In this vast universe, say many scientists, surely intelligent life has evolved elsewhere. So where is it? A new theory is being put forward: the aliens are all dead. This is because, in the course of evolution, when intelligent life advances to the industrial level, it inevitably causes climate change that causes its species to become extinct.
From Ian O’Neill, Why Can’t We Find Aliens? Climate Change Killed Them : Discovery News:
As we look deeper into our galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life, we keep drawing a blank. Does this mean life on Earth is unique and we’re the only ones out here? Or could it just mean that all the aliens are dead?
Fresh on the heels of the recent news surrounding the increasingly dire climate forecast for our planet, comes a possible warning from the cosmos: climate change in extraterrestrial environments is inevitable and, should life on hypothetically habitable worlds not act as a stabilizer for their environments, it serves as a “sell-by” date for all burgeoning lifeforms. . . .
For decades we’ve been pondering our place in the universe and tried to theorize why we’ve uncovered no evidence for extraterrestrial intelligences. With all the stars and planets in our galaxy and all the water and prebiotic chemicals that are known to exist, there must be other intelligent lifeforms. But there’s no sign of them. This problem is known as the “Fermi Paradox.”
Chopra and Lineweaver suggest their new research provides some answer to this paradox and call it the “Gaian Bottleneck.” If life isn’t given a chance to stabilize its biosphere, then it’s doomed.
Earth was given this opportunity, and life emerged from the Gaian Bottleneck to help form the life-giving oasis we take for granted today. Earth and its complex interplay of feedback cycles created what can be seen as a superorganism, where all life on its biosphere has a role to play in its evolution. (This is known as the “Gaia Hypothesis”, a relatively controversial idea formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.)
But now we have an intelligent lifeform that emerged as a dominant force, interrupting and exploiting our planet’s natural cycles. Humanity has inadvertently created a new bottleneck — let’s call it the “Industrial Bottleneck” — by causing irreversible changes to our delicate biosphere. Now, we’re seeing rapid impacts on our civilization as the balance in our climate is knocked off-kilter by the inexorable rise of greenhouse gases from industrial processes and energy needs.
Are these bottlenecks common throughout the cosmos? If an extraterrestrial lifeform “makes the grade” and survives the Gaian Bottleneck, does it then face another existential threat from their evolution into a industrial civilization?
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