Not long ago, I was discussing all this with a conspiracy theorists, and he asked; "Have you studied the magnetic poles and the consequences of a flip?" OMG I told him, okay so, forget 2012, asteroids, and Global Warming; fear Earth's Magnetic Pole Flip! Okay fine. Well, here is the thing, I actually have read up on this so I told him;
Yes, I have looked at the available information, listened to the late night talk-show hosts, and read up on this somewhat. Seems to be a lot of theories out there, and yet, we've never observed this, and I've never seen any computer modeling, not that I'd ever trust human computer modeling with such an important thing.
If this is a cyclical occurrence, then it would indeed explain much of the human record, holes in evolutionary theory, explanation of 26,000 year old pyramids under the ground near the Ukraine and lots of ancient tales of past civilizations. But, I am a huge skeptic, and I'd like to observe another planet going through such gyrations before too much over speculation.
He then claimed that; "we are 1000+ years overdue for a polar flip, where the North and South magnetic poles reverse. When I was born magnetic North travelled almost a mile a year. It has been accelerating for 50+ years now and today travels over 30 miles a year."
Sure, and this could account for all the warming of the Northern ice caps, a couple of degrees in tilt, off cycle from what we consider the normal tilt in relation to the Sun could cause that. Throw in some urban heat, El Niño's, etc. and all the current events, ice melting, ambient atmospheric temps, altitudes of upper atmosphere separations is all accounted for.
He said, "But you don't understand we are all going to die, this is serious; polar reversals in the past gave hints of change and then BANG the flip occurred within months."
Okay, I suppose this is all possible, so I told him could be, as that is how nature often works, take a car going around a corner too fast, you hear the tires squeal but the car continues going around the corner, and at the tipping point, it breaks lose, you suspect it might, and have warnings, but never know exactly when.
Even if you can calculate the avalanche of a giant sand hill in the Sarah Desert, you do not know exactly when it will occur, just that you are on the edge. But in planetary tectonic plate terms, this could be not micro-seconds like the car, or hours or days like the sand hill, it could be decades, centuries, or more. Have you read up on the HARRP project and the original theories of using it to stabilize the planet, atmosphere, communicate, and control things? It's interesting. It sure makes a lot of sense to me.
He continued to attempt to scare me on all this stuff and claimed; "the reversals were preceded by magnetic poles accelerating, but the actual flipping is quick."
Okay, so I challenged his data and asked for specifics; How does one know this, what human had a compass and measurement last time it happened? Has it been simulated in the Lab? Well, anyway, I love the theory, and it would be more than cool for a movie like CORE, 2012, or future Sci Fi genre.
But he said; "when this happens it will result in solar wind pressure on the atmosphere and possible EMP (electromagnetic pulse) events over the entire planet which could conceivably induce electrical arcs over power lines and motor contacts."
Now then, may as well play with all this some more, after all, I am sitting in Starbucks and who knows where these people come from, so I said; Yes, it would in theory screw up everything in our modern civilizations, and it would take a bit of time even after the re-alignment and bring it all back. It could take 10-years with maximum productivity to re-stabilize civilization, and back to present day 20-years + educational backlog and bottlenecks.
It would kill off lots of people; weather would be insane, 600 plus miles per hour at the surface in some areas. Earthquakes would leave much of everything not standing. Rubble everywhere, well, in theory, or it could be a gradual non-event for those living in certain areas, and major disaster for others?
He reminded me of some recent history; "Remember reading about fires starting from telegraph lines in the 1880's when they had a big solar flare event?" And I have to admit; yes, that was a very interesting event, perhaps solar flares, cosmic weather, etc, hard to say for sure. He told me that; we won't care about global warming because we will be starving.
