I got this from a friend; unfortunately, I believe it to be true. In a way, it’s very funny.
A recent paper authored by a NASA-affiliated scientist and 2 profs from Penn Univ explores the possibilities of first contact with an alien race. Among the scenarios the trio imagines is that aliens might launch a pre-emptive strike to stop us from committing the galactic sin of global warming, “which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth” (i.e., affects other planets). And, the likely reason we haven’t been contacted by the aliens is that we’re not sufficiently “progressive,” and they want us to reach a “societal benchmark such as sustainable development or international unity” before contact. Aside from the pre-emptive strike over global warming, they write that “an advanced society capable of interstellar travel may be less likely to turn to humans as a source of food or labor because they should have already solved these problems through some combination of machine labor, artificial synthesis, and conservation.” Well that’s a relief.
On the other hand, NY Times economist Paul Krugman theorizes that a looming alien attack would stimulate the economy. “If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months,” he said. That would be useful, he added, “in order to get some fiscal stimulus.” Krugman once won a Nobel Prize for economics. We suspect, however, that he was abducted by aliens soon thereafter, and that the “Paul Krugman” now writing loony columns and making bizarre TV appearances is actually an alien mole.
You know, no one considered that this intelligent life out there is waiting for us to produce more carbon dioxide, as that could be the real source of life out there. They may find Al Gore the funniest joker in the universe and don’t destroy us because they need the laughs. What a world we live in. Will our military soon be developing an “anti-space invader” specialty? Stay tuned.
