As I had written recently, the Earth was subjected to a dynamic solar flare from an active sunspot called Region 3664 between May 10 and 13. It peaked on May 11 as a significant X5.8 class flare. The X-class constitutes the most powerful category of solar flares and has the potential to impair human and animal health as well as degrade utilities and telecommunications infrastructures.

We are in the midst of a new helical cycle called Solar Cycle 25, which began in December 2019 and is expected to peak into a "solar maximum" between late 2024 and early 2025. An unprecedented X class solar storm, accompanied by massive coronal mass ejections (CMEs), may set back societies by months, years or even decades.

The biggest incident of this kind in recorded history, registering X45 on the solar flare scale, was the Carrington Event which occurred on 1 Sept 1859. It caused widespread disruptions to telegraph systems, particularly in North America and Europe. Telegraph lines experienced voltage surges and fires broke out at several telegraph offices. A few telegraph operators were even electrocuted. These telegraph systems, which were in their infancy, were quickly rebuilt. A repeat event in our hyperconnected world however may simply be catastrophic.

To begin with, I am not sure if Elon Musk's constellation of Starlink satellites — numbering anywhere between 4,000 and 6,000 — can withstand anything stronger than an X30 solar flare. A relatively mild solar storm had doomed 40 of them in 2022.

Only remote or rural areas, which are relatively unplugged from our hyper-wired world, stand a chance to revert to some sort of normalcy after a Carrington Event. Humans can learn to live without the Internet, electricity and transportation systems relatively quickly but they cannot survive without immediate access to food and water. Why do you think billionaires, who relentlessly promote destructive globalist agendas, are building survival bunkers in remote areas around the world?