The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years, raising the remote possibility that it may collapse and later reverse, flipping the planet's poles for the first time in nearly a million years, scientists said. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/12/magnetic.poles.ap/index.html So what stocks can we short / go long on? Short compass making companies and go long suntan lotion?
So we can add: Short ice-cube making companies Go long funeral homes and coffin making companies Any others?
...excavating equipment for digging deep holes in the ground to hide in, and geothermal conversion equipment for power generation absent access to surface resources. It would be get off the planet, become troglodytes, or die. Of course there's a nasty tradeoff: going deeper to get away from cosmic rays vs. the increasing internal radiation the deeper you go, not to mention the increasing heat. It would be like trying to live in a diamond mine. The REALLY ugly part is that reversals have also been associated with reduction in the level of thermal output from the iron-moderated uranium reactor at the core of the planet, so at the same time there is reduced insolation there could be reduced thermal output coming from the core. So maybe hot underground, and maybe not. But we'll be dead long before then, so who cares?
Aphie... I would invest in NASA..... you will need to move into outer space if that happens. Suntan lotion? More like lead coveralls. Compasses? Invest in artificial gravity boots while you are at it. Caskets and funeral homes? Hell, you won't even need a crematory....we will all be fried to a crisp. :eek: