Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you,
Speaker 2: Bobby Acard with us, Bobby, where's your book available? Is
Speaker 2: it on Amazon bookstores?
Speaker 3: Yesterday? Is on? They can go to my website Bobbyacart
Speaker 3: dot com and see everything that I've written. But also
Speaker 3: if you type my name into the Amazon search engine,
Speaker 3: all of the books will come up, and I come.
Speaker 3: I write in produce ebooks. I produce paperbacks, jacketed hardcovers
Speaker 3: and also audio books. I know a lot of your
Speaker 3: listeners are truckers, and I appreciate everything they do. And
Speaker 3: in fact, I wanted to tell you that if they
Speaker 3: would email me at Bobby Acart at gmail dot com,
Speaker 3: if they'll pick out an audiobook that they like, I'll
Speaker 3: provide them a code for Audible and so they can
Speaker 3: listen to it for free.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, and a lot of visually impaired people
Speaker 2: to love these audio books. To be sure, you've got
Speaker 2: social network platform and we've got your website linked up
Speaker 2: at coastacostam dot com. Bobby, you mentioned the eighteen fifty
Speaker 2: nine Carrington event which was a major X flare from
Speaker 2: the Sun which killed the wireless systems that we had
Speaker 2: available at the time, which was the Western Union, the telegraph,
Speaker 2: and things like that. If it happened today, we're up
Speaker 2: a creek, aren't we.
Speaker 3: Well they our wiring is not prepared for the massive
Speaker 3: energy burst that would enter into our atmosphere, and then
Speaker 3: once it hits our atmosphere, the atmosphere works like a
Speaker 3: protective shield. And the reason you see these beautiful aurora
Speaker 3: near the North Pole, you know, the hues of greens
Speaker 3: and blues and purple, sometimes oranges, is because our atmosphere
Speaker 3: is weakest at the poles. So when these massive solar
Speaker 3: flares and all of this plasma hurtles through space and
Speaker 3: hits the planet, then it into our atmosphere through the
Speaker 3: north Poles and creates the aurora. And sometimes when they're
Speaker 3: extremely strong, you'll see weather watchers and space watchers say
Speaker 3: we could see aurora as far south as the mid
Speaker 3: latitudes of the United States, and some people get excited
Speaker 3: by that. I, on the other hand, think, I know
Speaker 3: what this could do to our way of life, because
Speaker 3: when we built all of our electrical grid and everything
Speaker 3: is based upon computers, nowadays, the intricate wiring that the
Speaker 3: fine components of all of these electronic devices are not
Speaker 3: capable of withstanding the pulse of energy that would literally
Speaker 3: fry them and just ruin them. And it's a naturally
Speaker 3: occurring event. It happens all of the time. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: we barely dodged a solar flare nearly as strong as
Speaker 3: the Carrington event of eighteen fifty nine by only seven
Speaker 3: or eight days in these so if the Earth had
Speaker 3: been in a certain location as it revolves around the Sun,
Speaker 3: we would have taken a direct hit. And we're wholly
Speaker 3: unprepared for this. Back in the nineties, Congressman Gingrich, then
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House, led a commission called the EMP Commission,
Speaker 3: and laid all the science out for Congress and said,
Speaker 3: we need to do something to protect our power grid
Speaker 3: from this type of event. And in typical government fashion,
Speaker 3: they found other things to spend their money on. So
Speaker 3: it's something that they're aware of in Washington, but it's
Speaker 3: also something that they have done precious little to protect
Speaker 3: us from.
Speaker 2: It's not a matter of this, it's a matter of
Speaker 2: when it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Well, absolutely, and then to take it one step further.
Speaker 3: People ask me all the time, Well, there's these natural
Speaker 3: occurring events like solar flares and super volcanoes, arc storms,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But then there are man made events as well.
Speaker 3: And we have the nuclear capability to detonate a nuclear device,
Speaker 3: an electromagnetic pulse weapon EMP over the central part of
Speaker 3: the United States, And sadly, Saint Louis is always the
Speaker 3: one that's given, is the example, and I hate.
Speaker 1: To do that.
Speaker 3: Ground zero ground zero for targeted EMP. And then when
Speaker 3: this EMP is detonated, you know, three four hundred miles
Speaker 3: above the surface of the planet, it spreads out and
Speaker 3: then these these powerful energy particles will then hit everything
Speaker 3: from our cars to well, you know everything we've discussed.
Speaker 3: So an EMP burst can be naturally occurring from the
Speaker 3: Sun or it can be from some of our adversaries
Speaker 3: capable of detonating a nuclear weapon anywhere above the United States.
Speaker 3: And the list is long, from Russia to China to
Speaker 3: North Korea, India and Pakistan. Everybody has this capability now,
Speaker 3: and Iran is developing nuclear weapons. And it's a frightening
Speaker 3: thought when you realize how many people don't like us
Speaker 3: very much. And they possess these powerful weapons that we
Speaker 3: may or may not be able to defend ourselves.
Speaker 2: Again, you had mentioned earlier about the mass extinction events
Speaker 2: of asteroids from space, and I'm not so sure the
Speaker 2: right thing to do is to blow them up, because
Speaker 2: you create a shotgun effect.
Speaker 3: Don't you. You're exactly right. There are a number of
Speaker 3: ways to deal with these, but none of them are
Speaker 3: very good. The first thought is, well, we have powerful
Speaker 3: nuclear devices, and let's just hit it with everything we've got.
Speaker 3: But then instead of having one near Earth object approaching
Speaker 3: the planet, you have hundreds, if not thousands. The theory
Speaker 3: is is that many times they call the NEOs ineo,
Speaker 3: these NEOs burn up in the atmosphere because they're small.
Speaker 3: The larger ones that make impact have a profound effect.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are craters like the one in Arizona
Speaker 3: that's many miles wide, and of course the Gulf of
Speaker 3: Mexico is created by one. But all you have to
Speaker 3: do is look to the Moon and look at all
Speaker 3: the pock marks in the moon and realize that that
Speaker 3: satellite of Earth is a magnet for these near Earth objects.
Speaker 3: And if you if you destroy one, you're going to
Speaker 3: have thousands to deal with. Another option is what they
Speaker 3: call diverting, and this is what I wrote about in
Speaker 3: the Asteroid Trilogy. You hit the asteroid hard enough not
Speaker 3: to destroy it, but to just move it off its path.
Speaker 3: And it takes some calculations in order to do that,
Speaker 3: and you have to hit it hard enough so that
Speaker 3: the Earth's natural magnetic pull does it back towards you.
Speaker 3: And they're aware of this at NASA. They have practiced
Speaker 3: it most recently in the last couple of years by
Speaker 3: sending a satellite through space and actually made impact on
Speaker 3: a near Earth object. It wasn't designed to divert it.
Speaker 3: It was just simply to see if they were capable
Speaker 3: of doing it. So they're aware of the problem. And
Speaker 3: you know, so far, knock on wood, there are no
Speaker 3: NEOs near Earth objects that are scheduled to hit for
Speaker 3: one hundred years that we know of, and that goes
Speaker 3: back to the problem. Oftentimes, these NEOs are missed by
Speaker 3: our best technology, our best scientific minds that have the
Speaker 3: ability to see into space, and we don't know that
Speaker 3: they passed us until they've they've already done their Flyby.
Speaker 2: Bobby earlier this year is seven point eight at earthquake
Speaker 2: magnitude hit in Turkey killed fifty one thousand people. It
Speaker 2: was horrible. I mean, how deadly are these For mass
Speaker 2: extinction events?
Speaker 3: Well, a mass extinction would probably require something greater than
Speaker 3: an earthquake. The worst case scenario in an earthquake is
Speaker 3: what we've seen, especially in Southeast Asia, when it's an
Speaker 3: underwater quake. There's, first off, you have no warning of
Speaker 3: an earthquake, I mean maybe minutes if you're lucky. Seismic precursors.
Speaker 3: Seismic activity leading up to a larger quake might lead
Speaker 3: seismologists to say, hey, we've got something coming. But it's
Speaker 3: not like a hurricane that you see forming in the
Speaker 3: Gulf and heading towards the coast, and it's even tornatic
Speaker 3: activity in the Midwest. You know, you have all kinds
Speaker 3: of radars that you watch and you identify hook echoes, etc.
Speaker 3: But with earthquakes, they just happen. And if it happens underwater,
Speaker 3: there's a tsunami associated with it, and then you have
Speaker 3: a very large catastrophe, be killing tens of thousands. An
Speaker 3: extinction level event is something that would take out many millions,
Speaker 3: if not billions, of people on the planet, and those
Speaker 3: usually involve something that creates a nuclear winter of atmosphere,
Speaker 3: whether it be a super volcano like Yellowstone erupting, or
Speaker 3: even a regional nuclear war between countries like Pakistan and
Speaker 3: India where they decided to shoot at each other. Once
Speaker 3: all of that material enters the atmosphere, it cools the
Speaker 3: temperatures and causes food disruptions. And I know I got
Speaker 3: a little bit off track there, but the earthquake is
Speaker 3: more of a regional type of impact, is opposed to
Speaker 3: an extinction level, which is more of an entire planet impact.
Speaker 2: About two and a half years ago, you and I
Speaker 2: were talking about your book New Madered Earthquake about the
Speaker 2: New Madured fault which cuts Ron through Saint Louis. Why
Speaker 2: did you key in on the New Madrid Fault.
Speaker 3: Well, San Andreas is probably the best known, and Hollywood
Speaker 3: can be thanked for that that every movie that you
Speaker 3: ever see about an earthquake always involves the San Andrea Fault.
Speaker 3: And it's significant because of its location where the plates
Speaker 3: meet along the coast of California, and it's in a
Speaker 3: very highly populated area from San Francisco on down. But
Speaker 3: one of the most severe potential earthquakes that we could
Speaker 3: have in this country is along the fault lines running
Speaker 3: somewhere between Memphis and going past Saint Louis up into Illinois,
Speaker 3: known as the New Madrid Seismic system. And when New
Speaker 3: Madrid in the early eighteen hundreds had a series of
Speaker 3: quakes couple in December, then one into January, and another
Speaker 3: in February, smaller after shocks, it actually lit the country
Speaker 3: along the Mississippi River, causing the river to flow backwards. Now,
Speaker 3: what I wrote in New Mattered Earthquake the novel, was
Speaker 3: what would happen if that occurred today? What would the
Speaker 3: impact be? Not only on localized areas like Memphis and
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, but think about all of the bridges that
Speaker 3: span the Mississippi. There's not that many the interstates that cross.
Speaker 3: I think there's seven major bridges, all of which would
Speaker 3: be destroyed because of the shaking of the earth, which
Speaker 3: would have a profound impact on the nation's commerce.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And in addition to Arcstorm, a couple others
Speaker 2: of your trilogy novels are coming out Fractured and Mammoth.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I followed the science, and with Arcstorm, I studied what
Speaker 3: geologists were writing and saying as to what would happen
Speaker 3: if that major flood event occurred today and how that
Speaker 3: would impact act what's underneath the ground. And when you
Speaker 3: start inserting large amounts of water and the weight of
Speaker 3: a lake that would be created by the arc storms
Speaker 3: twenty two times the size of the Mississippi River, then
Speaker 3: you're going to have an impact on the seismic zones
Speaker 3: throughout California. And it's the most seismic active state in
Speaker 3: our country and probably in the world. And so I
Speaker 3: took it a step further. I took the other big One,
Speaker 3: as scientists called it, created the massive Lake. And then
Speaker 3: I showed in the book Fractured, which came out back
Speaker 3: in July, what would happen to these seismic zones after
Speaker 3: it's been holding the weight of this newly created lake
Speaker 3: and all of the water injected into the fault lines.
Speaker 3: And it triggered a series of earthquakes that started down
Speaker 3: in La near San Bernardino and included the Garlock Fault
Speaker 3: and Ridge Craft at the lower end of the Central Valley,
Speaker 3: and then San Andreas got involved. Because earthquakes can trigger
Speaker 3: one another even if they're not in the same fault
Speaker 3: line fault zone one massive quake and San Bernardino can
Speaker 3: certainly trigger quakes on the San Andreas fault because of
Speaker 3: their close proximity to one another, and so Fractured takes
Speaker 3: the series of catastrophes a step further. After the arcstorm
Speaker 3: created the lake, fractured then drained the lake because of
Speaker 3: the earthquake activity across California. And then the third book
Speaker 3: in the threesome, called Mammoth, which comes out this coming Thursday,
Speaker 3: just a few days from now, is a result of
Speaker 3: all of the quake activity that triggers the eruption of
Speaker 3: a volcano in Mammoth Lakes, California. A beautiful place, Christine,
Speaker 3: gorgeous mountain. People love to ski there, not having any
Speaker 3: idea that they're sitting on top of a of a
Speaker 3: caldera called the Long Valley caldera that has the potential
Speaker 3: to be as deadly as Yellowstone.
Speaker 2: And Yellowstone is overdue for an eruption, isn't.
Speaker 3: It it is? You know, it's a funny thing about timing.
Speaker 3: They go back to the geologic record and do all
Speaker 3: of their studies and say, well, Yellowstone usually does something
Speaker 3: violent every seven hundred thousand years and it's been longer
Speaker 3: than that now. And what I always laugh about in this.
Speaker 3: You know, the scientists that I talk to and by
Speaker 3: email and a couple of conversations will tell me. You know,
Speaker 3: the first thing that they will say is, well, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: this is a very dangerous you know, potential for America
Speaker 3: and the world, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 3: But then you go to them and you say, well,
Speaker 3: it's not going to happen anytime soon. But how do
Speaker 3: you know this.
Speaker 2: You don't know that it could happen anytime Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you can't predict it, how can you assure me
Speaker 3: it's not going to happen anytime soon? Which is why
Speaker 3: I write these novels. I want people to understand that
Speaker 3: what you may hear from the media or you might
Speaker 3: hear from government officials, is it necessarily what could happen.
Speaker 3: And so when you look at something as catastrophic as
Speaker 3: a supervolcano eruption, it could happen without warning and it
Speaker 3: would certainly be devastating to the planet.
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
Speaker 1: one am Eastern and go to Coast to coastam dot
Speaker 1: com for more