We live in the comforts of electricity, connectivity and water treatment. We’re spending more time than ever in front of screens, denying the presence of Mother Nature in our lives. Retribution seems to be coming in multiple forms – melting glaciers, hurricanes, wild fires and tsunamis. The next to add to the list may be the sun. As the next solar maximum approaches, the industrialized world may not be able to control the damage.

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are explosions of energy on the Sun, usually from regions called sunspots, that produces radiation that bombards the Earth’s magnetosphere. The frequency of this bombardment increases and decreases with the sun’s magnetic activity or solar cycle, fluctuating between solar maximums and minimums on average in 11-year cycles.

NASA expects the next solar maximum to take place around 2012. Some solar research physicists believe the next solar maximum will be stronger than more recent maximums – rivaling in intensity of a CME that took place more than 50 years ago. The Earth’s magnetosphere protects the planet from these streams of energy by rerouting them to the poles of the planet. The connection of the stream on the night-side of the earth is responsible for auroras observed near the Northern and Southern poles. In the case of the CME taking place in 1956, the aurora borealis was visible as far south as Florida.

While the beauty of the auroras baffle anyone who has had the opportunity to witness them, it seems the Sun has a greater agenda than merely mesmerizing those at high latitudes. Solar weather can cause disruption in communications satellites and is capable of knocking out electric power grids. In 1989, the city of Quebec was forced into darkness for several hours by a solar storm. While Quebec was the only city that faced a blackout, power grids across the United States were affected. Over 200 power grids were interrupted or encountered problems from the solar storm.

Storms of this intensity are relatively infrequent and must be must be in alignment with the Earth to produce power or communication problems. In efforts to predict these events, solar physicists have several facilities that monitor and measure the sun’s activity. While there is a still much to be discovered about the origins of solar flares to the point of accurate prediction, these monitors are capable of informing physicists of the arrival of a powerful CME hours before. Whether this is enough time to prepare for the potential failure of GPS navigation satellites, cellular phones and all things that depend on the power grid for power (most homes, water and sewage treatment, financial markets, electric transportation, et cetera) is yet to be determined.

The media runs in synchrony with the solar cycle – every few years before the approaching solar maximum – highlighting our unpreparedness in a technology-driven society for a large-scale solar flare. The 1859 Carrington event, consisting of eight days of severe solar weather, is frequently referenced as the storm powerful enough to shut down electric power grids and communications. However, the upcoming solar cycle is separated from other in that it coincides with the ill-conceived 2012 apocalyptic hysteria.

Give into the hype. We’re all going to die.