NationStates Jolt Archive

Scientists are beginning to fear that the Earths magnetic field is failing this presents a big risk, it could collapse in 20 years.

Did you watch the Christmas lectures in England? Or rather is that where you got the idea from?

Myrthan scientists have researched this thoroughly. The field is not going to collapse, it will just reverse polarity.

I see good.
I dont know where I got the idea.

(Thare was some thing about this on PBS nova ... they said if i rember clearly about the earth in a couple of hunderd or thousand years haveing more than 2 magnetic pole's . )

(WHAT!!!!!!!)

Does this whole thing mean were gonna die!!!? :cry:

(We would be long dead before that happens )

It was on the Christmas lectures on the TV (in England) this morning. They are decaying slowly and during that time we will be exposed to the full magnetic influence of the sun.

It happens all time (I'm talking about Earth history time over billions of years) and polar reverals happen on a regular cycle. A collapse would not kill life (on a planetary scale) as no major extinction event has been attributed to one.

Jsut a lot more cell phone interfearnce.

In the interest of Earth's safety, ministers from the Theocracy of Neverdawn have decreed that all it's citizens donate all their amusing vegetable and fruit refrigerator magnets to a central stockpile.
This whipround (in some cases quite literally for those unwilling to give up their souvenier from Niagara Falls) will end in march and will be shipped off to the North Pole.

That should sort it out (if our science minister Quentin Wibble is correct).

Regards
High Inquisitor Lovebat

One point that was made on the RI Christmas lecture mentioned above was that we are overdue for a polar switch and all indications are that we are at the beginning of such a shift.

A polarity shift takes a fair amount of time to complete. What actually happens is that the magnetic field collapses and then re-establishes itself but with the positive and negative poles reversed. During the time when the magnetic field is collapsed the planet is indeed unshielded from the solar winds [the nice way of describing solar radiation] and even if there has been no mass extinction connected with the previous polar shifts I can't see it being at all pleasant on the surface of the planet without the protection of the magnetic field.

Part of the reason for Sybaritia's Space Programme, and our support of similar programmes in other nations, is the perceived necessity of researching the colonisation of other planetary bodies. Sooner or later something is going to happen to this planet that will render it uninhabitable for humans. We prefer to err on the side of caution... promoting research into the nature of our home planet as well as possible replacements before it becomes a necessity.

Grant Morrison PhD - Secretary of Science and Technology - Sybaritia