Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 September 27

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September 27

US blackout fatalities

North Korea conducting EMP attack over the US would result in blackout over much of the country. I saw it in one article that an EMP attack over the US could result in up to 90% of US deaths. I don't believe that it would kill this many people. During the great blackout people can readily find ways to survive without electricity for months or years, while getting assistance from other countries or regions that still have power. So cash in the opinions of how many fatalities could be resulted from the EMP attack. PlanetStar 04:07, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

What's your source ? It seems completely wrong in all sorts of ways. There's the ability of NK to deliver missiles over the US, the existence of EMP warheads for those missiles, the idea that this could cause such a long blackout, and the idea that it would cause so many fatalities. What exactly would be the mechanism for those fatalities ? StuRat (talk) 04:40, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Smartphone, video game and internet withdrawal: it's not a pretty way to go. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:14, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I sometimes suffer from video game withdrawal, but I'm still very much alive! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:3805:A6E1:1618:EEB8 (talk) 11:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence. Those who die of video game withdrawal aren't around to post to Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:39, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

EMP attacks are very small scale. The largest EMP attack available to any country right now is a high-altitude nuclear explosion. That might be enough to disable a medium-sized city, but it would not take out a nation (maybe one of those single-city nations that only exist for trivia questions). Assume that someone were to take out all power for New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. That would mean that three nuclear strikes hit the United States and exploded at high altitude. Why? Why not nuke the cities? OK. Go with the EMP strike even though it makes no sense... So, those three cities are without power and, quickly, radioactive material rains down on the cities. The people won't be worrying about playing Pokemon Go. They will be suffering from radiation sickness. The rest of the nation will be flooded with an onslaught of "Is the radiation gonna blow your way!?!?" sensationalistic news and there won't be any late-night talk shows to watch (they all come from New York, LA, and Chicago). We'd likely cancel professional sports for a short time. That would suck. I figure most people would be asking why nobody bombed Washington DC. Perhaps the bad dudes realize that taking out the politicians would solve most of the problems in the nation. In the end, this answer becomes more absurd than the original question. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 12:03, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Instead of guessing, go to Nuclear electromagnetic pulse and read about the results of actual nuclear EMP tests and the predictions based upon calculations. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Can you point out a place in that article where it makes it clear what damage will be done over what radius? When the Russians tested high altitude EMP, the ground radius was much smaller than the blast radius. When we have solar blasts that cause EMP, the ground radius is usually nearly zero with very large radius of impact on the atmosphere. There are a lot of pictures that like to show the entire U.S. under a blue curve, but they lack information explaining that curve means. So, it comes down to what I think is a very simple question: If a 50 megaton nuke (average in size) explodes 100 miles above Central Park in New York City, how far away will all power services be blasted? Will Los Angeles lose power? There should be a theoretical radius, but there is so much alarmist idiocy on the Internet, finding useful information is extremely difficult. Note: U.S. tests have shown that the EMP's ability to knock out power is limited. Starfish Prime had an EMP that went out at least 800 miles, but after 100 miles, the EMP wasn't very dangerous. At 800 miles, it popped some light bulbs and burned of a microwave antenna. It didn't kill the power grid in any way. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

According to this article [1], the 90% deaths claim actually originates from the science fiction novel One Second After. Former Congressman Roscoe Bartlett apparently relied on this novel when describing the potential risk of an EMP to American society. And of course, once he did that, the story made the rounds whether or not the claims were justified. Dragons flight (talk) 15:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I read the novel, the 90% claim was based on general societal breakdown and the lack of farming skills, medical care and the rule of law, over a period of one year. The protagonist's daughter dies an agonizing death from type I diabetes shortly before the military can restore order. The blast itself kills no one directly. μηδείς (talk) 01:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

If a religion can be based on a sci-fi book, I suppose anything is possible. StuRat (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@StuRat: That is not a religion. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is officially a religion according to the US government: Scientology#Scientology_as_a_religion. 01:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Fortunately, anyone can believe in Belgium, China or Italy instead. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

That book seemed to assume most of our allies were taken out, too, except Mexico. If they weren't, I would expect generators, new wiring, fuel, etc., to be delivered over the course of the next few months from the allies. The main concern they listed was lack of food, but there would be fresh foods for a few days, until they spoiled, then canned foods, salamis, etc., then people who lived near orchards, etc., could go pick their own food. If the situation got desperate, there would be people eating family pets, I suppose, cooked over a campfire. And the average American has enough extra fat on them to last a couple months without food, in any case.

I should think the lack of water and sewage treatment would be the more serious problem. Boiling river water would make it safe enough, but the fuel to boil it with (propane, gasoline, wood) might be hard to find, after a while. StuRat (talk) 19:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

It's less a question of how to keep food fresh as it is how to distribute it. Supermarkets run out real fast during Truckers' strikes. If we accept the premise that all mechanization will fail during an attack, there would be no realistic way of getting food into cities. ApLundell (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

We have a crabapple tree, which is just considered an annoyance now, but we could resort to eating them if we got hungry enough. Then we have Canada geese all over the place, which would make a nice meal for a family (maybe several). They are so bold now, we could just walk over and hit them with a bat, but I suspect they would become harder to kill after the first few. There are many such hidden food sources around. StuRat (talk) 00:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Eating crab apples is a bad idea if there's a shortage of toilet paper :-) "Every Susquehanna toddler knew that eating crab apple raw was guaranteed to bring on the Green Apple Quick Step". Native American Speakers of the Eastern Woodlands (p. 58) Alansplodge (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Diesel trucks and tractors are immune to EMP, so food will still be able to be grown and (in daytime only) delivered. 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:3805:A6E1:1618:EEB8 (talk) 01:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Why are they immune ? As with gasoline engines, I can believe that old versions lacked electronics, but I'd have to suspect that new ones do. StuRat (talk) 01:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I think Diesels would be easier to convert to run without their electrical system. Which in the mythical all-destroying EMP scenario would be immensely useful. I dunno if it's realistic to imagine entire fleets of trucks being converted, though. I don't have a good idea of how many people would be capable of and available to do that work. ApLundell (talk) 14:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, in such a disaster that crabapple tree might be handy ... for you. But, a huge percentage of Americans live in cities and/or in suburbs too dense for that sort of thing.

But even so, I think you'd find that you exhaust the local fruit trees really quickly, even if the disaster happens in exactly the right season. There's a reason hunter-gatherers were nomads instead of hunkering down permanently in the middle of a grove of fruit trees.

• One Tree produces 20-200kg of apples.[2] Apples are 500cal per kilo.[3] Assuming a 2000 cal diet (Can't skimp on this, you're going to be working outdoors.) that's 4 kilos per person per day. So your tree will produce 5 to 50 person-days per year. A decorative crab-apple tree will be on the low end of that range, and this assumes no losses to insects, squirrels, etc.
• A goose might have 2000 cal of usable meat on it. So add one person-day per goose you manage to bag.
• If you know your local edible plants without consulting Wikipedia, or if there's a good fishing hole nearby, you may be able to scavange a bit more, but that will take time that you could be dedicating to Apples and Geese, and you won't be the only person with that idea. So those resources will go fast.
• In cities, I imagine there'd suddenly be a lot less pigeons, but it wouldn't help. Believe it or not, New York has more people than pigeons, so even eating all of them wouldn't feed the city for even a single day.

If the disaster happened any time other than early autumn, the apples, and perhaps the migratory geese, would not be available.

Doing the math, we start to see why before industrialization over 90% of the workforce[4] were full-time farmers (and other food-producers). They weren't doing that because they were bored and the TV hadn't been invented yet. They were doing it because that's what's required to stay fed. The idea that you could just slip back into that lifestyle with what you happen to have on hand is so optimistic that it's just a fantasy. ApLundell (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, this was all the long way of saying that the idea that we're surrounded by "hidden food sources" might be a good way to keep your diet nutritionally diverse during a depression, but expecting hunting/gathering to be the primary food source for a modern population is crazy. The math doesn't even come close to working. ApLundell (talk) 15:04, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I didn't suggest it would be a permanent food source, just that it would prevent starvation long enough for rescuers from elsewhere to bring in supplies, re-establish the power grid, etc. And I'd expect less than 2000 calories a day, with people slowly losing weight, until that happened. Also, a Canada Goose is larger than your average goose, so I'd expect more usable meat. I wouldn't suggest using it as a calorie source so much as a protein source. Crabapples, canned goods, etc., can provide the calories. (I also stockpile red kidney beans and tomato paste for chili. I have about 100 cans of each right now.) StuRat (talk) 15:09, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Sure, some preppers have large stocks of canned food. But most people will be out of food by the end of the week if the shops close. (And modern urban shops are perpetually about two days from being out of stock on most items.)

The fact that a few semi-preppers out in the subburbs with apples trees in their yard and geese flying overhead could survive months, doesn't negate the fact that our great population centers would very quickly be full of starving people.

Exploiting the local "hidden food" would not noticably help in a place like NYC. It's a nice idea, but the math doesn't work. NYC cannot feed 8 million hunter/gatherers for even a day.

ApLundell (talk) 15:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

It makes sense to me with what 209.149.113.5 is saying. The size of the nuclear blast is too small to feel the blast and EMP over great swath of America as the blast is only a tiny portion of the size of Usmerica. Usmerica doing EMP attack on North Korea would probably take out power over the whole country as it is small enough. PlanetStar 22:46, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I was trying to point out that there is a big difference between the radius of the explosion, the radius of EMP that will disable the power grid, and the radius of EMP that will be measurable. I'm sure that if a nuke goes off in New York, it will be measurable in LA. I just don't see any evidence that it will disable the power grid in LA. According to previous experiments, it may be a minor annoyance in Chicago. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Wasn't there a page for this person?

I'm 99% sure that I created a page for the Danish law expert Peter Leif Vesterdorf (Peter L. Vesterdorf) not too long ago, but it isn't there now. I can't find it in the deletion log, either.

I'd say he merits a page, since he's well known from the media - usually referred to as "a/the leading expert" - and the author of a number of books, some of which have been translated into other languages and have been internationally recognised as important works of reference. He was also included in the Danish Who's Who (Kraks Blå Bog) some years ago, and has received the Order of Dannebrog. In other words, I don't see why a page about him would've been deleted.

I should mention that I'm a family member of Peter L. Vesterdorf's, and I'm aware that that fact might raise suspicions of bias - but I assure you I'd never write a Wikipedia article about him (or indeed anyone) in anything but a completely neutral, factual tone. And in any case, as I said, the article doesn't seem to be in the deletion log, so I'm confused. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.71.142.50 (talk)

Your IP address has no other edits to the English Wikipedia and I can find no trace of the name here. A similar IP address added the name to a list of students in the Danish Wikipedia in 2015: [5]. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2017 (UTC)