Alien Technology Could Seal Our Fate

It's possible that the technology of an advanced extra-terrestrial civilisation is in the possession of some governments. If so, reverse engineering efforts will certainly be in progress, and the fruits of such efforts are likely to have already been incorporated into various, and still secret, machines and devices.

While the initial use of such technology will almost certainly be for military purposes, it will ultimately benefit our species as a whole. We could be on the verge of a surge in development of advanced and super-efficient energy generation and space propulsion. If alien technology is secretly being studied then it couldn't be more timely. Understanding and utilising it could literally rescue the human race and our planet from the devastating effects of climate change. It may even prevent our extinction.

Small and incredibly efficient nuclear fusion technology could soon provide all of us with clean and almost unlimited power, thanks to the reverse engineering of extra-terrestrial technology that's centuries ahead of our own

The 21st century will be a make or break period for us. We'll either start on our path to interstellar colonisation, or condemn ourselves to oblivion. Those are the two very clear paths that our species can take. Even without the advantage of advanced alien technology those paths are open to us (such technology would simply help us to take either path much sooner). We can either resolve our destructive differences and work together to heal and protect our planet, and take our human civilisation to the stars, or we can remain conflicted, arrogant and selfish, and continue on our ever accelerating plunge to extinction.

Unfortunately, any government that has access to advanced alien technology will keep it a secret for as long as possible, and any benefits gained from its use will be closely guarded. The reasons are understandable when you consider human nature. If the technology were made public its use for criminal or military action would be swift. No nation possessing it would want to put itself at risk of such action. Because of this the reasons for any government keeping the technology secret would be justified. And so would its reasons for developing military uses for the technology first.

The governments that have access to alien technology will almost certainly use it to gain a military advantage. That's understandable, when the world's political and economic problems are considered, but it could actually accelerate our civilisation's fall.

The depressing conclusion we can draw from that fact is that, even with such technology, we would still go down the route of self destruction. Innate selfishness, fear and even paranoia would ensure that. Human nature and our primary survival instinct may well be too powerful to suppress. Such an instinct becomes ironically suicidal when weapons of mass destruction are available (I also cover this point briefly in my 'Machines Meeting Machines' article earlier this year). This supports one of the popular theories as to why there are no detectable technological civilisations in our galaxy (the Fermi Paradox). Any such civilisations have destroyed themselves: all of them. Their once useful survival instincts sealed their doom.

There is the possibility that a more socially conscious government will obtain the technology. If so then it may well use it to develop the means to save our species. That chance is still available.

But, the countries that are most likely to have alien technology are the ones perhaps least likely to use it for the good of us all. Those countries are, of course, the USA and Russia. Those countries, especially Russia, have large amounts of underpopulated land and are best equipped to carry out such research. They have the resources to be able to do the work, and the means to keep the work secret.

The USA's most famous 'secret' area for supposed reverse engineering is Area 51 in the Nevada desert, and it's been the focus of attention for many decades. It is almost certainly involved in secret military development, but any research involving alien technology will have ceased there decades ago. The scrutiny is just too intense. The US government is no doubt happy to keep feeding those interested in the area just enough to keep them distracted from wherever the real research is going on, perhaps in the mountains of Alaska.

A remote and inhospitable valley in Alaska. Such locations would be ideal for a government to hide underground facilities for the reverse-engineering of alien technology.

Russia, too, is likely to doing its development in deep mountain areas, and in the wilderness of Siberia. Those inhospitable areas, with very insignificant local populations are ideal, if harsh, locations that are not easily accessible. And in the much more authoritarian states of Russia it would be easier keep things under wraps, and to keep those with knowledge of what's going on silent.

Whoever possesses alien technology, human nature combined with the current political and economic situation of the world will ensure that it is kept secret and used only for clandestine purposes. It is quite possible that there are even secret human colonies working away from Earth, on the far side of the Moon, and even on other bodies in the Solar-System. In a way that would be quite comforting: it would demonstrate that we have the ability to survive for long periods away from the Earth. But the secret nature of such activities means that it is all in the aid of military and intelligence operations: the result of paranoia and the fear of other humans, rather than the enlightened reason of the continuation of our species.

Humans really need to start working with each other, instead of against each other. We need to sort ourselves out, and fast. We are on the highway to oblivion, but there is still an exit we can take just up ahead. It leads to a road that may well be endless.

Climate Change - The Point of No Return

We are on the verge of rendering our planet uninhabitable, unless drastic action is taken.

Scientists have recently announced, quite alarmingly, that climate change on our planet could soon reach its tipping point. We are only decades away from that moment. It will happen within a generation.

Lowering our carbon dioxide emissions is no longer enough. Carbon dioxide needs to be extracted from the atmosphere. And we need to start doing that now on a large scale. Otherwise, global warming will enter an unstoppable feedback stage, where warming triggers more warming, which triggers even more warming. Such feedbacks include the release of methane due to the thawing of permafrost, loss of snow cover, the melting of Arctic ice, warming seas, and the loss of forests. All of those will reduce our planet's ability to reflect heat and absorb carbon. The number and intensity of forest fires will increase dramatically, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This will only magnify the feedback effect even more.

Global warming will result in an increase in the frequency and ferocity of forest fires. Such fires add vast amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The end result of such warming is not clear, but at best it will significantly limit the areas of the Earth where humans can comfortably survive. At worst it will render the whole planet uninhabitable, water will boil away, and the Earth will suffer the same fate as Venus,

Even the 'best case' scenario will cause massive migrations, and subsequently major wars over dwindling food, water and energy resources. Such wars will only add to the warming feedback. As the desperation of governments increases those with nuclear weapons at their dosposal will eventually use them. Countries such as Israel, India, Pakistan and Iran - all nuclear powers and all located in what will become some of the worst affected regions - will feel compelled to use such weapons as countries to their north attempt to stop the migration of their populations. This will cause tremendous damage to the environment, and render even more areas uninhabitable. And there would be a very high chance that a limited nuclear war would escalate rapidly into a global nuclear conflict.

At that point our current technological civilisation will end, and with it humanity's chances of spreading beyond the Earth to become an interplanetary, and then an interstellar, civilisation. Our ability to preserve our species will have slipped away.

If he climate change wars turn into nuclear conficts they will bring to an end our current technological civilisation. Humans may have a change to develop another advanced civilisation one day, but it is likely to take centuries or even millenia to get back to anything like that which we have achieved today. Without forewarning such a civisation is almost certainly doomed to suffer the same fate as the one before it.

Such a dramatic warming of the atmosphere will cause a rapid rise in sea level, raising it to well over a hundred metres higher than it is at present. In addition to the billions who had already perished in the wars of the previous decades, hundreds of millions more will die. Survivors, who will eventually number just a few tens of million at best, will struggle to live in the few remaining higher altitude lands. Their existence will be basic and medieval. It will be a return to the dark ages. Thousands of years of progress and knowledge will have been lost.

Only then, with the destructive output of our current civilisation at an end, can the climate of Earth have a chance to stabilise. The ice caps will reform and the sea level will reduce. After many centuries flora and fauna will start to recover. Only at that point, humans, if they are not extinct, will have another chance at building a technologically advanced civilisation.

It's unlikely that we can prevent a climate change disaster on our planet, but we can improve on the 'best case' scenario if we start doing three things right now:

1. Preserve Knowledge of our Discoveries and Inventions

We must help survivors in the post-climate change world avoid repeating our calamitous mistakes, and allow them to 'fast-track' through what has taken our current civilisation thousands of years to learn, discover and invent.

A comprehensive record of our achievements (and of our destructive actions, so that mistakes are not repeated), must be preserved in a way that they can understand, and in a way that will last for thousands, even millions, of years. We must investigate how we can provide such knowledge to our distant descendants, and then store it in multiple safe yet easily accessible locations, including locations elsewhere in the Solar-System.

DNA could be the ideal solution to extremely long term information storage

Using paper or digital media to preserve knowledge will only be suitable for a few hundred years or so, but such means should be used initially, as our descendants will be able to understand and use these forms of storage.

But a more radical solution is needed for complex and advanced knowledge that will be useful once any new civilisation progresses to a certain level. Storing information in DNA is one such solution. It's been shown that if the DNA can be kept at sub-zero temperatures the information will maintain its integrity almost indefinitely. DNA information stores would be best located away from Earth, perhaps on the Moon in the permanent darkness of one of the polar craters, and deep within some of the planetary bodies of the outer Solar-System.

2. Work to Avoid or Delay the Climate Change Tipping Point

Even to just delay the tipping point we need to start work now.  The small steps some of us are currently taking are utterly inadequate.

Our civilisation needs to fast track the very widespread use of electric vehicles by banning petrol and diesel engines within a decade. All developed countries need to push this idea hard, and give incentives to developing countries to do the same. And governments need to increase vastly the funding for research into clean energy, and get nuclear fusion working. The generation of electricity by burning coal and oil has to stop on a worldwide scale without delay. Countries like China appear to be increasing the use of fossil fuels for energy generation, which is going to be catastrophic if it is not prevented.

But that alone will not be enough. We need to start undoing the damage we've already done.

Various climate engineering projects should be started immediately. These are possible with current technology. To help reduce global warming solar radiation management needs to be implemented to reduce the sunlight absorbed by the atmosphere. Relatively simple things can be done such as seeding clouds with sea water to brighten them (and therefore reflect more sunlight), and using pale roof colourings and promoting the expansion of polar ice.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using facilities such as this is possible. It can be stored in hard pellets which can be buried deep underground.

We need to start removing some of the excess greenhouse gases that our activities have pumped into the atmosphere. This can be done directly using machinery that would then store the extracted carbon dioxide deep underground, and indirectly by promoting natural processes, such as extensive tree planting to reverse deforestation, and ocean fertilisation to add nutrients to the upper oceans to increase carbon dioxide absorption.

And the growth of our human population needs to be controlled, especially in developing countries. We can no longer support such large increases, which are generally located in regions that can least support it. It should be stabilised as soon as possible, and allowed to reduce naturally to a more sustainable level.

Doing all of the above is the best chance the Earth has of remaining a viable place for humans to live. But it is likely to only buy us some time - nothing more. We need to establish our civilisation elsewhere to properly secure our future.

3. Secure the Survival of Our Civilisation Independent of Earth

There's a significant possibility that the feedback warming will not stop, and if that is the case the Earth could indeed end up in a state similar to that of Venus.

The only way to ensure the continuation of our species beyond that event is to make sure that there are self-sustaining human colonies beyond Earth, on planetary bodies such as the Moon, Mars, and especially on what is looking like the best location: Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

As well as colonies on planetary bodies there should be very large space habitats constructed throughout the Solar-System that would house tens of thousands. The resources to build such massive facilities can be found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

We will have to mine asteroids on a large scale to construct the off-world facilities humans will need to live independently from Earth

Extracting those resources would be relatively easy due to the very low gravity wells of the asteroids. The establishment of mining operations there must be an immediate priority. The space habitats could be constructed in the asteroid belt and then maneuvered into their final positions, either into planetary orbits, or into their own independent orbits around the sun.

In parallel to the development of colonies around the Solar-System there needs to be development of interstellar missions with the goal of establishing human colonies around other stars. More and more exo-planets with the potential for colonisation are being discovered all the time, with one, Proxima Centauri B, only 4.3 light years away.

The planet Proxima B, which orbits Proxima Centauri 4.3 light-years from Earth. It's the closest known Earth-like exo-planet, and has huge potential as a suitable destination for our first interstellar colonisation mission.

It would be a mammoth undertaking, and there are incredible engineering challenges to overcome, but investment in the rapid development of the methods and technology required is essential to build such habitats in time. As well as providing immediate funding, it should be the priority of governments to ensure that education systems are geared to maintain a constant supply of highly capable scientists and engineers to make it a success. The long term survival of our species depends on it.

If all three of the above steps - preservation of our knowledge, delaying or avoiding the tipping point, and establishing large self-sustaining human colonies elsewhere in the Solar-System and beyond - are pursued with the resilience, determination and creativity that our species has in abundance, then we will survive.

But we must start now.

Right now.