More With the Science Fiction

The Astute Reader no doubt has noticed that the blogger is digressing widely from his usual tack and interests.

What the heck, it's August, Congress is not in session, nor is County Council nor the State Assembly. For now, our wallets aren't any more at risk than when those august bodies took off for August recess. It's just too damned hot outside and I am recovering from yesterday's afternoon lawn-cutting -- you don't think I pay illegal aliens to take care of my beloved yard, do you? -- and my washing machine is running overtime cleaning all of the sweat from my laundry. So, what to do? Maybe I'll do some writing.

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I keep pointing out to the Astute Reader and even to anyone else that reads this (probably not a lot of folks) that I am pagan, of the eco-friendly and nature-loving variety. One of the reasons I don't hire illegal aliens to do the yardwork -- aside from the obvious drawback that it's a federal offense to aid and abet by employing them -- is that I like to hug my trees, so to speak, to maintain the condition of the land and landscaping as an act of devotion and honor to my creator. Like everything else that is natural to this world, including the world itself, my origins are in the ashes of former stars and from their fiery extinction and from their ashes has risen a new generation of life, as with the legendary Phoenix.

That the life of this world and I myself share that commonality lead me to feel that insofar as it harms me not, I shall not harm it, other than as I may need it for sustenance, and it is good any time that I can be compassionate to the wildlife and plants and the environment that comprises them.

If it is good for me to concern myself with the ecological health of my yard, it is good for me to concern myself with the ecological health of the neighborhood, of the county, of the state, of the nation, of the world.

And if I will defend my yard, should I not also concern myself with the defense of my neighborhood, my county, my state, my nation, my planet?

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A planet is a very large place. How can one control an entire planet? After all, we are only human, correct?

Once this was true. But perhaps you may want to read
Litany of the Engineers. It's a little science fiction poem I wrote almost 15 years ago.

I am not the only one, of course, who is a bit concerned that we ourselves may create the means of extinction, either merely our own extinction or the extinction of "life as we know it".

We used to be fairly certain that if we destroyed the life of this world, we'd do it with Mutual Assured Destruction and our species would end -- along with a lot of others -- in a hellish rain of nuclear fire.

So far, we have avoided that. Yet in the roughly 15 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the military detensioning of nuclear threat, new threats have arisen... such as global climate change (whether or not of anthropogenic origins) and population increases of a billion people every 12 years. In 1999, for the first time, human population reached 6-billion. By 2013, barring massive catastrophe, human population will reach 7-billions.

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The main reason for this, of course, is human technology, or so we believe. At any rate, near the beginning of the 20th century, the development of antibiotics along with efficient public health services assured the near eradication of many of the classic plagues and the actual eradication of one of the worst of them, smallpox.

Simple Penicillin can successfully treat almost all but the most advanced cases of Plague, and between the suppression of plague and the eradication of smallpox, the vast majority of causes of mass deaths have been eliminated for those living outside of the "malarial zones", and even there malaria is generally endemic rather than a mass death epidemic disease. Public health and sanitation systems and practices have suppressed other highly deadly epidemic diseases such as yellow fever and cholera. So of course the population is effectively unrestrained in its growth.

Yet in the 1960s, contraception was developed that was extremely effective, and in the industrialized nations, its use was so widespread that by the late 1990s, all of the industrialized nations were experiencing birth rates lower than needed to maintain numbers. An era of intentional widespread non-calamitous population decline had begun.

Yet the global population continues to climb at a pace, and in pure numbers, never before seen in recorded history, and by about 2200 will reach 10 billions, about the time that global change intensifies to the point where most of the planet will be effectively uninhabitable without high levels of industrialization and automation... and when the last fossil fuels are totally exhausted. Why?

Extraterrestrials, and rumors of extraterrestrials.

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The actually Astute Reader is doubtless stifling a yawn.

This idea of extraterrestrials meddling in the affairs of our planet to the point where mankind is destroyed is neither unusual as a delusion in various forms of mental illness, nor is it unusual in science fiction. In science fiction, it's such a commonplace standard that practically been "done to death". Extraterrestrial manupulation of human affairs, however, is generally conceived of as precipitating destruction, not widespread health and population growth.

This latter fact astounds me, especially when you consider that the Scripture of the JudeoChristian religion specifically details the creation of the planet and its population with humanity as originating extraterrestrially. Further, in the Genesis book, we see references to non-human beings called "nephelim"; not much farther on in Genesis we see that mankind are building a tower reaching to the sky, and the extraterrestrials declare that "if man succeed in this, they will be like us, nothing shall be beyond them". The story continues with the extraterrestrials releasing a plague that renders people incapable of understanding each others' speech, and scattering them across the face of the planet.

Of course, the specific word used for these extraterrestrials is not "extraterrestrial". But as they do not originate on this planet, that is the proper term.

Later, one Noah is advised to avoid catastrophe by building a great ship, and to take breeding pairs of animals aboard, along with his family, and thus they alone escape a great catastrophic flood, a flood so great that all land creatures not aboard the ship are destroyed.

Through much of the Scripture, we see many stories of extraterrestrial meddling in the affairs of this world, with much of that meddling consisting of epic catastrophes with widespread destruction and loss of life, including the destruction of entire cultures such as Sodom and Gomorrah.

And after the close of the Scripture, we are told that not long after the initial expansions of a new empire, extraterrestrials herald the arrival of an anointed child, who will be the salvation of mankind, and a declaration that on earth, there will be goodwill and peace for Men, on whom rests the favor of the most high one.

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I have to mention, here, that I am not discounting or insulting Judeochristian beliefs.

I am pointing out that for people who believe that every word in Scripture is the unquestioned history of the ancestors and descendants of Abraham, this unquestioned history is an unquestioned history of extraterrestrial meddling with earth.

Even the Apocrypha say as much, especially in the books of Enoch. And who am I to disagree with the Apocrypha, eh?

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So back to the modern day: and how can I suggest that extraterrestrials -- or rumors of extraterrestrials -- are responsible for Global Change, Overpopulation, and Peak Oil?

Well, two of those probably follow from another, and certainly one does follow from another. The more people there are, the faster we deplete non-renewable fossil fuels.

Arguably, the reason that the climate is changing is a combination of things, mostly greenhouse gas emissions.

Arguably, the more people you have consuming more fuel, the faster greenhouse gases are emitted.

Thus, every real danger facing this planet -- at least the ones over which mankind has any actual control with current technology -- is the result of overpopulation, of too many people.

And so where do extraterrestrials -- or rumors of extraterrestrials -- fit in?

If these rumored extraterrestrials exist and have meddled with our planet as described in the Judeochristian Scriptures, why don't they just drop another plague of Aphasia or maybe even drop a comet onto us?

Well, if you want to take with all seriousness that little speech from an extraterrestrial messenger seen in the Gospel of Luke, something changed in extraterrestrial politics, policies, ideologies, or whatever... and "on earth, peace, and good will towards Men, on whom His favor rests".

The extraterrestrials -- at least the ones the Scripture records as constantly meddling on earth -- are not allowed to wreck the planet.

Yet clearly, as the planet is in fact being quite measurably wrecked, they are not prohibited from letting us do it to ourselves.

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With almost no increase in global government expenditures -- a bare drop in the ocean, in most cases -- free contraception in the form of birth-control pills could be supplied to every nubile female on the planet.

Yet people who claim to be "religious", and in fact people who frequently claim that every single word in the Scripture and/or New Testament is absolutely true, also declare that contraception (other than by abstinence) is a sin, forbidden, or at least its nothing that they want to support with their taxes.

Why? Because the same extraterrestrial forces that their "absolutely true history" document says already destroyed humanity twice have declared that it's a sin to prevent that destruction a third time, in essence. By declaring contraception immoral and not fundable by taxpayers for foreign-aid programs, these people -- and that could be either the extraterrestrials of the Book or the politicians and preachers of this planet -- may have every assurance that humans will grossly overpopulate, to the degree that they raise the global average temperature a full 10-degrees centigrade, exhaust their energy supplies needed for the high-density agriculture to support these population figures, and promptly die out in a huge Mass Extinction event... one which is already underway for a huge number of other species on the planet.

Look, if I was an extraterrestrial and had lots of time on my hands, and could afford to wait as long as necessary, and if I liked a rather warmer environment than is found on most of Planet Earth, I'd definitely release medicines and farming technologies to gullible humans, and let their natural tendencies move them to fill up the planet, mine most of the metals, build industrial systems, and not-incidentally concentrate their populations in easy-to-bomb large urban centers. And make sure that they all believe that it is wrong to interfere in this plan by using contraception. Because, it's wrong, dontcha know.

Just wait until they overpopulate so badly that they've terraformed the place to my liking, letting them do all of the work, and then just knock out a few distribution systems at the most inopportune moment, and let nature take the course it would have taken with any global population over 1 billion or so, had I not supplied the medicines and technology. They all die off, and I get my nice hot planet with all of the ores extracted and neatly stacked as cities full of metal cars. I call in the rest of the colonizing fleet, and voila! Planet earth has new ownership and management.

Of course, I am not an extraterrestrial, nor do I have too much time on my hands.

I don't think that the human race has much time, though, until conditions are exactly perfect for our hypothetical extraterrestrials to fumigate our beehive, so to speak, and be left all to themselves with all of the honey all just for them, and no damn bees left to bother them.

Oh, that's right, the bees -- the real bees -- are pretty much vanishing everywhere... and when they go, they will take about one third of mankind's agriculture with them. Probably by around 2013 or so, right when the population hits 7 billions...

So, folks, this is what you get from listening to space creatures.

The only question right now is will enough people stop listening to them, in time to save the planet.

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