Here Comes the Sun Part 1
How Solar Cycle 25 hitting its peak may be affecting us
INTRODUCTION: I must apologize to my subscribers (those rare and beautiful beasts!) for my long absence. I’ve finally recovered from a nearly two-week long respiratory cold that caused a crippling cough and general misery. I can’t really complain given that it’s the first time I’ve been sick in two and a half years, since my bout with Covid in May ‘22. I attribute that long period of wellness to a daily regimen of Vitamin C (minimum 4,000 mg.), Vitamin D (2,000–3,000 IU), Zinc, Niacin (B3 500 mg. niacidamide formulation), and B12. Oh, and of course—natural immunity. I’ll be posting my new essay in 2 parts with a third part excerpted from my new book, Pole Shift & Other Poems. Enjoy!
1. Solar Storms and EMPs
Solar storms, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), solar flares, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), what do these have to do with our daily lives here on Earth? As it turns out, plenty. Quite contrary to the mainstream narrative, we are far more at risk from an extreme event of this nature than we are from the so-called “existential threat” of carbon dioxide-driven climate change. Please bear with me while I explain that controversial statement. As “space weatherman” Stefan Burns, a geophysicist, has been demonstrating in his highly informative videos, [1] we’re currently at the peak of Solar Maximum cycle 25, pulsing proton-charged plasma streams toward the Earth at near-record levels and a concentrated frequency unusual even for such peak periods. Like a giant muscle flexing and then relaxing, Solar Minimum and Maximum cycles run in roughly 11-year cycles, a duration scientists cannot explain. Solar cycle 25 is expected to run out its peak right through 2026, so we can brace ourselves for more flares and CMEs.
By now readers may be familiar with the father of all solar storms, the Carrington Event of September 1859. Astronomers such as Richard Carrington registered an estimated –1,750 micro-Tesla spike that burnt out telegraph lines all over the world and sent proton showers, a.k.a. aurora borealis displays, pulsing as far south as Cuba. Fortunately, telegraph technology was still in its early stage and only came into full development in subsequent decades, so recovery was rapid. Contrast that with our 21st century world, where everything from our cash machines to our gas pumps to our hydroelectric dams are controlled by electronic infrastructure. Literally everything that runs our world today is dependent upon electronics.
“If a solar super-storm like the Carrington Event recurred today,” explains Canada’s Mackenzie Institute, “it would collapse electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting at risk the lives of billions.” [2]
A solar super-storm in 1921, since dubbed the “Railroad Storm,” caused both telephone and telegraph lines to burst into flame. Fortunately the modern world at that time was still not as wired into the electric grid as we are today, but the disruption to communications was substantial. This was a great surprise to astronomers at the time, coming at what appeared to be the waning end of Solar Maximum cycle 15:
“In those days scientists had never heard of ‘CMEs,’ so they were completely surprised when the clouds of plasma struck Earth,” writes Dr. Tony Phillips. “Around the world, magnetometers suddenly went offscale, pens in strip chart recorders pegged uselessly to the tops of their papers. … Flames engulfed the switchboard at the Brewster station of the Central New England Railroad and quickly spread to destroy the whole building. During the conflagration, long distance telephone lines burned out in New Brunswick; voltages on telegraph lines in the USA spiked as high as 1000 V; and auroras were sighted by ships at sea crossing the equator.” [3]
By contrast to the Carrington Event’s massive energy spike, a 1989 solar storm over Canada registered a mere –600 micro-Tesla, yet was strong enough to knock out Quebec’s entire power grid on a frigid March 13th winter day. “Some satellites, the closest to the action, suffered electronic glitches. ‘That wasn't so much an issue then, as there were far fewer satellites in orbit compared to now,’ astrophysicist Sten Odenwald says. “The space storm’s effects extended all the way to Earth’s surface and even below it in the form of geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). These electrical surges infiltrated power grids all over North America and northern Europe, and even destroyed a transformer at a nuclear power plant in New Jersey.” [4]
There are other anomalies that threaten our satellite networks, such as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), a kind of electromagnetic black hole off the coast of Brazil that requires the International Space Station (ISS) to turn off its instruments on each rotation over this area to avoid damaging vital electronics systems. The SAA “generally doesn’t affect life on Earth, but the same can’t be said for orbital spacecraft (including the International Space Station), which pass directly through the anomaly as they loop around the planet at low-Earth orbit altitudes. During these encounters, the reduced magnetic field strength inside the anomaly means technological systems onboard satellites can short-circuit and malfunction if they become struck by high-energy protons emanating from the Sun.” [5] NASA is tracking this anomaly closely but admits it is still a “mystery” and a “hard to understand phenomenon.” NASA Goddard geophysicist and mathematician Weijia Kuang speculates that “the observed SAA can be also interpreted as a consequence of weakening dominance of the dipole field in the region.” [6]
From my reading of scientific articles on the current geomagnetic pole shift (known by scientists as an “excursion” when it’s not a complete reversal) well underway and increasing in speed, it’s possible the SAA is a related effect of such a pole shift. As I write in the Introduction to my new book, Pole Shift & Other Poems, [7] another impact of geomagnetic pole reversals is a temporary thinning of the atmosphere, allowing more cosmic radiation to reach the Earth’s atmosphere and surface. Fortunately pole reversals are a rare event in terrestrial history, occurring an estimated 100 times in the past 20 million years. The most recent such event, known as the Laschamps Excursion, was a partial pole shift that occurred some 42,000 years ago. [8] (Note that all of the statements in my Introduction are supported by references in both the Scientific References section and the footnotes.) Scientists are speculating that such pole reversals may have contributed to various extinction events and that we may be overdue for another one. As I further wrote in Pole Shift: [9]
“Scientists now think the simultaneous appearance of cave paintings at sites such as Lascaux from this period may indicate that early humans were driven into caves for shelter from the temporarily thinning atmosphere caused by the pole shift. The red ochre used in the paintings may also have been used by humans as a sunscreen.” [10]
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Amaryllis Fox-Kennedy, a former CIA analyst, discussed the serious concerns posed, not just by a solar EMP event, but by the prospect of terrorist-generated electromagnetic sabotage of power and communications grids. (Starts about time stamp 58:00) [11] As both Fox-Kennedy and Canada’s Mackenzie Institute explains, terrorists can easily obtain the basic components of radiofrequency weapons that can be the size of a briefcase and yet knock out a critical power station. Small-scale nuclear weapons detonated high in the atmosphere are another way of causing an electromagnetic pulse capable of knocking out critical infrastructure:
“Radio-Frequency Weapons (RFWs) are much less powerful than nuclear weapons and much more localized in their effects, usually having a range of one kilometer or less. Terrorists, criminals, and even disgruntled individuals have already made localized EMP attacks using RFWs in Europe and Asia. …a study by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission warns that a terrorist attack that destroys just 9 key extra-high voltage (EHV) transformer substations (out of a total of 2,000) could cause a nationwide blackout of the United States lasting 18 months.” —Mackenzie Institute [12]
As Fox-Kennedy explained to Carlson, replacement of transformers would take years, not weeks or months, due to the complex and expensive process of building new transformers—each must be tailored to a particular electrical grid, so there are no spares just sitting around waiting to be plugged in. And because nuclear power stations are dependent upon electrical systems to regulate the cooling of reactors, within days of a nuclear or RFW attack, we could see meltdowns similar to Fukushima.
Even a natural EMP impact from the sun could set human civilization back decades. “The U.S. National Academy of Sciences estimates that if the Railroad Storm were to recur today, there would be a blackout of the North American grid with recovery requiring 4-10 years, if recovery were possible at all. Recurrence of another Carrington Event, expected roughly once every 100–200 years, is overdue. NASA estimates the likelihood of such a geomagnetic super-storm is 12-percent per decade.” [13] However, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl says scientists are watching the situation closely and endeavour to provide advance warnings to electrical utilities and the ISS so that systems can be powered down or put onto backup circuits. [14]
My goal here isn’t to be some kind of prophet of doom, or to add to our already long list of existential concerns during these trying times. Still, knowledge is power. And I can’t help but wonder whether such a natural “Great Reset” event could ultimately save humanity from its current headlong rush to disaster. Our self-destructive impulses seem to be on overdrive, with AI, genetically modified viruses and biowarfare, reckless geoengineering of the atmosphere, increasing authoritarianism, and the steadily rising nuclear tensions in Europe and the Near East. Humans have survived many near-extinction events in the past, whether due to meteor strikes, ice ages, interglacial floods, plagues and other events. Our prehistoric ancestors were reduced to a mere 1,280 breeding individuals during the catastrophic climate changes of the middle Pleistocene Era some 900,000 years ago, “a time of significant climate change—including a sharp cooling across the globe about 900,000 years ago that saw growing glaciers, chillier seas, extended droughts and stronger monsoons.” [15]
The point is, we did survive. How did we do that? By cooperation and collaboration—the two strongest tools in our evolutionary toolbox. It’s time to finally ditch the false ethos of “nature red in tooth and claw” espoused by 19th century evolutionists, the misconception that our greatest accomplishments arise from conflict and competition. That means we have to stop insisting that the most important defining feature of a human being is their gender, sexual identity, nationality, political affiliation or race. These are all diversions deliberately cultivated by what Dr. Robert Malone calls “fifth generation psychological warfare” in his new book, PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order. When survival is at stake, none of these things matter. Most importantly in the West, we have to abandon the false notion promoted by Third Wave Feminism that women must constantly fight men at every turn, competing with them in a zero-sum game, assuming that every gain for the other gender is a net loss to them. Our success as a species for millennia was realized, not through domination of one gender over the other, but through mutual cooperation. As evolutionary biologist Peter Kropotkin wrote a century ago in Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution:
“…we maintain that under any circumstances sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life. Those species which willingly or unwillingly abandon it are doomed to decay; while those animals which know best how to combine have the greatest chance of survival and of further evolution…” [16]
[1] “The Sun is Out of Control: Brace for Solar Storms and Unexpected Developments,” Stefan Burns, October 26, YouTube:
[2] “The EMP Threat To Canada,” Dr. Peter Pry, Mackenzie Institute, October 22, 2015: https://mackenzieinstitute.com/2015/10/the-emp-threat-to-canada/
[3] “100 Years Later: The Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921,” Dr. Tony Phillips, Space Weather Archive, May 15, 2021: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/05/15/100-years-later-the-great-geomagnetic-storm-of-may-1921/
[4] “A Scary 13th: 20 Years Ago, Earth Was Blasted with a Massive Plume of Solar Plasma,” Adam Hadhazy, Scientific American, March 13, 2009: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geomagnetic-storm-march-13-1989-extreme-space-weather/
[5] “NASA Is Tracking a Huge, Growing Anomaly in Earth's Magnetic Field,” Peter Dockrill, Science Alert, March 23, 2023: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-is-tracking-a-huge-growing-anomaly-in-earths-magnetic-field
[6] “NASA Is Tracking a Huge, Growing Anomaly in Earth's Magnetic Field,” Peter Dockrill, ibid.
[7] Sean Arthur Joyce, Pole Shift & Other Poems, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria BC Canada, 2024.
[8] “We found the first Australian evidence of a major shift in Earth’s magnetic poles. It may help us predict the next,” Agathe Lise-Provonost, The Conversation, February 14, 2021: https://theconversation.com/we-found-the-first-australian-evidence-of-a-major-shift-in-earths-magnetic-poles-it-may-help-us-predict-the-next-155040
[9] Sean Arthur Joyce, Pole Shift & Other Poems, Introduction, ibid., p. 10.
[10] “A magnetic field reversal 42,000 years ago may have contributed to mass extinctions,” Carolyn Gramling, Science News, February 18, 2021: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-magnetic-field-reversal-mass-extinctions-environment-crisis
[11] “Former CIA Officer Amaryllis Fox Kennedy: Iraq, JFK, & Everything Else Our Intel Agencies Lie About,” Tucker Carlson Network, October 25, starting at time stamp 58:00:
[12] “The EMP Threat To Canada,” Dr. Peter Pry, Mackenzie Institute, ibid.
[13] “The EMP Threat To Canada,” Dr. Peter Pry, Mackenzie Institute, ibid.
[14] “Sun News of the Week: Solar Flare Hotline Update,” EarthSky, YouTube, November 1, 2024:
[15] “Our Human Ancestors Very Nearly Went Extinct 900,000 Years Ago, Genetics Suggest,” Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, August 31, 2023: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/genetics-suggest-our-human-ancestors-very-nearly-went-extinct-900000-years-ago-180982830/
[16] Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Introduction by George Woodcock, Black Rose Books, Montreal/New York, 1989, Introduction p. xxvi.