When the infrastructure fails

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When not if the infrastructure – the one that we have so much gotten used to and which runs (almost) everything and upon which we depend for almost everything nowadays – breaks down (irreparably) in the event of a crisis or collapse of society we will all be up the proverbial creek without a paddle unless we prepare and learn how to do without it.

Because of our reliance, or should I better say over-reliance, on computer control of every section and sector of our vital infrastructure, from energy supply to water and everything else (almost) disruption and total breakdown of it it is not a question of if but when. Sooner or later it is going to happen and it does not just need a hostile cyber attack or an EMP blast from some sort of device. A solar flare or a solar storm of the right magnitude or the atmospheric explosion of an asteroid or such body could be enough to do it.

Depending on the extent of the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) generated and strength such an outage could be “just” restricted to a small area or it could affect an entire country, several countries, or an even much greater area.

It would, however, appear that not a single country is taking, or has been taken, adequate steps to “harden” its vulnerable critical and vital infrastructure and, to some extent, it would also appear that that is, in fact, not really possible or, at least, not an easy task at all.

Not only will our energy and water supply be affected if the outage is caused by EMP but also the telephone system including and especially cell phones, our (modern) cars and trucks, the Internet and even our PCs and other devices. Not just will the service fail; any such blast will “fry” the circuitry in our computerized cars and trucks and in our devices, whether they are on or not.

Some of those circuits literally may and will end up “fried”, including in the computers running our vital infrastructure. Distribution of food and fuel to supermarkets and forecourts also depends on computerized systems as both are ordered on an “as need” basis.

Stores, especially food stores, in general, do not have more than two days of supply and then the power goes out through an EMP strike they, even then, simply will remain closed. The doors and everything else depends on power.

It is time, high time in fact, that we rethought our use of technology and our over-reliance and over-dependence on it.

No, I am no Luddite, but leaving the control of everything almost that is necessary for our daily lives in the hands – proverbially speaking – of machines, is a recipe for disaster. Most of the infrastructure cannot even be controlled manually by human hands anymore today, unlike decades ago when there were manual overrides and people could take control of everything again (just in case). Manual controls need to be brought back into use again and we must learn to depend less on computer control and revert back to human control of things.

We have become, in all things, far too reliant and dependent on technology for everything and even the slightest failure can and will have devastating consequences. There is nothing wrong with technology per se. it is our over-reliance and over-dependence on it that is the problem. Therefore it is imperative that we got away from our reliance and dependence on it and went back to better, more reliable, ways.

© 2013

The infrastructure of industrialism is fragile and vulnerable

by Michael Smith Veshengro)

The infrastructure of industrialism is fragile and vulnerable, ripe for disruption and sabotage.
Weaknesses of security in the great majority of industrial control systems could allow hackers to create cataclysmic failures in infrastructure, according to researchers at the Black Hat security conference in 2013.

Our dependence on technology – fragile technology – to run everything from power stations and electricity grid, gas supplies, water supplies and even the transport system for supplies of food and good to the supermarkets and stores, might be the very undoing of the world as we know it today.

It does not require an EMP device detonated at altitude to knock out the infrastructure of nations. All it requires is hackers disrupting the system and making it crash and everyone is up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

The one this affects more than the big guys, however, is the average Joe on the street, so to speak for let's not believe for one moment that the powers-that-be will suffer. They will have their bunkers, their food supplies and their families taken care of.

Not only is the infrastructure of industrialism vulnerable to attacks by hackers and saboteurs, it is also vulnerable to solar flares and such like events. Such events, without even the need for any hacking, could send nations back into the stone age, at least for some time, by knocking out vital infrastructure, such as electricity, gas and water supplies, and the supply chains to the markets upon which people depend for their food.

We have become far too reliant on high-tech for almost everything and even our communications, not just telephone, whether ordinary or cell phone, are all dependent, on satellites and other high-tech means the breakdown of which, whether caused by hacking or other destructive force.

Considering also and especially the climate cataclysm and biosphere collapse being caused by global industry and its incessant greed, we must change how we live and how we work before it is too late.

We also have to consider that there is no factory or industrial production that is also sustainable as far as the environment and the Planet is concerned. That means that we need to return to less consumption and to products made by craftspeople and artisans, food from proper (local) farms and our own gardens and such, and making much more for ourselves, as was the way of our grandparents and their parents.

That does not, however, necessarily, mean that we have to return to the Dark Ages or even the nineteenth century for we do have means at our disposal, means that do not have to be polluting either in production, to generate electricity, to produce – yes, produce – gas for cooking and even heating, but we will have to make changes in how we use this electricity and gas and we will have to get away from the motorcar and get back to human-powered, and animal-powered, means of transportation.

When it comes to electricity and other energy consumption we simply use too much, and it is not (just) households that are at fault here but industry and businesses in general, as well as government, local and central.

Do office buildings really need to be illuminated all through the night when no one is home? Do street lighting have to be on all through the night? Do our motorways in Britain really have to be lit up at night? And government has the audacity to shout at households to stop wasting energy, even though we must stop wastage in the home too.

However, the stand-by setting and some other supposed power hogs are not at all and this becomes evident to anyone who uses a power meter in the home such as “The Owl” or similar. But the government and some agencies keep telling us that that is where most of the power is supposedly wasted while not looking at their own stoop first.

When it comes to where we live and work and how we live and work then, yes, we need to take a step back, even in time, and get back to some sensibility and normality.

We cannot continue to commute hundreds of miles to our places of work and then travel back to our dormitory towns and villages of an evening. We need to work again where we live and live where we work and, although this might be a little more difficult, under the same roof, well, almost.

Our towns and villages must become vibrant communities again where people not just sleep but actually live and work, and our cities must be repopulated again and made liveable. And electric power and other energy must be generated and created locally in close proximity too where people live and work and with renewables this is not a health issue as was the case with the coal-fired electricity plants in London in the early days.

We must decentralize power generation so that no event, man-made or natural, can knock out every bit of power from the entire nation, for instance. The Second World War and the attacks on power stations and especially the hydro-electric dams, by the Allied forces on German areas, such as in the Ruhr Valley, that managed to knock out a great deal of the area and further afield and crippling industry should be just one example as to the why of decentralizing power generation and energy production.

Decentralized power generation means that it is far harder to wreak such havoc and even more so if renewables are in play as in “every building a power plant” with solar, wind, etc. generation methods.

But we must also de-technify (sorry, just invented that word) the controls and the distribution so that no hacker or EMP event can knock the systems out and thus the lights.

While I am no Luddite and use computers to a great extent, thus not advocating that we got rid of everything computerized, I also know their vulnerability and not just to hackers and electromagnetic pulse and this includes lightning strike.

The talk is often as to “hardening the infrastructure” against such events but that is a great deal easier said that done and thus we need to cut ourselves off from the over-dependence on technological controls and return to a more manageable way of doing things. But with local power plants and such like this is extremely easy and easier still with electricity generation on each and every building for use by the building and with surplus going to the neighborhood.

Only by changing the way that we live and work and the way we do things can we prevent a breakdown and total destruction of the Planet.

Small is beautiful...

© 2013