OPINION:
It’s official: Space aliens are liberals, and they may be preparing to invade planet Earth. It is a scenario outlined by a NASA-affiliated scientist and researchers at Pennsylvania State University. Unbelievably, the study is not a joke, although global laughter prompted its authors Thursday to insist it was meant to be. “Green” aliens are coming - and Al Gore may be one of their leaders.
In their report, “Would Contact With Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman of NASA’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues discuss the possible outcomes of a close encounter between aliens and humans. One of their likely scenarios is that extraterrestrial-intelligence (ETI) contact with humanity may compel space aliens to wipe us out. Why? In order to save the galaxy from a capitalist, industrial, polluting civilization that is ravaging Earth’s environment and emitting greenhouse gases that will doom the planet. Our destructive nature and expanding civilization pose a threat to other planets and life forms. Hence, aliens may have no choice: Like former President George W. Bush, they may launch a pre-emptive war - only not on Iraq but on the entire world.
The story was published recently in Britain’s establishment liberal newspaper, the Guardian. The article says, “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.” Apparently, the British left is taking the threat of an alien invasion seriously.
The actual report by Mr. Goldman and his colleagues resembles a bad sci-fi movie. “A pre-emptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand,” it states. “Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions.” In other words, eco-friendly aliens - maybe little Al Gores - might be so troubled by our assault on the environment that they will have no choice but to destroy us to save the planet. Call it the Gore Doctrine.
“These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems,” the authors write. “It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets.”
This is liberal fantasy masquerading as science. Here’s a news flash for Mr. Goldman and his fellow “researchers”: The aliens aren’t invading. The report is risible, even comical. Yet behind it lies a deadly serious problem - the dangerous politicization of scientific inquiry. For years, the green lobby has claimed that Earth is going to boil over. Carbon emissions supposedly imperil humanity’s future, causing Earth’s atmosphere to heat up to the point of global catastrophe. Ice caps are melting, polar bears are dying, sea levels are rising, coastal cities will be flooded, droughts will scorch large swaths of Earth, and billions will die or be driven from their homes. It will be the end of days - the apocalypse.
In fact, the opposite is true: Earth’s atmospheric temperatures have cooled during the past decade; the polar bear population is growing; the Arctic ice caps are not melting; sea levels have remained relatively stable; and hundreds of millions in countries such as India, China and Brazil have been lifted from grinding poverty. The greenhouse-gas theory is evaporating into thin air. Climate change has been the greatest hoax of our time.
Faced with these undeniable facts, progressive leftists refuse to accept reality. They are not scientists wedded to empiricism and trial and error. Rather, they are ideologues who champion green socialism. Their goal is to curtail economic growth, impose heavy regulations on industry and erect an international “cap-and-trade” carbon credit system. For them, capitalism is the enemy.
Yet, as the science turns against them, radical environmentalists are lashing out. Hence, Mr. Gore recently delivered a profanity-laced speech decrying the growing public skepticism of global warming. He sounded more like a street-thug rapper than a statesman. His behavior was not simply undignified for a former vice president. His language was that of desperation. Mr. Gore - like many in the green movement - has staked his entire public reputation on climate change. If its myth implodes, he does as well. Moreover, the dirty little secret about Mr. Gore’s environmentalism is that it has very little to do with “social justice” and everything to do with lining his pockets. He has lucrative financial interests in green hedge funds, which are poised to make millions of dollars off cap-and-trade. He is a snake-oil salesman whose global-warming racket is coming to an end.
From the outset, the debate about climate change was driven by fear and hysteria, not real science. With the end of the Cold War, the internationalist left sought a novel weapon with which to attack the free market. The exploitation of the working class was replaced by a new paradigm: the capitalist plundering of the environment that eventually would trigger world socialism. Karl Marx was superseded by Mother Earth. Dialectical materialism gave way to global warming. The old red became the new green.
Now that their eco-prophecies lie in tatters, liberals have been reduced to adolescent swearing or silly warnings about alien invasions. Their hatred for capitalism - and its exemplar, America - is boundless. When the Martians come, we know which side Mr. Gore and his allies will be on.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.