The Center Cannot Hold, Part 2

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

And the 4th installment from Sarah Hoyt's blog today. There are those of you who may not be interested. However, I think these are things that are important to consider in today's economic situations, and the new year is definitely the time to be considering them. I don't always agree with Sarah on some things, though we are friends. (Hey, friends don't have to agree all the time. But we still get along. That's why we're FRIENDS.) But like I said, it makes some thoughtful reading. And as someone born and raised in Portugal, she brings a fascinating perspective to the topic.

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The Center Cannot Hold, Part 2

by Sarah A. Hoyt

The idea of creating inflation to get out of a disastrous debt situation is neither unknown nor rare. Countries like Greece and Portugal coasted on it for years (and we could go on about what losing that ability has done to them) partly because as “touristic countries” they thrived on being “cheap” by keeping their currency devalued.

You borrow high-value currency and pay the same nominal amount of low-value currency. Fine. That makes sense. But if you don’t let the savings and assets people have appreciate at the same rate, via high interest rates, (which in turn pushes company assets and – usually – salaries up, even though not in real value) you’re going to have people who don’t make enough to eat or to buy…anything. (Look, ALL intervention in economics is stupid, ultimately, because economics is not something someone can CONTROL. It is instead a playground for the law of unintended consequences. It's as if we developed an ability to control the weather and were in shock when keeping it pleasant in Iowa buried NYC in ice or something.)

It seems to me we’re headed there. Most of my friends are beyond pinched this Christmas, and that’s the ones who still have jobs.

If I had to guess I’d say this strategy was cooked up to get us out of the real estate collapse. The inflation is supposed to catch up so that real estate assets never “devalue” in numbers, just in real value. And the interest rates are kept forcibly low so that people will soak up the bad assets and so that those in marginal positions can refinance. (We know how well that last part is working – not.)

Mind you, if that really is the idea, this gang is dumber than dirt. First because if people's money holdings and salary stay the same, buying a house is still difficult, no matter how low the interest rates. Second, because they’re not taking in account that those of us working as contractors and getting paid on contracts made years ago, will end up destitute and not be able to afford...not just houses, but anything. I don’t know how many of us there are, but the fact salaries aren’t going up means salaried employees, of which there are a lot, will end up in the same fix.

In Portugal there was an enormous “soak up” of completely paid off real-estate, a lot of it inherited over generations. In fact, it might have been the norm. Having a mortgage back then was odd. This meant that your property appreciated massively and if you got in real trouble, you could sell it and move on. (Various restrictions on selling rented out places, and rent control made this more difficult than it sounds, but…still. You weren’t talking about people having to meet mortgage payments, house repairs, food, fuel, etc, with salaries that remain static and depreciating currency reserves while a lot of the rest goes up. On the food side, too, most people back then had at least some gardens and some "creation" – chickens, goats, etc.)

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible I’m attributing to stupidity that which is more easily explained by malice: they want to turn us into beggars, because beggars are easy to please. No, wait, that still means stupidity, because what can’t go on, won’t, and like with price fixing, when you make it impossible for people to live, people find extra-legal means.

Okay – another way in which we’re different: we’re the world’s charity [fund]. We still give financial aid to most of the world, and have for close on to a century. (We might that way have enabled tyranny, but that’s something else.) We’re the world’s grantor of peace.

If we withdraw, even well short of a total collapse, will the world finally grow up? Or will it go back to the long wars of the 18th and 19th century everywhere, to the point commerce can’t take place?

Make no mistake, whatever bad things happen in the US will be ten times worse in the rest of the world. And don’t say, “Who cares?” Some – if not most – of those people are much better at WMDs than at feeding their people and will consider knocking the “old champ off” a much greater priority than actually taking care of their starving population.

(A friend of mine said, “Whatever happens now, we’re going to lose at least one major city.” I’d like to say he was wrong, but I have the same feeling.)

Other ways we’re different: we have more guns per capita than anywhere except those places that encourage/enforce gun ownership, like Switzerland. This is not a bad thing because:

Even in the milder of the “things go wrong” scenario, where things go bad first are the people who are marginal now, living at the edge of both society and often legality. Where you see any crackup first in society is higher crime rates – we’re seeing that – and lack of safety on the streets. The fact that a lot of people have guns will probably hold some of that (at least) down.

We have a military that is more in the tradition of service than of machismo. We’re probably the last of the Western powers with a military tradition and our military tradition is…odd, built on winning hearts and souls, more than on, “Shoot them all and let G-d sort them out.” Yes, I know, sometimes the rules of engagement (ROEs) are stupid (Okay the ROEs are mostly stupid) but still, it has a built in, “you don’t kill unless you need to.” This makes us different from, say, the various Latin American countries that have had crack ups.

Will the US military fire on the populace if things get bad enough? Some places. Some populace. As someone said, behavior means a lot.

BUT the US military are also generally a force for good and order, and given a central collapse, might hold things together long enough for things to coalesce in another form. Might. One can hope. (Of course, I keep thinking of Starship Troopers, “And then the veterans had had enough.”)

All of these together, particularly the economic thing, added to the chaotic force of changing technology and the decentralization that tech has been forcing on industry and commerce even as our politics and education and other…non-commercial enterprises have got more centralized, has the effect of making us a particularly unpredictable juggernaut.

It won't be like movies or books, because those move on logic. Real people aren't logical. They're cranky, emotional and ornery. A group of one or the other some place can send things spinning out of control. [I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the first Men in Black movie, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” -Steph]

In the best of all possible worlds, you’re going to hit a point where the answer to, “Are things getting better or worse?” will have to be, “Yes.” And then things start smoothing off, if we’re lucky in 25 or so years, so that I can still see it. (Or maybe faster. We’re Americans. We go fast. Hey, look, I’m Heinlein’s kid. The glass is not half full. It’s brimming over.)

On the other hand, it’s unpredictable, and I don’t think the people in charge know that, just like the people in charge of publishing don’t seem to be aware that ebooks aren’t just a “novelty fad.” There is a certain type of credentialed-not-brilliant (but thinks he/she is, because...credentialed) individual for whom knowledge is what exists in books and what your professors passed to you. If reality disagrees, then you deny reality as hard as you can.

Most of the people in charge most places are busy denying reality. Which makes the rest of us real nervous.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Stay informed. Keep moving. Keep working.

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Or as my grandmother used to say, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and take whatever God sends."

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Solar-Earth DefCon Levels, Part 1

As I told you last week, NOAA has a scale of geomagnetic activity that ranges from G0 to G5, where G0 is quiescent, and G5 is the worst geomagnetic storm around. Now, we've already talked a little bit about what geomagnetic storms do...

No, we didn't, you say?

Ah, but we did. Back when I told you about all the effects that Coronal Mass Ejections can have. (Solar, Space, and Geomagnetic Weather, Part 4.) Because those sorts of things are what cause the geomagnetic storms.

But probably the best way I can tell you about the effects is simply to quote from NOAA's scale itself (which can be found here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/#GeomagneticStorms).

As I mentioned last week, a G0 is the normal, quiescent geomagnetic field. This holds until the Kp index reaches 5, and then we begin minor geomagnetic storming, with the scale hitting G1. According to NOAA, “Power systems: weak power grid fluctuations can occur. Spacecraft operations: minor impact on satellite operations possible. Other systems: migratory animals are affected at this and higher levels; aurora is commonly visible at high latitudes (northern Michigan and Maine).” These are fairly frequent, with on average close to 2000 per 11-year solar cycle.

At Kp=6, G2 is considered a moderate storm. “Power systems: high-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms, long-duration storms may cause transformer damage. Spacecraft operations: corrective actions to orientation may be required by ground control; possible changes in drag affect orbit predictions. Other systems: HF radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes, and aurora has been seen as low as New York and Idaho (typically 55° geomagnetic lat.).” These are a little less frequent than G1, but still occur at a rate of about 600 every solar cycle.

When Kp=7, G3 is a strong geomagnetic storm. “Power systems: voltage corrections may be required, false alarms triggered on some protection devices. Spacecraft operations: surface charging [static electricity buildup; this can lead to arcing]may occur on satellite components, drag may increase on low-Earth-orbit satellites, and corrections may be needed for orientation problems. Other systems: intermittent satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation problems may occur, HF radio may be intermittent, and aurora has been seen as low as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic lat.).” These are less frequent still, with on average 200 per solar cycle. Also, as the geomagnetic storms increase in strength, their likelihood of occurrence tends to concentrate around solar maximum, though this is not a hard and fast rule.

At Kp=8, G4 is a severe geomagnetic storm. “Power systems: possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid. Spacecraft operations: may experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems. Other systems: induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.). These are rarer still, with only about 100 seen per solar cycle.

And then there's the big boys. Kp=9 means a G5 extreme geomagnetic storm. “Power systems: widespread voltage control problems and protective system problems can occur, some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage. Spacecraft operations: may experience extensive surface charging, problems with orientation, uplink/downlink and tracking satellites. Other systems: pipeline currents can reach hundreds of amps, HF (high frequency) radio propagation may be impossible in many areas for one to two days, satellite navigation may be degraded for days, low-frequency radio navigation can be out for hours, and aurora has been seen as low as Florida and southern Texas (typically 40° geomagnetic lat.).” These are the rarest of all, but still occur on average 4 per solar cycle.

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Solar, Space, and Geomagnetic Weather, Part 3

So what are the effects of coronal hole winds and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)?

They can actually raise the temperature of the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere (the thermosphere, aptly named) sufficient to cause it to expand. This affects us, because that increases drag on satellites and spacecraft, and can cause the orbits of satellites to decay and re-enter well before they were intended. This is really bad if it's something important, like a weather satellite during hurricane season. After all, if the people of Galveston had had weather satellites in 1900, the city could have been evacuated well before it got hit, because they would have known it was coming for days. If we DON'T have weather satellites because we've lost 'em to increased atmospheric drag, we might as well go back to those days, as far as weather prediction is concerned. Ditto communications satellites. Don't even mention GPS.

Disruption of the Earth's magnetic field can be a problem. It can disrupt radio communication (including cell phones) rather severely. It can damage satellites that remain in orbit. It can generate “induced current” in any lengthy conductor. Let's pause for a moment and talk about that.

Induced current is a way of using magnetic fields to generate electicity. Remember how I said, in part 1, that the “current” of plasma created by the Sun's rotation on its axis generated a magnetic field? The reverse is also true. A moving magnetic field can generate an electrical current in any conductor placed within the field. So the disruption of the geomagnetic field constitutes a “moving” magnetic field and will induce electrical currents in everything from power lines to pipes and conduits.

When these truly huge induced currents hit things like transformers and circuit breakers and power stations, they can quickly overload them. This, in turn, can (and has) cause(d) blackouts and brownouts, particularly in parts of the country/world where the power grid is not robust enough to handle significant surges.

Long pipelines, like the Alaskan Pipeline, can be affected as well. In fact corrosion is occurring at a higher rate than expected because its northerly location exposes it to such induced currents all the time (remember that the ends of a bar magnet's field are open).

And it causes the aurorae. Most of you reading this have heard of the Northern Lights, properly termed the Aurora Borealis, but there are also the Southern Lights, the Aurora Australis. These are actually ovals that circle the magnetic poles of Earth (and most other planets with magnetic fields, by the way. They've been photographed on Jupiter.) They are where the charged particles that have been caught up from the solar wind or CME into the geomagnetic field follow the field lines down into the atmosphere. The gas molecules become excited into a higher energy state, then discharge that extra energy as light. This is very similar – in fact, essentially the same – as a fluorescent light bulb, only natural and not contained. The colors are determined mostly by the main gas that is fluorescing. Carbon dioxide produces white light; nitrogen, pink or red; oxygen, green or blue. (It can also generate ozone.)

Now, having talked about all of this radiation that an increased solar wind and coronal mass ejections pump into our Earth's system in general, and the fact that there are more of these things when there are more sunspots, when do you think the Sun is sending out more energy, Solar Max, or Solar Min? Yup, despite the logic of sunspots being cooler, the Sun actually sends out more energy during Solar Max, when there are the most sunspots.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com