> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Why You Shouldn’t Wait for the Sun to Make the First Move - URL: https://goodoil.news/why-you-shouldnt-wait-for-the-sun-to-make-the-first-move-copy/ - Published: 2026-10-17T19:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-17T18:59:59.000Z - Description: A single CME would ruin not just your day, but life as we know it. - Author: Lushington Brady - Tags: Science Everything is a poison: it just depends on the dose, is a famous aphorism from Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian and philosopher Paracelsus. He wasn’t called “the father of toxicology” for nothing. His aphorism applies to everything from vitamins to water: things which are greatly beneficial in the appropriate dose, become deadly toxins in heavy doses. Even sunshine. Not enough and you’ll get seriously sick. Too much, and you’ll not only get burned, but risk skin cancer. Not only for humans: the electronics that underpin nearly every aspect of modern life are at existential risk should the Sun get a bit too boisterous. We are accustomed to treating that blazing thermonuclear furnace in the heavens as a benign celestial radiator, obligingly nourishing our cabbages and powering the increasingly dubious subsidies of the green-energy grift. Climate models optimistically treat solar radiation as a constant. But every now and again, our stellar benefactor clears its throat and hurls a cosmic loogie across the void. > [Occasionally a violent](https://realclearwire.com/articles/2026/09/24/the%5Fcme%5Frisk%5Fto%5Famerican%5Finfrastructure%5F1208119.html?ref=goodoil.news) solar flare, technically called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), erupts from the sun’s surface. A CME is not a blast of sunlight. Instead, it is described by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as “a massive, balloon-like bubble of magnetized plasma and hot gas that is blasted from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, into space.” When several billion tonnes of magnetised plasma scream through the ether at up to seven million miles per hour, heading straight down the barrel at our frail blue marble, the consequences are somewhat more disruptive than a mild case of sunburn. The induced currents hitting the surface can fry the high-voltage transformers that keep modern civilisation humming. These gargantuan electrical components are not off-the-shelf items one simply picks up from the local hardware shop on a Sunday morning – they are bespoke industrial behemoths that take months, if not years, to manufacture, deliver and install. Lest anyone dismiss this as the hysterical doom-mongering of tinfoil-hat enthusiasts, history provides a rather bracing bucket of cold water. > A catastrophic CME is not wild-eyed speculation. The most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, known as the “Carrington Event,” hit the US in 1859\. American electrical infrastructure was confined entirely to telegraph lines at that time. Even so, the damage was extensive, with widespread disruption of telegraph systems and telegraph operators reporting massive electric shocks and fires. In 1859, the worst that happened was a fleet of Victorian telegraph machines threw fiery tantrums, shocked their bearded operators and printed gibberish without batteries. If a tempest of that magnitude made landfall today, it would not merely inconvenience a handful of telegram clerks. It would reduce our pampered, electrified existence to the Dark Ages before your barista finished frothing up your latte. Smaller belches have already demonstrated the concept. In 1989, an astronomical burp knocked out the Hydro-Quebec grid in Canada in a mere two minutes, leaving six million Canucks freezing in the dark, whilst blowing out hardware as far south as New Jersey. In 2003, another geomagnetic burst caused havoc across Northern Europe and South Africa. Consider the potential bill if the sun decides to serve up a proper Carrington-sized cocktail today. > In 2013 the international insurance giant Lloyd’s of London released a study of potential damage to the US from a Carrington-level CME. Their worst-case scenarios included extended power disruptions affecting up to 40 million people. Lloyd’s estimated that fixing the damage could take up to two years, resulting in an economic cost of up to 2.6 trillion dollars. That is trillion, with a ‘t’: a sum which might seem like spare change to a government minister, but is a lot, lot, lot of money to the people who actually have to pay it. Beyond the dollars, we’re talking about tens of millions of people suddenly bereft of refrigeration, running water, sewage systems, medical equipment and internet access, plunged into a pre-industrial purgatory for years while bureaucrats scramble to procure spare copper coils. The actuarial odds of such a storm striking in any given year sit around what seems like a footling one per cent. But, like the next supervolcano or ‘Big One’ earthquake, one day the cosmic dice will throw double-six 100 times in a row. Over a human lifetime, that is less a speculative bet and more a dreadful likelihood. Yet, the remedies are well-known and remarkably inexpensive. For the price of a single aircraft carrier, America could harden its substations, install automated trip switches and stockpile critical replacement transformers. Our satellites give us anywhere from 15 hours to several days of advance warning: plenty of time to trip the switches and ride out the tempest, provided the gear is actually installed. Instead, our political betters prefer to spend trillions subsidising Chinese-made solar panels while ignoring the brittle, century-old grid tasked with carrying the load. As AI server farms and electric vehicles place unprecedented strain on ageing wires, the political class continues to whistle past the graveyard. It is a classic bureaucratic blind spot: spending money on an unavoidable catastrophe is terribly unglamorous when the disaster refuses to fit neatly into the next electoral cycle. In the meantime, you don’t have to go full prepper and stash a laptop, mobile, data cards and more in a metal bin lined with plastic and bury it in the backyard. At the very least, an external hard drive, regularly backed up with your critical data and precious photos and stored in a metal box is a simple fix with a big pay-off should the worst happen. --- 💡 ****If you enjoyed this article please share it using the share buttons at the top or bottom of the article.**