HERE COMES 'REVOLUTION'
by David Bellavia
NBC’s Revolution is set to air September 17th in the United States. Like millions of Americans, I will be tuning in to see the pilot episode. I know what some of you may be thinking, “another fictionalized version of what will happen if the power grid goes down. Ugh!”
Here’s a brief description from www.investors.com:
A new TV series demonstrates graphically how vulnerable our soci- ety is to an attack using weapons our enemies, including rogue state Iran, could use tomorrow — and the im- portance of missile defense.
Set in a future “where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out for- ever,” 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.
To be fair, any attempt to educate Americans about the potential disaster of losing our power grid is a good thing, even if used as entertainment. Dr. William Forstchen’s bestseller One Second After is one of the most realistic portraits of a post-EMP world I have read to date. It is like reading the EMP Commission with a great human interest story, vivid details, and without a seventy-page appendix.
by David Bellavia
NBC’s Revolution is set to air September 17th in the United States. Like millions of Americans, I will be tuning in to see the pilot episode. I know what some of you may be thinking, “another fictionalized version of what will happen if the power grid goes down. Ugh!”
Here’s a brief description from www.investors.com:
A new TV series demonstrates graphically how vulnerable our soci- ety is to an attack using weapons our enemies, including rogue state Iran, could use tomorrow — and the im- portance of missile defense.
Set in a future “where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out for- ever,” 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.
To be fair, any attempt to educate Americans about the potential disaster of losing our power grid is a good thing, even if used as entertainment. Dr. William Forstchen’s bestseller One Second After is one of the most realistic portraits of a post-EMP world I have read to date. It is like reading the EMP Commission with a great human interest story, vivid details, and without a seventy-page appendix.
However, it would be nice to see Wash- ington and our local state houses show some sense of urgency. The problem continues to be that the more Hollywood shows this scenario as entertainment in the genre of apocalyptic thrillers, the more people tune it out as just science fiction. We saw this with the nuclear threat during the Cold War. People be- came numbed to the reality of it actu- ally happening. Fiction is often times dis- missed as fairy tale and not addressed as a real and present danger.
So although it might make for great tele- vision viewing, you might want to pre- pare your popcorn over an open fire and not the microwave... just for practice.
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