[Nodachi]

Originally posted by Oleg:
It will not be that bad. Even at the most extreme of the magnetic field flipping, the residual magnetic field will be strong enough to keep us safe. At worst, radiation will be like in polar regions today. All this stuff is good for scare stories in media but is in fact pretty harmless.

Oleg, I beg to differ. The Earth's magnetic field is the only thing that protects us from solar flares. Let us get hit by an X-class flare while the field is down, or even weakened, and it'll be a very different planet indeed.