UPDATE: co-author admits it is a “horrible mistake”, see below – Anthony
From the you’ve got to be effing kidding me department.
First, I apologize to my readers for the headline. Read on and I think you’ll see it is justified. The headline is paraphrased from the article and the paper to give you the flavor. I have reproduced the passage used by the Guardian and provided a link to the full paper below.
First, the Guardian story: (h/t to reader “a jones”)
Now the paper, peer reviewed and published in Acta Astronautica titled:
Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis
Seth D. Baum,1 Jacob D. Haqq-Misra,2 & Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman3
1. Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University.
2. Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University
3. NASA Planetary Science Division
Acta Astronautica, 2011, 68(11-12): 2114-2129
Here’s the relevant passage:
A preemptive strike [from extraterrestrials] 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. 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 (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.
Words fail me. Truly this is science fiction, and not the good kind. I have a feature called “Climate Craziness of the Week”, this may be the all time winner.
Read the entire paper here (PDF)
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UPDATE: Former Economist sci/tech reporter Oliver Morton chips in with this in comments, it seems a “horrible mistake” was made by the co-author. Still no word on how this passes peer review.
http://paleblueblog.org/post/9110304050/some-important-points-of-clarification
So here’s the thing. This isn’t a “NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation.
…
But I do admit to making a horrible mistake. It was an honest one, and a naive one… but it was a mistake nonetheless. I should not have listed my affiliation as “NASA Headquarters.” I did so because that is my current academic affiliation. But when I did so I did not realize the full implications that has. I’m deeply sorry for that, but it was a mistake born our of carelessness and inexperience and nothing more. I will do what I can to rectify this, including distributing this post to the Guardian, Drudge, and NASA Watch. Please help me spread this post to the other places you may see the article inaccurately attributed to NASA.
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Great one for numberwatch!!
Wow, I think this merits an end of year award for Climate Craziness of the Week. Heck, I think this one might be the first induction for a Hall of Fame (Shame). Consider it, Anthony.
CO2 increase =increased threat from ET.
This is as about a rigorous as a lot of CAGW stuff..
I wonder if there is any $$$ for them in this angle though 🙂
Zowie. So why would the aliens think a slight increase in a trace gas, still well below prehistoric levels, indicates civilization when most planets undergo dramatic shifts in atmospheric composition, such as occured on the Earth, Mars, and Venus?
I, for one, look forward to an invasion attempt by these alien idiots who can stare at thousands of planets for millions of years and not realize that atmospheric gases change over time.
Um…..sounds like the plot to The Day the Earth Stood Still.
In any case, this “scientist” argues we should limit our economic growth because it’ll make “nice” aliens less likely to commit planetwide genocide on us?
Err….what?
If aliens were a real threat then limiting economic growth and energy production would not be a good strategy – rapidly expanding the economy with nuclear power, detection systems and space-based military technologies would be far more useful.
When will people realize that due to the superincredinormus distances involved, the time required to travel such distances, and the amount of energy required to accelerate a spacecraft to any significant percentage of light speed (on the order of several sun’s worth of energy) the mathematical probability of any human EVER encountering an intelligent alien is exactly:
zero.
And yet any aliens that might be monitoring our atmosphere would only see the changes hundreds, if not thousands of years in the future (assuming then even live in our galaxy), by which time we’d probably be sufficiently advanced to fight them off. Or extinct, if the antis have their way…
That’s beyond crazy, that’s flipping laugh-out-loud hilarious. These “scientists” who produced this must surely be satirists spoofing the whole CAGW movement?
To be fair, it seems that the entire exercise is one big what-if thought experiment, but trust the Grauniad to seize on the carbon cultist crackpot chunk and frame the paper as being more scientific rationale for puritanical eco-flagellation.
Peer review passed the paper? It reads like an late night college bull session between sophomores that are avoiding real scholarship.
This is beyond merely climate craziness . This is full bore bat s__t craziness . Have they been talking to Paul Krugman ?
When people talk about ‘cut backs’ on expenditure…wouldn’t stuff like this be a very good place to start!
Appropriately, this brings virtual science right back to its origins – in the Drake Equation that underpins the SETI experiment. The late Michael Crichton was onto this, with his essay ‘Aliens Cause Global Warming.’ Life resembles art!!
David Cameron will believe it – so will his cabinet!
Doh!
Shark jumping alert!
“I snap”
“I lose it”
“Flurry to the solar nexus”
It must be bad in AGW land and the Guardian has now slipped below the National Enquirer in terms of credibility.
Penn State, uh? Suddenly, the double whitewash for Mann starts making sense
Ah – at last a credulous explanation for the various mass-extinctions.
Dinosaurs succumbed to alien extermination because of the much higher CO2 and Methane levels caused by their breathing, belching and farting
Now I understand !!!
Weird. I clicked on WUWT and got http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ instead. Looks like my browser’s been hijacked.
For those outside the UK, the Guardian is a left-wing ‘warmist’ newspaper which prides itself on having an online comment section called ‘Comment is Free’. And it is, unless you suggest that climate change may be natural; in which case you are ‘deleted’. So, comment is free, but speech isn’t.
I notice that this piece is written by someone called Ian Sample, who is described as their ‘Science Correspondent’. So much for the Guardian’s science then.
But this one really takes the biscuit. it shows that they are getting desperate. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.
“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad”
If aliens can detect any fingerprint of intelligent life on earth, it will be our electronics communications.
If the person who wrote this is even allowed in the same building as real scientists. Then we really do have a HUGE problem!
So thermonuclear explosions will not trigger this response from ET but a very tiny increase in a life giving trace gas will. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Perhaps ETs just hate plants.
Wouldn’t it be funny if aliens destroyed our civilization to protect the Universe from ever reading The Grauniad?
“…and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew there plans against us”
Meanwhile, in the Guardian newsroom, minds immeasurably inferior to ours wrote this.
“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 (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.”
So, how many advanced alien civilizations are estimated to be located within one hundred thousand light years of earth?
Propagation delay — it’s a tough concept.
I think NASA could tolerate a few budget cuts.