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"Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists"

I’m late to this, but so what. From The Guardian (UK):

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.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

[…]

“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.

Even if we never make contact with extraterrestrials, the report argues that considering the potential scenarios may help to plot the future path of human civilisation, avoid collapse and achieve long-term survival.

Finally. Vindication for Al Gore.

So take that, global warming deniers. And recognize: if you compel the people who really really really care about Mother Earth to throw you into gulags for your hateful, ignorant, anti-science denial, they’ll be doing it to save humanity.

From space aliens.

For the greater good.

(h/t Rush Limbaugh show and JD)

34 Replies to “"Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists"”

  1. B. Moe says:

    Kind of like how European explorers objected to the environmental damage of the out of control civilizations of North America when they first arrived.

  2. McGehee says:

    I say we destroy the aliens to protect other alien civilizations from aliens that would destroy other civilizations to protect other civilizations.

    ‘Cause nothing says “advanced civilization” like Mobius logic.

  3. Dave in SoCal says:

    It’s clear that the report is based mostly on a viewing of that 2008 Keanu Reeves masterwork “The Day The Earth Stood Still”.

  4. sdferr says:

    a more serious threat

    I don’t get this. If the argument goes: human beings are destroying the viability of the earth’s atmosphere and hence earth’s climate for human flourishing, then how the hell would the results of that destruction become a human population more threatening to whatever the heck is out there in the universe? Seems to me the necessary consequence would most obviously be the diminishment of any threat.

    For fun, is all.

  5. Abe Froman says:

    I think it’s pretty cool that the Green religion is embracing aspects of Scientology.

  6. dicentra says:

    How do they know that wrathful aliens won’t destroy us because of all the abortions?

    Or for denying the existence of God?

    Or for banning kids’ lemonade stands?

    Or for polyester leisure suits? (Hey, they’re always gonna be time-delayed, right?)

    Or, if it comes to that, for discovering fire?

    Also, how is this different from medieval priests theatening people with excommunication and hell if they don’t fall in line?

  7. LBascom says:

    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.

    Holy shit! I hope if we discover intelligent life on a distant planet, the environmentalists (aka “green aliens”) don’t insist on massacring the whole lot for using incandescent light bulbs!

  8. mojo says:

    On the other hand (or paw, or tentacle, or whatever) if it’s the Kzinti that show up, becoming a “monkey slave” is the very BEST you can hope for.

  9. LBascom says:

    Tangentially related:

    Since 2009, the example of the economic boom following World War II has been used by Keynesians to justify their record “peacetime” levels of borrowing intended to lift the US out of the doldrums. Indeed, the more the contemporary borrowing fails, the more the vast indebtedness of the war years is invoked to reassure us. On occasion a wry lament follows that if only a spaceship full of dangerous aliens were to appear, we might have the requisite excuse to follow our grandfathers into a new collective frenzy of economic stimulus and public debt. […]

    the world abroad in 1946 was hardly similar to the world in 2011. Review the prior status of our present global competitors: India was a backward colony and in civil turmoil. War-torn China was about to embark on the most self-destructive social experiment in human history. Two-thirds of a centrally planned Soviet Union was in shambles. Western Europe was near starving after years of bombing and Nazi strangulation. The future export powerhouses of Japan and Germany were in ruins. Brazil was pre-modern. The miracles of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea were still imaginary. A victorious Britain was full of self-doubt and exhausted, busy dismantling its colonial empire and nationalizing its steel, transportation, health, and energy industries. […]

    In short, in 2011 there is nothing that suggests the present massive borrowing will lead us to anything like the prosperity of the postwar years — a time when social spending and entitlements accounted for 30 percent, not 70 percent of the annual federal budget; when households both had cash and were eager to buy long-denied items; when America did not import high-cost oil (having recently supplied 80 percent of its wartime allies’ oil needs from domestic production); and when an unscathed industrial-powerhouse United States was alone on top of the world.

    But if we must go back to the post-World War II era for an example to enlighten us about what the current Obama policies presage, then the similarities to the present are not to be found in 1940s America. A better guide is Clement Attlee’s 1946 United Kingdom, which, like Obama’s 2011 America, sought to retrench from the world scene, lead from behind, and establish a much-vaunted high-tax, big-government, cradle-to-grave redistributive welfare state — one whose legacy we have just witnessed in London’s streets.

    .

  10. TaiChiWawa says:

    I think our fate was sealed when the first episode of Jersey Shore was broadcast.

  11. happyfeet says:

    space aliens are gayer than putin

  12. LBascom says:

    I find it unlikely that space aliens would wipe us put after going through all the trouble of creating us.

    Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize for his co-discovery of DNA, hypothesized that highly intelligent extraterrestrials sent living cells to Earth on an unmanned spaceship, a theory he set forth in his 1981 book, “Life Itself.”

  13. Slartibartfast says:

    I think any self-respecting advanced civilization would have taken us out long ago. If Hitler wasn’t enough to convince ’em, the fabulous dancing duet of Stalin and Mao should have.

    Slackers, those advanced alien civilizations are. If it were up to people like us, we’d have nova-bombed their suns already.

  14. BJTex says:

    Oh, happyfeet, that whole idea, whole idea, is simply, I mean simply, simply, um, simply … nauseating.

    (bleah)

  15. BJTex says:

    Is anybody prepared to explain the bone head criterion of Gore’s making to be adapted as KILL YOURSELVES!!! (um … thank you)

  16. DarthLevin says:

    I’m so glad we have these people helping us achieve “long-term survival”, because the last few million years have made us soft, what with the plagues, floods, ice ages, droughts, wars, and saber-toothed tigers. Potential “green aliens” with potential umbrage? Now that’s danger on a planetary level.

  17. sdferr says:

    Lord Keynes was too.

  18. happyfeet says:

    Hola Mr. BJ!

  19. JD says:

    You deniers of science and alien takeover of the planet are the modern day equivalent of the KKK.

  20. Mueller says:

    “Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists”

    Aw. Jeeze.
    It just keeps getting worse.

  21. cranky-d says:

    Many scientists think that aliens might have better things to do than nanny humans.

  22. dicentra says:

    If Hitler wasn’t enough to convince ‘em, the fabulous dancing duet of Stalin and Mao should have.

    What, not Atilla the Hun? The Aztecs?

    Surely there was more raw savagery before the commies and nazis made it easy though the wonders of modern technology.

  23. cranky-d says:

    Along with man-caused global warming, the idea that aliens care what humans do is just another case of the progressive’s sense of self-importance. Their egos know no bounds.

    “Humans are so powerful, look what they’re doing to the planet.”

    “Humans are so wonderful (at least progressives are), aliens must care about what we’re doing.”

  24. Roddy Boyd says:

    As a former daily reporter for a Daily, I am not sure which is cooler in a very-bad-carwreck sort of way:

    A. That this was put in a lede: a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

    or

    B. That scientists were willing to advance this claim in a public fashion as part of a broader scientific argument.

    Both were considered career-ending stupidity as recently as five years ago.

  25. Mueller says:

    If they have the technology to get this far they have the technology to pass right on by.

  26. Pellegri says:

    I think if they had that sophisticated an understanding of climatology, they’d understand we also occupy an ecological niche and completely destroying humanity would result in massive climate change and the extinction of a number of other species as well. Like, say, everything we’ve domesticated and made dependent upon us for survival.

    I seriously had a discussion with a young fellow of fifteen who claimed to have been exiled from his previous social group for having proposed the genocide of all humanity (in the US) to protect the planet on his own napkin calculations that it would give the Earth another two thousand years. When I asked him where he planned to put all the bodies (because huge masses of decomposing carrion are a little bit of a pollutant themselves), he hadn’t included those in his plans.

    …the comments on that piece are even worse, lol.

  27. JamieC71 says:

    Mr. Gore, I think I finally have come to realize the error of my ways. There’s no longer any doubt in my mind that the human race is nothing more than a blight on this otherwise wonderful orb, and I further realize that the only definitive solution is total eradication of our kind, such that the raping of Gaia may finally cease.

    We simply must immediately end our own lives, each and every one of us, so that Mother Earth may begin the healing process.

    You first, Mr. Gore. As our noble and honorable leader, I insist.

  28. SDN says:

    “Scientist. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

    And at this point, my sense of humor goes out for a smoke.

    We have no common frame of reference with these people. None. No basis for compromise, because compromise means surrender. Slowly, quickly, doesn’t matter. They will be satisfied with nothing less than our entire existence. The only remaining answer is to treat them as we would any other threat, and kill them. Not for sport. Not for pleasure. They are simply too dangerous to all we hold dear to be allowed to exist.

  29. John Bradley says:

    As someone said, “We’re stuck in that unpleasant in-between time. It’s too late to work within the system, and it’s too early to start shooting the bastards.”

    Or words to that effect.

  30. Mueller says:

    Since we’re gettin all sciency an shit.
    I wonder what that quanta, smeared on the event horizion of the black hole of his(Gores)particular reality, would look like?
    A skidmark?

  31. ccoffer says:

    “Scientists” have also postulated that Superman and Mighty Mouse would be evenly matched and thus any fight between them would end in a draw.

Comments are closed.