Carrington Event

A “Carrington event” is something I had never heard of before.  Refers to a massive ejection of plamsa that hits the earth’s magnetic field.  British astronomer Richard Carrington observed such an event in 1859.  When the plasma hit the earth, the auroras stretched from the polar areas to close to the equators.  The telegraph system was strongly affected.  The problem with such an event happeneing today is that society is far more dependednt on networks that would are more vulnerable to serious (and often permanent) damage from an event of this magnitude.  Primarily the electrical grid.  Read the sobering details here.

World Water Day

Well, I missed WWD on March 22.  Things here is northern California are slightly less grim than two or three weeks ago, but still pretty bad.  With a week to go before the official end of the rainy season, it looks pretty certain that there will be various forms of water rationing all across the Bay Area.

Things are serious in other parts of the world as well – it appears that northern China is in a multi year drought as well.  This article claims that the water demand of Beijing cannot be sustained indefinitely:

Probe International, a leading development policy group, has warned that the city of Beijing faces economic collapse and will need to resettle part of its population in coming decades, as it could run out of water in five to 10 years.