Blog 8

To gain an understanding of how our government and society views the threat of  nuclear EMPs and solar EMPs, I searched on google, “is our electrical grid protected against EMP” and saw a Washington Examiner result titled “Trump first president to protect electrical grid from EMP”. The article, written by Paul Bedard, explained Trump’s statements and actions on the both the threat of EMPs and what needs to be done about it. Paul bedard brought up a chilling finding saying, “An attack, according to a past EMP Commission report, could lead to the deaths of 90 percent of the population in a year.” (Bedard) Essentially, he is saying that a high altitude nuclear EMP attack was found, by a government commission’s report, to be capable of causing the deaths of up to 90 percent of the U.S. population as a consequence of our nation being without electrical power for a year. He adds this finding to his article of Trump’s take on EMP threats to illuminate one of the many legitimate reasons for serious action being taken to protect our electrical grid against EMPs. I found Bedard’s article and the quote from it to be a legitimate source for a number of reasons. This article was published by The Washington Examiner, a well-known and established news outlet. Within the quote, it had a hyper link to another article of his outlining a congressional hearing where this claim was made. Within this particular article, he gets more specific and provides a link to a government pdf of the house hearing and a quote from it. Here he wrote, “In calling on the Pentagon and President Trump to move quickly to protect the grid, the experts testified that an explosion of a high-altitude nuclear bomb delivered by a missile or satellite “could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans.””. (Bedard) He summarizes the experts’ testimony meant to provide serious evidence for the need to protect the electrical grid. After this summary, he quotes the experts’ words during the congressional hearing. Bedard’s summary of their evidence was to quickly show who they were addressing and the threat they were going to explain. He quoted this testimony, from of the experts, to show evidence of the danger that follows a high altitude nuclear EMP attack by a legitimate source. This quote appears quite credible and relevant. It is derived from experts trusted to speak at a congressional hearing on the basis of national security. Like myself and Bedard, The experts are trying to explain just why protecting our grid against this threat is so paramount.

Work Cited

Bedard, Paul. “Trump First President to Protect Electric Grid from EMP, Cyberattacks.” Washington Examiner, Washington Examiner, 20 Dec. 2017,www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-first-president-to-protect-electric-grid-from-emp            cyberattacks.

Bedard, Paul. “Congress Warned North Korean EMP Attack Would Kill ‘90% of All        Americans’.” Washington Examiner, Washington Examiner, 13 Oct. 2017,       www.washingtonexaminer.com/congress-warned-north-korean-emp-attack-would-kill-90-of-all-americans.

United States, Congress, Cong. House, CHIEF OF STAFF COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE   THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES FROM ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP)           ATTACK, et al. “North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat.” North