Massive Power Outage Across Europe Blamed on Climate Change

*They spelled World Economic Forum wrong

After years of patting themselves on the back for building a power grid held together by solar panels, prayer, and a couple of part-time windmills, most of Spain and parts of Portugal and France found themselves plunged into darkness yesterday with no backup batteries in sight. Within minutes, the EU chief handily ruled out a cyberattack—I guess there was no ransomware note?—and pledged his commitment to determining the cause and restoring power.

In what can only be described as the most European excuse ever given for a massive infrastructure collapse, the disaster was soon chalked up to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon.” Portugal’s power operator REN elaborated with this super-simple explanation: “Due to extreme temperature variations, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines, a phenomenon known as induced atmospheric vibration. The result was synchronization failures between systems.”

Somebody had their thesaurus nearby!

AUTHOR’S TRANSLATION(S):

anomalous oscillations = wonky wobbles

induced atmospheric vibration = something caused the wobbling

synchronization failures between systems = the power’s out next door in Spain, too

In other words, something science-y happened in the sky that left the residents of several entire countries unable to charge their phones, withdraw cash from an ATM, or use a rice cooker. Obviously eager to mollify frustrated Europeans, a software guy named Taco *I am not making that up* who works in the energy space attempted to mansplain. “Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” Taco stated. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”

So, basically, the weather weathered and toppled Western Europe’s delicate energy grid like a toddler at a block tower. Obviously, they can’t just come out and say that, though. “As you know, our coal-powered electrical grid was older than Sir David Attenborough, IKEA, and possibly sliced bread combined, so we’ve been working aggressively to move toward renewable energy systems. Well, it turns out—and we were just as shocked to learn this as you’re going to be—the elements can really throw a wrench in your solar and wind plans! Who knew? Anyway, until further notice, your bank’s closed, your hospital is running on a generator [*cough, if you’re lucky, cough*], and good luck trying to put gas in your car.”

The press—taking a much needed break from belaboring precisely how disgusted the planet is with Trump’s first 100 days in office—painted a picture of pure chaos across the Iberian Peninsula, with people trapped in trains, elevators, and airports, grocery store shelves picked clean, and police cars and ambulances struggling to snake their way through gridlocked streets. The Guardian chose to feature this poor lady whose clothes got stuck in a laundromat washing machine with no way to get them out.

I’m not mocking. If my favorite jeans were in there, I’d be distraught, too.

“During the outage, there were widespread problems connecting to the internet and to phone networks across Spain and Portugal,” The New York Times wrote (on account of there being no power and all), before admitting the quiet part out loud. “People crammed into stores to buy food and other essentials as clerks used pen and paper to record cash-only transactions.”

This. Just this.

As of this morning, power is slowly being brought back online across the region, but authorities say it could take up to a week [of sunny skies and gentle breezes] to fully restore the grid. Which is half as long as it took to flatten that pesky Covid curve, so that’s not bad at all!

Oh, wait.

Several friends (and one neurotic relative) texted me as the news was breaking yesterday: Is this the test run? Are we next? I stopped hoarding in 2023 and already ate through my stash! I thought now that Klaus resigned and is being investigated, we were done with zee frightening scenario of a comprehensive cyberattack—you know, zee one zey literally promised us?

Here’s the thing: Human beings, for the most part, are equal parts lazy, forgetful, and optimistic. Sure, we all know a global Ctrl+Alt+Del situation is a possibility. Maybe even a probability. And when we first realized this, we likely did whatever it took to make us feel “prepared” for such an event. (Spoiler: We’ll never, ever be prepared, not even the underground bunker dude who’s got more ammo than arm hair and enough canned tuna fish to feed Finland.) A few years ago, when prepping was trending hard, I bought some hand-crank radios and a generator and sixty or seventy jars of peanut butter; my brother built a 200-square-foot hydroponic garden and adopted 16 chickens. Today, I couldn’t tell you where the radios went or how to power up that generator, my brother got rid of the garden on Facebook Marketplace, and coyotes picked off every last one of those poor birds.

I still have the peanut butter. Does that stuff go bad?

If this is the big one, the grand kickoff to the global reset lots of us have been half-expecting, what are we going to do? Build our own alternative Wi-Fi network out of empty soda cans and wishful thinking? March in the streets carrying ELECTRICITY MATTERS signs? Use our solar lawn lights to power our Keurigs? Of course not. (Fine, we might try the Keurig thing.) Ultimately, we’ll do what resilient carbon-based lifeforms do when the going gets apocalyptic: get scrappy, help each other out, make dark jokes, and survive one quiet, uncaffeinated day at a time.

But seriously, maybe keep some cash around. You’re probably not nabbing that last gallon of water at Target with your good vibes alone.

Especially delightful when read by candlelight. So vintage!