Newt Gingrich's Plan to Stave Off the Apocalypse

Newt Gingrich's Plan to Stave Off the Apocalypse - NationalJournal.com
Within a year, nine out of 10 Americans could be dead. 
And whatever causes the national apocalypse—be it North Korean malice or the whims of the sun—the downfall will ultimately be our own fault.
That's the fear of Newt Gingrich and other members of a high-profile coalition who are convinced that our fragile electrical grid could be wiped out at any moment.
Their concern?
Electromagnetic pulses, the short bursts of energy—caused by anything from a nuclear blast to a solar flare—that can wreak havoc on electrical systems on a massive scale.
And the coalition believes it's coming soon.
"I think we're running out of time," said Peter Pry, a former CIA officer and head of a congressional advisory board on national security.
And if the worst happens? 
"This gets translated into mass fatalities, because our modern civilization can't feed, transport, or provide law and order without electricity," he said.

The coalition's members insist the scenario is a real threat, and not the plot of a Michael Bay movie or a Cormac McCarthy novel.
They believe a single nuclear blast at 300-400 kilometers in altitude—about the height of the International Space Station—could take down all power in the U.S.
Even an explosion just 30 kilometers up would take out the Eastern grid, which supplies three-quarters of the country's power.

What happens post-detonation is not a pretty picture, Pry says:
"You'd have massive industrial accidents.
One hundred four nuclear reactors going Fukushima, spreading toxic clouds everywhere.
Oil refineries burning down, oil pipelines exploding.… Airliners crashing down."

.....But it wouldn't necessarily take a hostile foreign power's nuclear trickery to spark the downfall:
The coalition claims American demise could come from the flares of a fickle sun.
A giant solar flare that triggers a geomagnetic storm could inflict the same damage as a high-altitude nuclear blast—but do it on a global scale.
The last such flare—known as the Carrington Event—happened in 1859, frying telegraph lines around the planet. According to Pry, such events happen about every 150 years, so we're already overdue for another.