NBC's 'Revolution'—Life In U.S. After An EMP Attack [View all]

[Grave Grumbler]

http://news.investors.com/article/622731/201208171903/revolution-shows-life-after-emp-attack.htm

National Security: A new TV series demonstrates graphically how vulnerable our society is to an attack using weapons our enemies, including rogue state Iran, could use tomorrow — and the importance of missile defense.  Set in a future "where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out forever," according to the promos, the drama series is fiction, but the threat it depicts, the end of technological society and life as we know it, is a frighteningly real possibility.

We've warned of the threat many times, but the damage an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by an explosion of charged particles, such as by a high-altitude nuclear detonation, is a subject that makes eyes glaze over.  Let's hope this series will show the apocalyptic nature of this threat in terms average people can understand.

Eric Kripke, one of the show's executive producers, said, "We did our homework and came up with something that's actually plausible." Indeed, the script could have been taken directly from a report from the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse, which was established by Congress to assess the dangers of an EMP attack.

The report warned that it "has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."