HotAir posts a story that makes the Left seem crazier than ever!
It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim…
The authors warn that extraterrestrials may be wary of civilisations that expand very rapidly, as these may be prone to destroy other life as they grow, just as humans have pushed species to extinction on Earth. In the most extreme scenario, aliens might choose to destroy humanity to protect other civilisations.
“A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.
“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.
Forbes Magazine joins ni the fun!
Over at National Review, Daniel Foster has some fun with this paper which goes through various scenarios that might result in (or after) contact with aliens. Foster spins the paper a bit, mockingly titling his post “Space Aliens are Probably Progressive Liberals” because some of the likely scenarios include reactions to our bad environmental policies:
But if ETI [extraterrestrial intelligence] doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us. A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies….
Speaking of spin, this part of the paper reminds me quite a lot of the science fiction novel, Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson. Spoilers ahead…
In Spin, the stars suddenly disappear, and Earth is enveloped in some sort of space/time cocoon that removes the planet from the rest of the universe (not entirely, just from the time of the universe). While time passes extremely slowly on Earth, the rest of the universe continues on at a normal pace. Scientists discover that for every second now passing in Earth time, three years pass outside the planet. This causes quite the existential crisis for Earth’s population. The government sends out a ship to colonize Mars and then watches as millions of years go by in just a few days. Mars is colonized, developed and then…suddenly goes into a cocoon of its own. These cocoons are called “Spin” and nobody knows exactly what they are or what’s causing them.
It turns out an ancient system of self-replicating machines known as the “Hypotheticals” have created the Spin phenomenon in order to tie groups of planets together through a series of wormhole-like gates. All the planets in a series are hospitable to all the others. The “Hypotheticals” it appears, link these planets once they discover that they are on a crash course with environmental unsustainability. In other words, they are a sort of savior-entity attempting to address the issue of scarcity and resource depletion by rescuing Earth (and Mars, as well as many other planets) from self-destruction by pooling our resources with a potentially unlimited number of other planets throughout the universe.
The book is excellent, politics aside. I don’t find it particularly likely that an alien species or ancient computer-entity will come save us from ourselves or destroy us because they view us as resource-depleting parasites. The notion of some great beneficent intergalactic force just doesn’t resonate with me.
I think we should look at our own Space Race for one thing. What inspired our drive to the moon? To the galaxy and beyond? Simple: the Cold War and the arms race with Soviet Russia.
If we do encounter aliens in the distant or near future, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were in the midst of their own galaxy-spanning arms race. More than likely, any aliens we encounter will have done a great deal more damage to the universe than we have so far, no matter how advanced and enlightened they’ve become. And when they encounter us between blowing the hell out of one another? Well…