Today's media beat-up.

Enough about serial killer Belgian nurses, today's beat-up is about the sun and comes from The Telegraph.

Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation.

Holy shit, send for Roland Emmerlich immediately. Oh, wait a mo...

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

'Could' being a rather important operative word since it simultaneously implies 'but perhaps not'.

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

'Could'.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

'Believe' - that's right up there with 'could'.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Finally a definitive 'would' but unfortunately it's immediately followed by yet another 'could'.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

Oh noes, I'd have to go back to loading the CD changer in the car and using the Melway, except the likelihood of this disaster is again qualified not just by 'could' but also 'believe'.

Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

'Could' and 'potentially'. Well, at least it's a change, but this is all sounding a bit Millennium Bug to me.

And now for an actual scientist being quoted by The Tele:

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

See? They don't fucking know yet. Or so this guy says, though according to The Tele he goes on to say (my bold):

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

How the hell does he know that it will - not might or could, but will - disrupt all these things when he doesn't know how bad it will be? All these things he mention bar communications seem to be pretty fragile anyway, so how would we know disruption is due to a sunfart? My first satnav used to get confused by driving under particularly leafy trees and my current one regularly gets its electronic cock in a knot when going through Melbourne's central business district, presumably because of all the skyscrapers bouncing signals around, while it probably won't be long before European air space is vulnerable to a complete shutdown in the event of a particularly large barbecue somewhere near Louth. Computers are perfectly capable of failing on their own (and at the risk of being assassinated by Apple, who know doubt have an app for that too, that includes Macs as I've blogged more than once before) and we already have a banking system that went tits up because of, depending on your point of view, deregulation and the (non-existent) free market or too much regulation and the fact the market was always being distorted. The sun might well create havoc, but since they emphatically do not know the effects might be lost in the noise of all the humdrum 'everyday' havoc.

On the other hand if it knocks out communications Bloggers, Twitters and Facebook addicts will all have to go and get lives again. Facebook users in particular will be in big trouble as they'll be unable to alert the Samaritans to their distress by updating their status. Seriously, yes I'm sure it could - could, again - cause a lot of trouble with satellite communications and possibly mobiles and some landlines too. But again, mobile coverage can be a bit hit and miss even in Melbourne on my network, and in most of Australia there simply isn't any on anybody's network (because there's nobody there to use it if there was). And a certain amount of landline is fiberoptic cable these days, right? So isn't it also a possibility that there'd be a reduced capacity and therefore increased costs?

Anyway, back to The Tele trying to make long words short.

Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.

Sunspots and solar flares are the same thing? Really? Gosh. And they're called different names because...?

Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.
He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.

Followed by another load of 'coulds', 'mights' and 'ifs', leaving me none the wiser about whether or not it would be appropriate to shit myself mightily before grabbing the shotguns and heading into the Outback with as much tinned food and water as we can get in the car. And how much of a tit I'd feel afterwards if I did.

Thank you, Telegraph, but for the time being I don't plan to lose much sleep over this, okay?