Senate dumps strategy to prevent EMP damage
“While one part of the federal government was warning us of possible solar electromagnetic-pulse damage to our electric grid, a key Senate commission approved a bill to ignore this threat,” he said.
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“It’s particularly ironic since the Senate amended a bill, H.R. 5026, approved unanimously by the House that would specifically protect the grid against solar EMP and other physical threats,” he said.
WND has reported for years on the devastating danger from an EMP attack that could be launched by a second-rate missile system against America.
The concern is that any nuclear detonation that could be launched into the atmosphere anywhere from 25 to 250 miles above the United States could decimate the nation’s electric grid, essentially transporting it instantly back to an era of mechanical machines and agriculture.
One estimate just months ago suggested an effective EMP attack could leave 9 out of 10 Americans dead.
Bartlett explained that the danger also comes from naturally occurring EMP signals from sources such as a solar storm.
Just in the past few days, the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued several alerts concerning a sun flare that happened. The alert forecast a “Coronal Mass Ejection” from the sun would impact the earth.
Then, a short time later, Fox News reported the storm caused “a fantastic light show in North America” and the NOAA estimated the impact ranged from minor to moderate.
“The National Academies of Sciences predicted in a 2008 report that a solar geomagnetic storm as severe as the Carrington event that occurred in 1859 could inflict $1 trillion to $2 trillion [damage] and take 4-10 years to recover from. That compares with the $300 billion impact of Hurricane Katrina,” Bartlett noted.
Another report from NASA estimated such a cosmic “superstorm” could cause as much damage as “20 Katrinas.”
Whether the damage would come from a natural solar event or a nuclear bomb detonated in the atmosphere over America, the results could be the same for power distributors, telecommunications companies, satellite and aviation-sector companies – a virtual shutdown.
http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/188605/