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)
================================================================
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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“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet.
They are already all over the place since IPCC 3 in 2001. They look like humans and gather in Green parties. They are all from Mars (or Venus, like James Hansen).
Today is a good day to be a denier. After reading all these comments and I feel good! 😉
It’s a joke, but people will do anything to get published. Reminds me of an email joke
I received recently from a friend in UK. It started off ‘Bye for now, I am packing my
bags, no sure when I’ll be back again…”
I scrolled down, and there were three little green aliens dancing away and underneath
the message read …
We are looking for good looking sexy middle aged women so be ready to receive us.
Cheers for now, I’m packing my bags too just in case it wasn’t a joke …LOL
Anthony, Please do what you can to assure this thoughtful, insightful, peer reviewed paper is read on every TV station in the US. It deserves no less!
Dear Dave R Aug 19 9.51 pm.
(With great respect I may add) May I suggest you don’t use the term ‘denier’. I am a skeptic about the AGW claim promoted by those who wish to gain financial benefits by corrupting the data to suit their hypothesis.
While attending a lecture by Prof Robert Carter recently he pointed out, denying climate change is not the issue, and can be used against those who disagree with AGW. Climate change is real, but not driven by CO2 or carbon emissions. And more importantly cutting carbon emissions and turning to expensive clean energy will not change the climate anyway. I suggest that you and others emphasise you do believe in climate change as a natural cycle in Earth’s history. But absolutely disagree with AGW as being false to the point it is fraudulent and a lie bringing real science study
into disrepute.
In the mean time folks look at this ‘Stop The Environment’ if this was meant to be a skit on skeptical science, then it didn’t work. It is funny though, are they suggesting again we can control the climate – warning, strong language used.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/170f627ee7/stop-the-environment
I love the comment about Al Gore?
Well, if there really were aliens. . . they would destroy humans because we were so stupid as to write junk like this anywhere.
What if the Aliens are plant based.. They will LOVE the increase in Co2, and possibly thank us .. he he he
….. Of course the joke is not the aliens, but that anthropogenic sources of CO2 have any significant effect on climate…… That’s the real joke. 🙂
Marine at 4.15 am I wrote a book actually that concerned a ET who landed by a fault in her surveyor vessel and stranded on Earth.From a solar storm actually c 1788 the same time as the first colonisation by the British in Australia. She could not tolerate the lack of humidity and higher oxygen content of our atmosphere. She landed in the outback. So she had to don a humidity suit to survive in our atmosphere. However, she was able to maintain her physical needs by
the help of Aborigines who directed her to an subterranean cavern where there was plenty of water and she survived in this artificial atmosphere driven by solar energy (from her craft) and plants that gave off more CO2 than oxygen. Until her ET mates could rescue her. I wrote it 20 years ago. However – the plants she brought with her were also ET. It seems these plants had the same ESP as our canines seem to have and were a necessary companion on her flights. Must bring it up to date.
“One flew over Cuckoo’s Nest” comes to mind.
This must be a record on WUWT, 334 comments, 335 if this one gets through moderation. Is this a record? And can we please have some more idiotic but true posts please Anthony, I haven’t laughed so much for ages.
On http://www.joannenova.com.au they got over 1000 for Convoy of No Confidence, then brought in another. Some were actually against the protest, but Jo let them through.
Typical trolls who still think humans contr0l the climate.
As a lot of pro CAGW people do, argue it is peer reviewed science so must be good, yeh right.
If any aliens are even 50 light years away they can only see up to August 1961 at the moment. To any CAGW supporters here, get real and don’t believe everything you read, research it yourself. If there is no better example this has to be the one.
I’ve got it! The whole CAGW scare was just a big goof, a practical joke of sorts. This aliens thing is the tip-off. They were only kidding the whole time! Duh! We skeptics/climate realists can be really dense, sometimes. Any day now, they’re going to say “ha-ha, fooled ya, nyuck nyuck nyuck”. Right? Right?
And the winner is : “Buy a Prius or Mork will shoot you in the face, say experts”
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/buy-a-prius-or-mork-will-shoot-you-in-the-face%2c-say-experts-201108194216/
Now that’s funny!
Andrew Harding says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:08 am
“This must be a record on WUWT, 334 comments, 335 if this one gets through moderation. Is this a record? And can we please have some more idiotic but true posts please Anthony, I haven’t laughed so much for ages.”
=========================================================
It’s a few hundred short of a record and my off-the-cuff guess would be that it’s not even in the top 50.
However… congratulations on post #335, and you are correctomundo; the comments have been a hoot!
These are the same idiots that were drinking heavily during the Reagan years, convinced that we were all going to die in a fireball of nuclear death. Or perhaps it’s their children…
All aboard the paranoid and stupid train…
I nominate this paper for the 2011 Best Appeal to Deus ex Machina Award and may I further suggest the Paul Krugman be the presenter of the award should this paper win?
If the ET’s are so concerned about AGW why don’t they give us zero-point energy?
So we don’t have to kill ourselves after all ROFL!
Looking at the author’s homepages is, well, enlightening – although not in the way I suspect they’d like. One has to seriously wonder about the quality of science education in our schools when you run across things like this – not to mention it’s certainly a heck of a note about the value of ‘peer-review’ anymore. Anyhow, on the homepages…. On one, personal news and music interests come before research, writing, and resume. Or we can check out another published paper, also in a supposedly peer reviewed journal (this one open source, so the authors paid something like $600 for the priviledge), which is described by the author as follows (with links to the youtube bit etc. http://sethbaum.com/ac/2010_Doom.html):
We really need a dramatic reading of that by William Shatner!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpbSwSlP4Yc (tweets) Or by Sarah Palin for that matter, as you’ll see from the Shatner/Palin book-off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-mgBvCJmo Just hear, in your mind, either of them going at the above abstract and you’ll be grinning at the least.
Of course, we do have to give some credit – one of this trio did give us the entertaining:
“The Arrival”: Aliens help us raise Earth’s temp, because they like it hot. A 1996 sci-fi movie; gives a new meaning to the term “AGW.”
Deus ex spatio populi
There’s nothing to fear. I know how to speak to spacemen.
Agga Bogga Hagraffa.
I learned that from the “Addams Family” years ago.
Funny. Paul Krugman suggested it would be a good thing with a space alien invasion.
“…I’m deeply sorry for that, but it was a mistake born our of carelessness and inexperience and nothing more.”
Oh, yeah? What about ignorance and gross stupidity? Oh, wait; this was in the Grauniad? No problem, then.