of technology. According to Newsmax, it is believed that they may have tested a “Super-EMP” weapon back in 2009…
North Korea’s last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a “super-EMP” weapon, capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states
As this technology becomes more widespread, it will soon be accessible to just about everyone. You don’t actually need a nuclear weapon to set off a massive electromagnetic pulse. A non-nuclear pulse generator can do the same thing. If you set one off next to a power station you could potentially take out the electrical grid for an entire region.
Terrorist groups and lone wolf crazies could even use portable radio frequency weapons to do a tremendous amount of electromagnetic damage over a more limited area. The following is from a recent article by F. Michael Maloof…
Such an individual with a penchant for electronics can pull together components from a Radio Shack or electronic store – even order the components off of selected Internet websites – and fashion a radio frequency, or RF, weapon.
As microprocessors become smaller but more sophisticated, they are even more susceptible to an RF pulse. The high power microwave from an RF weapon produces a short, very high power pulse, said to be billions of watts in a nanosecond, or billionths of a second.
This so-called burst of electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz microwave frequency band can melt electrical circuitry and damage integrated circuits, causing them to fail.
Constructing a radio frequency weapon is not that difficult. In fact, you can find instructions for how to build them on the Internet.
People need to realize that we live in a world where technology is absolutely exploding and we are dealing with threats that previous generations never even dreamed of. As the world becomes increasingly unstable, it is inevitable that these kinds of weapons will be used.
It is only a matter of time.
What will life look like after an EMP weapon is used?
That is something to think about.
And we also need to keep watching the sun. It could produce a massive electromagnetic pulse at literally any moment. As I have written about previously, scientists tell us that it is only a matter of time before we are hit with a technology-crippling solar super storm.
Most people don’t even realize that the massive solar storm of 1859fried telegraph machines all over Europe and North America. If such a storm hit us today, the damage would potentially be in the trillions of dollars. The following is from a recent New York Times article…
A powerful solar (or “geomagnetic”) storm has the potential to simultaneously damage multiple transformers in the electricity grid and perhaps even bring down large sections of it, affecting upwards of a hundred million people in the United States for many months, if not years.
These huge transformers are expensive and difficult to replace, and not many are stockpiled in the United States for an emergency. In the worst case, the impact would be devastating: An outage could cost a few trillion dollars, with full recovery taking years. Not only would parts of the grid be compromised, but telephone networks, undersea cables, satellites and railroads also would be affected.
A 2008 National Academy of Sciences study warned that “because of the interconnectedness of critical infrastructures in modern society,” the “collateral effects of a longer-term outage” would likely include “disruption of the transportation, communication, banking and finance systems, and government services; the breakdown of the distribution of potable water owing to pump failure; and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of lack of refrigeration.”
By the way, 2013 is the peak of the current solar cycle. So we are moving into a time period when conditions will be very favorable for solar storms.
Let us hope that we are never hit with a massive electromagnetic pulse that is strong enough to take out all of our electronics.
But if it did happen, and all the lights went out for good, what would you do?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below…
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
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This article was originally posted at http://preppercentral.com/?p=3285
Gallery: Doomsday Artwork From Around The Globe
By ShadowYingZhi | http://shadowyingzhi.deviantart.com
By AndreeWallin | http://andreewallin.deviantart.com
Preppers As Parents
Have you watched a television show or a report on the internet about the people prepping for “Doomsday,” “The End Of The World As We Know It,” or some terrible catastrophe and asked yourself how these crazies can be allowed to raise kids? It has to bad for children to be raised in this kind of environment, right? Well, hold on now, is it really bad for children to be raised in a prepper family?
The first thing you must understand is that it is because of the children that many people are trying to be more prepared for whatever may come. Every new parent remembers the moment when you brought your baby home from the hospital and it suddenly registers what a immense responsibility you have. There you were holding this innoocent little life in your arms and that life depended upon YOU, the parent, for everything. You had to feed, shelter and love that little bundle and protect him or her from all the perils of life. You thought of many things: car accidents, house fires and household dangers. You baby proofed your home and checked your smoke detectors and bought life insurance. You had put the baby in a car seat to go for even a short ride. You took her when she was sick to the doctor and for checkups when she was well.
Prepper parents take a step, or maybe many steps, beyond what others do. We plan for what to do when the power goes out. We plan for making sure our families are cared for if a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, blizzard or whatever other disaster may happen. We know where the flashlights are when the lights go out. We have plenty of food and supplies so that if something happens that the store is closed or we can’t get to it, our children won’t suffer. The more you think along these lines, the more you see potential problems you want your family to be prepared for.
Every new parent has a diaper bag. In it we keep diapers, ointment, milk or juice, a pacifier, extra clothes and whatever else baby may need. Most parents I know keep the diaper bag ready to go. We change out the perishables and replace what we have used. As the child gets older, a backpack replaces the diaper bag and the contents change.
A Bug Out Bag (often referred to as a BOB in the preparedness community) is the identical idea at a higher level of planning. It brings peace of mind to know that if there’s a chemical spill on the highway or a flood coming and we need to get out of our home fast, everything is there, in the bag, ready to grab and go.
Prepper families focus on having the skills to survive if everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Family preparedness involves a lot of family time together. Time for camping, fishing, hiking, swimming and other pursuits that build self sufficiency are also family bonding time. We want our children to grow up strong, confident and self-reliant. Helping them master skills they will need takes a lot more time than doing everything for them. However, we believe the rewards are well worth it.
It is understandable that some people are concerned about the firearms that many preppers keep for personal defense as well as hunting. Our society is generally disapproving of firearms and fears them, especially around children. All of us must realize that preparedness is about responsibility. Responsible parents have had children and firearms safely in their homes for generations. As parents, we teach children the dangers of firearms and the safety rules for handling them. We realize the consequences of improper storage and keep firearms safely stored. We have no tolerance for the irresponsible or criminal adults who allow children unsupervised access to firearms.
It is obvious that some of the possible disasters that some preppers worry about seem far-fetched to some. Having odd ideas does not, in and of itself, make a person a bad parent. Our goal is not to make our children fearful of disasters that may never occur. The goal is for our children to know that they are safe and that we will take care of them no matter what. It gives a parent incredible peace of mind to know their family is provided for even if the unexpected happens. This, in turn, allows us to relax and truly enjoy every minute that we spend with the ones we love.
So, we all ask (we the Prepper Parents) that before you judge prepper families negatively, that you consider how much love and care we put into making every provision we can for our families’ well being. Consider how happy and secure it makes a child to be certain his parents will be able to take care of him. More importantly, consider the positives of raising children who will be independent, self-sufficient adults ready to take their place in the world someday. These are the ideas that are things of value to prepper parents.
Doomsday Preppers Sneak Preview Nine Meals Away from Anarchy
“Nine Meals Away from Anarchy”
Sneak Preview of National Geographic’s March 5th Episode of Doomsday Preppers
This week’s episode is inspiring due to the amount of time and expense the Doomsday Preppers have spent acquiring their supplies. None of participants have the appearance of being fringe hoarders or paranoid kooks. All are fairly non descript individuals that you would pass on the sidewalk or in the grocery store and you would never give them a second glance, until you got a peek into their storage areas:
- Suburbanite Mike Mester and family forty-five miles outside of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, preparing for economic meltdown followed by a grid-down situation, has spent at least an hour a day preparing with his wife for the last decade
- Preston White, web designer from central Colorado has amassed over 11,000 varieties of seeds is waiting for a radioactive cloud from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan to arrive at his location, contaminating all food and water
- Welding foreman Riley Cook with his wife and four young children from Silverthorne, Colorado who now builds underground disaster shelters, is expecting a pole shift to occur, and has invested his entire life savings at an estimate of $300,000.00
What is overlooked in the expert assessments of the Doomsday Preppers participants are first aid supplies as well as plans for sustainability in a post apocalyptic scenario. Rooms full of food can be difficult to transport if the Preppers have to bug out from their homes to a different location. Potable water is also crucial for survival, whether it be for drinking, washing, or watering of crops.
Having supplies on hand is an integral part of preparedness. What is absent in participants plan of readiness is the concept that supplies are finite. There are no mentions of stored reference material for future use, such as first aid techniques, or agriculture. Without a plan of sustainability, when supplies run low, where do the preppers turn to replenish their stockpiles?
Having seeds on hand as well as the ability to grow them is and may be the ultimate survival tool in terms of sustainability, as well as being in possession of life saving currency. Unfortunately, an individual becomes dependent on the weather to grow a successful crop. Preston Whites’ tremendous stash can allow him riches in a post apocalyptic world that is beyond imagination. That is, of course, if he has the means to defend and protect his abundant treasure trove of seeds.
Watch Tuesday night 9 p.m. EST and 9 p.m. PST March 6, 2012 Doomsday Preppers “Nine Meals Away from Anarchy” on the National Geographic channel. You will be amazed and astonished at the wealth of preparedness that is revealed on this episode.
Can’t get enough of the show? View National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers website at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/
View the National Geographic March 6th Doomsday Preppers Blog Carnival at http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/06/nine-meals-away-from-anarchy-bloggers-weigh-in-on-tonights-new-episode-of-doomsday-preppers/
Join our unofficial Doomsday Preppers discussion forum and share your thoughts with others regarding the show: http://radicalsurvivalism.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=42
Wyoming Advances ‘Doomsday Bill’ to Help Residents During Possible Collapse
By Billy Hallowell | From TheBlaze.com | On February 27th
Over the past few years, economic woes have led to both fear and uncertainty. The Blaze already told you about what “preppers” are doing to ready themselves should disaster become reality. GBTV, too, has brought you “Independence USA,” a reality show featuring a family trying to live off the grid. But now it seems even some politicians are getting in on the preparatory spirit, with officials in the State of Wyoming advancing what many are calling a “Doomsday Bill.”
In the event that America’s political system or economic stability collapses, some Wyoming lawmakers contend that a viable plan must be in place. Enter Bill 85, which passed its first vote in the state’s House on Friday. If advanced, the “Doomsday Bill” would create a state-run government task force that would explore and handle energy supplies, food shortages and other needs related to a potential nationwide governmental collapse.
“The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others,” reports Trib.com.
And here’s the kicker: If, indeed, such a horrific incident takes hold, Wyoming would potentially be able to issue its own currency — an action that would allow the state to isolate and self-contain, while continuing its commerce and operations. Additionally, WTOP.com reports that the proposed task force will examine the conditions under which the state government would need its own army, aircrafts and other materials.
While the state’s Department of Homeland Security already has a crisis management plan on the books, it doesn’t cover what would happen if a nationwide political or economic disruption or collapse takes form. In the past, at least six other states have attempted to create state currency; all have failed.
With Occupy Wall Street continuing to have a nation-wide presence and with the economy still on shaky ground, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller (R-Riverton), sees the proposal as a common-sense move. That being said, Miller also contends that he doesn’t anticipate any catastrophic event in America in the near future. For him, the bill is more about protection in the case of a massive emergency.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today [that] would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg (R-Thermopolis) said on Friday. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”
Before going to the Wyoming Senate, the bill must clear two more House votes. Originally, it called for $32,000 in state funds to be allocated to the task force; last week, this number was cut in half, which could make it a more palatable measure for lawmakers who are operating in cash-strapped times.
This article was originally post at http://www.theblaze.com/stories/wyoming-advances-doomsday-bill-to-help-residents-during-possible-collapse/
Doomsday Preppers Episode
This is a full episode of the Doomsday Preppers program that recently aired on The National Geographic channel.
The Day After Doomsday Preppers -We Live to Prep Another Day
Mester is involved in many hours of his life with spending quality family time. Maybe it isn’t the type of quality time that some other husbands or dads would enjoy or prefer, but nonetheless, he still actively engages his family. White expressed wanting to protect and grow seeds for his community. The thought may cross one’s mind that he is waiting for the day that he gets to don the cape to be one who saves the day, if only in his own mind. Time will tell. Cook was the one prepper participant that garnered the least amount of comments, possibly because his take on preparedness was simply stunning. Most of those watching Doomsday Preppers will most likely not make $300,000.00 in their lifetime, let alone spending it on preps.
What was most remarkable about #preppers Twitter-verse last night and early on into the morning here in Eastern Standard Time, is that television viewers still believe what they see on television. Not to say that National Geographic is not being realistic in their portrayals of preppers, although post taping interviews of former participants do reveal that to a certain extent. The point being is that preppers portrayed on this show come across as fringe eccentrics of the worst kind. This is evidenced by comments running rampant on the “#Preppers” discussion hash tag on twitter.
Some tweets that were posted last night during the Doomsday Preppers broadcast included:
We here at Radical Survivalism appreciate National Geographic for giving us the opportunity to reach out to people about preparedness. However, if the interest on NatGeo’s part is to truly educate and inspire, rather than to simply create ratings, a suggestion would be to bring in some survivors on natural or manmade disasters, and use their expert assessment of the individual families showcased on the series. This ‘expert’ testimony on the part of actual survivors would lend some credibility to what this steadily growing movement is trying to portray.
Twitter verse is complete in its participation of preparedness by way of #Preppertalk. This is where you can meet those actively participating in a sense of self responsibility. Join simple folks, authors, sometimes celebrities, rich people, young people, old people, atheists, Christians, pagans, Democrats, Republicans, Australians, Brits, Canadians, the list is too extensive to cover. Political and religious squabbles are discouraged, as the message of the day is all preparedness, all the time. Purchasing deals are shared, recipes, internet links, and maybe best of all: blogs from those who all share the desire to inform and educate. Prepping on a budget, make your own laundry soap, who has the best freeze dried food, paying off debt, living off grid, growing and preparing your own fresh food, what sort of dog works best for home protection, demystifying firearms ownership, solar power. All are joined in a singular thought: that there may be events on the horizon, but we will make the best of it all and continue to live each day to the fullest, with or without electricity. We are frugal, we are smart, we prepare not out of paranoia, but the desire to protect ourselves and our loved ones from those who do not.
Preparedness is a simple concept, really. Not preparing due to the idea that was often put forth last night among #Preppers participants that “preparing for the unknown is a waste of time.” Eating healthier and not ascribing to the commercialist concept that all buying must take place in a sterile, corporate, uncaring big box store has nothing to do with “unknowns.” It is unfortunate that so many individuals have their heads stuck in the proverbial sand. Our list of unknowns is as follows, but of course, is not all inclusive:
Coronal mass ejection (CME)
Flooding (such as Hurricane Katrina events)
Earthquakes
Tornadoes
Job loss
Economic hardship
Gas price increases
Inflation
Snowstorms
What continues to frustrate us ‘preppers’ is this list of “unknowns” which are currently “knowns” that are actually occurring in the world. In other words, preppers seem to take world events into consideration in terms of preparedness instead of just dismissing them, as many non preppers do. As of this writing, we are awaiting an X class flare from the sun to reach the Earth. “R3” radio interference is expected this evening. What the sun will do tomorrow is certainly unknown, but what we do know is the there are classifications for sun flares (which mean someone behind a desk is expecting them at some point in our future.) Iran continually threatens to disrupt oil movement in the Middle East which results in increased gas prices. Increased gas prices impact pricing at the grocery store as well as many other parts of our existence. Inflation results in less product for your buying dollar. Earthquakes have plagued unusual parts of the US this year as well as devastating Japan which plays a significant role in the global economy.
There was another tweet that has plagued me since I read it last evening. It is the thought that we should be prepared spiritually and in our hearts, and that we should rely only on God. It’s not the idea of depending on God that I rail against; it’s what missing from the equation: that many who do believe in a higher power seem to forget that the sentient being on high will bring certain people together for a reason. That is, if you believe this is all part of a plan and you are a willing or unwilling participant in your own life.
Being part of some “big plan” because of some great chess game being played in the sky means that there are pieces on the chess board that sooner or later, you will be neighbors with, or married to, or the parent of. Being a part of a plan means that we will come together at some point in the spirit of connectivity, preppers and non preppers alike. Your connectivity may be limited to your television screen or I-pod. But you witness people making themselves ready for whatever may come. Do not be disheartened or disgusted by what you see. Be inspired. Be inquisitive. Many (not all) of those engaged in the art of preparedness often do so with charitable thoughts of others factored into their decisions. Preston White with his many seeds comes to mind. You may have friends or family who engage in readiness and you will be completely unaware, or you denigrate them for questioning an uncertain destiny. People may come into your life, possibly part of some ‘big plan’ that are brought there by that destiny; you are supposed to meet these individuals, either in person, or by way of your television or I-pod. Embrace them however you meet them, be it on your wide screen or in person. They just may end up passing through your life as part of one really immense conclusion.
You can read our preview of the March 6th Doomsday Preppers episode at http://radicalsurvivalism.com/web/2012/03/05/doomsday-preppers-sneak-preview-nine-meals-away-from-anarchy/
View the National Geographic March 6th Doomsday Preppers Blog Carnival at http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/06/nine-meals-away-from-anarchy-bloggers-weigh-in-on-tonights-new-episode-of-doomsday-preppers/
Can’t get enough of the show? View National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers website at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/