Even though I"m working on the climate, I'm still quite worried about a Carrington event making it all de facto irrelevant. The way modern society works, a single such event would likely kill the majority of the world's population.
> We find that on average there is a 4% (28%) chance of at least one great (severe) storm per year and a 0.7% chance of a Carrington class storm per year... [0]
So, have we (humanity) done anything to mitigate the impact of this?
[0] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...
The problem is the consequences of frying of the electrical grid, satellites and terrestrial telecom networks, vehicles, probably datacenters, even possibly some personal electronics like glucose pumps.
Subsistance farmers would probably be OK. But most of them also depend on external supply chains like fertilisers, clean water, etc. Nobody else is an island, and that's quote no longer just applies to social ties: we depend on a web of relationships for everything: food, fuel, everything. Most (90+%?) of the global population will starve within a few weeks, even before disease gets them.
That's why survivalists and "bunker" types always seem crazy to me: unless they're the unibomber they plan for a fixed horizon for the "bad times".
My impression is that it is relatively easy to protect the electrical grid by grounding everything.
Also, Carrington event is predictable once the flare happens. The electrical grid can be shut down, and shouldn't be damaged much when shut down. Doing the cold start would be a challenge. As would be making the decision to shut down the grid.
How will you charge your car or pump fuel into it? How will the refineries make fuel?
And as for the bunkers: if civilization is destroyed, once your supplies are exhausted you emerge to…? There aren’t any grocery stores.
What do you think happens when there's no electric freezers for food storage, shipment, etc. No credit or debit cards. all digital money will basically be erased or locked on a hard drive that can't be accessed until the grid goes back up.
All factories cease production, I don't think diabetics stand a chance, and many others with debilitating diseases.
Hospitals will be working without electricity, without patient records, without power saws to saw through bone more efficiently, without lights except candles, without most medicines, and without a supply chain.
Essentially what a doctor can fit in a bag and carry and has zero electric components will still be useable. So scalpels, and other surgical tools, tongue depressor, blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, etc. People who wear glasses better hope they don't need a new prescription or break their glasses as there will be no solution.
To me the scariest fact is that every frozen and refrigerated food item in the world will spoil within 3 days. The only food remaining will be things like cereal, wheat, rice, canned goods etc, of course competition to get the last of the food will make the fight over toilet paper seem like the great emu was vs WW2.
Military arsenals requiring electronic targeting may go down too, all stocks basically go to zero, instability in markets and govts will be global.
Charismatic leaders might become war lords and take over large territories that were big, strong nations before the event.
If you had no warning of the event, you wouldn't even know for a week or two what happened. you can't look it up on the Internet. there's no tv or radio for you to get updates on the situation or warnings/alarms.
I think I heard estimates that said about 2.4 billion out of 8b, will be all that remain after 3 years. In other words 2/3rds of mankind will be gone.
In the middle ages people relied on goods from nearby farmers markets or grew it themselves. There wasn't a global supply chain, so life would carry on as normal. We'd literally be sent back to the middle ages..
etc etc etc...
That we aren't trying to prevent this, in a substantial way, is shocking to me.