magnetic pole-shift =end of the worl d?

i've been 'w atching' the movement of the nort h magnetic pole s ince i w as a child. If i say "t his
could cause the end of the world" (as we know it), i fear i'll be labeled a 'chicken little' or lupine
fearing boy .. So i've st ayed aw ay from t his topic .. But the magnet ic pole has been moving faster
lately and drawing more attention:
http://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/M agnetic_Polar_Shift_Causing_M assive_Superstorms.htm
http://www.iceagenow.com/
These are two links which look into the phenomenon and the coming ice-age.

If the first link has any basis , The Day A fter Tomorroww ill look like a poor middle-s chool
version of reality. Serious ly.

So forget Never Cry Wolf and Chicken Little; t here is a pole-s hift coming and basically we can
do nothing to stop it.

So we should all just buy life ins urance and leave it up to god, right ?

Wrong.

The basic problem is: we haven't observed one first-hand before - so we don't know all the bad
things that could happen during a magnetic pole reversal (magnet ic north becomes south and
possibly repeatedly). We could lose all non-milit ary operat ing elect ronic devices (for inst ance).
Temporarily losing Earth's magnetic field could wreak havoc on our electronic/electrical systems.
Only military devices, manufactured under more stringent requirements, m ay s urvive a magnet ic
pole reversal. There's no guarantee they won' t be affected as well.

As usual, the solution pres ent s it self from a proper perspective.If our most sensitive devices will
be microelectronic controlled devices, w e need t o 'harden' them against the worst-case-scenario
or start building devices with no microelectronics. So for instance, i f you have a ham radio built
in the 80s (or before), you can act ually be a part of our global/national emergency respons e t eam.
You have a device that is less likely destroyed by solar flares directly impacting on our
ionosphere .. In a sense, you now have three choices: buy 'old' (pre-90s manufacture), invest in
devices that are not microelectronic controlled, or invest in 'hardened' chips.

What's our alternative? Collectively stick our head in the sand? (Or perhaps somewhere less
aromatic?) .. M any years ago i worked for the Lansing Board of Water and Light (a local
municipality). i had a discussion with an engineer in t he electric planning depart ment . We talked
briefly about preparedness for catastrophic system failure. Because the possibility wass o remot e,
they could not justify expenditure onany preparednes s. But that is equivalent t o ignoring the
looming pole-shift. It's going to happen. The consequences? They could be equivalent to a burp
or fart .. O r quite poss ibly: a heart attack. We can't afford it? (Preparing for a global equ ivalent of
a heart attack.) Can we then afford our own collective funeral?

.. For the longest time, i've been trying t o wrap my head around '2012' .. What could conceivably
happen naturally that could affect life on a planetary s cale? M elt ing of the ice-caps? Takes t oo
long and we'd notice. Gyroscopic pole-shift (where our physical poles get disturbed)? Highly
unlikely. Ozone destroyed? Could be .. Could be .. But i think w e'd notice t hat t oo ..The only
thing i can imagine, that's r ealistic, is magnetic pole-reversal (thereby affect ing Earth's magnet ic
field and therefore affecting anything sensitive to magnetic fields / solar wind). All life is
sensitive to solar winds. i think it's safe to say: withoutEarth's magnetic field to protect us, there'd
be no life.

In much the same way our ozone protects us from harmful UV, our magnetic field prot ect s us
from solar wind (imagine the solar wind as many particle beam weapons aimed directly at us
from the sun - we wouldn't stand a chance without our magnetic field there to protect us).
Imagine it as a shield protecting us from the let hal s tream of particles emitt ed by the sun. Without
that shield, we die.

As with our protective ozone, even good things take time to be destroyed. i don't predict 'all hell
let loose' at the end of 2012 .. T hings t ake t ime - good and bad. The real problem w ith magnet ic
pole-reversal is: we can't stop it. We can mitigate consequences, but we can't stop it. There's no
pollution we can stop producing to avert this particular disaster; nothing we know about is
causing magnetic pole-shift; it's just happening .. So what do we do? Ignore it? Pretend nothing
will happen? O r start preparing?

The time-tested idioms resurface as needs require .. Bet ter s afe than sorry .. Bet ter safe t han
sorry..