Doug Saunders, writing in The Spectator about his new book, Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World, says that in 100 years we will be an entirely urban species:
[T]he defining force of this century, almost certainly more significant than war, recession and perhaps even climate change, will be the huge and final shift of human populations from rural areas to cities. It’s a crucial issue — one that every politician, every economist and sociologist should be considering. Because the mind-boggling fact is that we will end this century as a fully urban species.
The final great migration began in the developing world after the second world war, and it is just reaching its peak now. There’s no turning back. It’s a great wave that will irreversibly shift the poorest two thirds of the world to cities. […]
By the end of 2025, 60 per cent of the world will live in cities; by 2050, more than 70 per cent; and by century’s end the entire world, even the poor nations of sub-Saharan Africa, will be at least three quarters urban. And this point, when the entire world is as urban as the West is today, will mark an end point. Once humans urbanise, or migrate to more urban countries, they almost never return — even great global recessions don’t persuade them to leave. After this final half of humanity has moved to the cities, there will be migrations again, but never again a mass movement on this scale.
Saunders says this is, unequivocally, a good thing, “Rural living is the largest single killer of humans today, the greatest source of malnutrition, infant mortality and early death.” Urban are richer and provide education, health, water and sanitation.
Juxtapose that to this from, Lawrence E. Joseph, author of Aftermath: A Guide to Preparing for and Surviving Apocalypse 2012,” writing in the NYTimes on the potential damage from solar storms:
Occasionally, a large solar storm can rain energy down on the earth, overpowering electrical grids. About once a century, a giant pulse can knock out worldwide power systems for months or even years. It’s been 90 years since the last super storm, but scientists say we are on the verge of another period of high solar activity.
You might remember me fretting over this back in March when New Scientist headlined, Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe:
IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.
A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn’t create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.
Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
The NAS report puts the recovery time at four to 10 years. It is questionable whether the US would ever bounce back. An accompanying editorial argued that we must heed the threat of solar storms.
Here in the U.S., Joseph notes, Congress has swung into action:
Fortunately, there are several defenses against solar storms. The most important are grid-level surge suppressors, which are essentially giant versions of the devices we use at home to protect computers. There are some 5,000 vulnerable transformers in North America; at $50,000 for each suppressor, we could protect the grid for about $250 million.
Earlier this year the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow the White House to require utilities to put grid-protection measures in place, then recoup the costs from customers. Unfortunately, the companion bill in the Senate contains no such provision.
It’s not a lost cause, though; lawmakers can still insert the grid-protection language during conference. If they don’t, there could be trouble soon: the next period of heavy solar activity will be in late 2012. Having gone unprepared for one recent natural disaster, we would make a grave mistake not to get ready for the next.
Joseph begins his piece by remembering how America was blindsided by Hurricane Katrina, “Despite warnings that New Orleans was unprepared for a severe hit by a hurricane.” $250 million is a drop in the bucket. Let’s get that provision put in the Senate bill.
RELATED: Apparently we had a solar storm just a couple weeks ago. Boing Boing posts this gorgeous aurora borealis photo from it…