{"id":23066,"date":"2016-01-22T05:45:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T10:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=23066"},"modified":"2016-01-21T21:36:07","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T02:36:07","slug":"has-climate-change-killed-the-aliens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/01\/has-climate-change-killed-the-aliens\/","title":{"rendered":"Has climate change killed the aliens?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In this vast universe, say many scientists, surely intelligent life has evolved elsewhere.\u00a0 So where is it?\u00a0 A new theory is being put forward:\u00a0 the aliens are all dead.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

From Ian O\u2019Neill, Why Can\u2019t We Find Aliens? Climate Change Killed Them : Discovery News<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

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\u2019re the only ones out here? Or could it just mean that all the aliens are dead?<\/i><\/p>\n

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 \u201csell-by\u201d date for all<\/i> burgeoning lifeforms. . . .<\/p>\n

\n

For decades we\u2019ve been pondering our place in the universe and tried to theorize why we\u2019ve 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\u2019s no sign of them. This problem is known as the \u201cFermi Paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chopra and Lineweaver suggest their new research provides some answer to this paradox and call it the \u201cGaian Bottleneck.\u201d If life isn\u2019t given a chance to stabilize its biosphere, then it\u2019s doomed.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cGaia Hypothesis\u201d, a relatively controversial idea formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.)<\/p>\n

But now we have an intelligent lifeform that emerged as a dominant force, interrupting and exploiting our planet\u2019s natural cycles. Humanity has inadvertently created a new bottleneck \u2014 let\u2019s call it the \u201cIndustrial Bottleneck\u201d \u2014 by causing irreversible changes to our delicate biosphere. Now, we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

Are these bottlenecks common throughout the cosmos? If an extraterrestrial lifeform \u201cmakes the grade\u201d and survives the Gaian Bottleneck, does it then face another existential threat from their evolution into a industrial civilization?<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this vast universe, say many scientists, surely intelligent life has evolved elsewhere.\u00a0 So where is it?\u00a0 A new theory is being put forward:\u00a0 the aliens are all dead.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,40],"tags":[515,761,796],"class_list":["post-23066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-science","tag-climate-change","tag-environmentalism","tag-extraterrestrial-life"],"yoast_head":"\nHas climate change killed the aliens?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this vast universe, say many scientists, surely intelligent life has evolved elsewhere.\u00a0 So where is it?\u00a0 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