The Elegant Solution
by Harrison Chase
FOREWORD
Before I begin there are some points I simply have to make...
This is NOT a call to arms or a political statement in any way.
It is NOT meant as a rallying call to bring people into action.
This is NOT a request that you kill yourself.
In fact, if the things that I talk about in these pages actually happen then I will be utterly horrified.
But... they really are the only real and elegant solution to our problem.
THE PROBLEM
As you are no doubt aware, we live on a planet called Earth. A spherical rock with a surface covered in almost three quarters water and neatly wrapped in an oxygen rich atmosphere.
The planet is located in the "Goldilocks zone" around a surprisingly handy yellow sun. Not too far away, there happens to be a nicely located natural moon. This moon provides a natural rhythm and was probably responsible for stirring up the primordial soup into action.
These natural phenomenon have conspired to produce The single most destructive creature in existence.
Us.
The human race.
In our own eyes we are the most evolved and clever species in the universe. We only think this because we have yet to meet anyone else to demonstrate how utterly backward we truly are.
The planet we are living on is a finite resource and as a race we are taking more than ever before.
We pollute our world at an alarming rate and see our continued existence as some sort of right.
This state of affairs simply cannot go on.
As a species, our main problem seems to stems from our inability to see any other point of view as worth more than our own. Just take a moment to think about that. Have you ever considered anyone else as being a better human than you? Of believing someone else to be a wiser individual than you? Have you ever really considered the plight of an unrelated generation destined to live in a world you once called home?
I would be surprised if you had.
One of the problems we have in seeing a “Big Picture” for any length of time is our inability to grasp concepts that are so very much larger than the lives we lead.
The lives of future generations count upon us in ways we can't even being to fathom. And yet we never think about them.
However, all is not lost.
There is hope.
And in the following pages I will narrow our options down.
THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
In the Hollywood spy thriller - Three Days of The Condor (1975), we are introduced to a special department of the American Secret Service.
This fictional department has one job. It reads books and watches movies in order to get ideas that can be put into practice in the real world.
These days, such people like to call themselves "futurologists". Either way we can now join them to look at our options
Obviously the best place to find our options when it comes to dealing with future events, lies in the greatest of all genres - Science fiction.
Our starting point must begin with the establishment of a single and unavoidable fact.
FACT - The world, the entire earth, could be saved in one single move. With the removal of only ONE creature from the ecosystem, nature would a return to equilibrium and most of the animals and plants would be safe.
Nature would rise up again and take back the planet.
Unfortunately for us, the creature that would need to be removed from the bio sphere is the Human Race.
Another assumption which needs to be made is that we are utterly alone in the universe.
Yes, I know that this is a disappointment to most science fiction fans but the possibility that some kindly passing alien could turn up and save us from ourselves is frankly delusional.
This we can refer to as "The Doctor Who Solution." Or "Zero Solution"
A similar (if not identical) argument can be made about the possibility of Divine Intervention, Both of these obeying Clarkes Third Law to one extent or another.
Here Clarkes law meaning... Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And what we seek here is a practical solution to the problems surrounding the world.
From this standpoint, it makes logical sense if we assume that we are the only sentient beings in the universe and only have ourselves to count on.
If this is too much of a blow for you to take, why not look at in another way? How impressed would a visiting alien race be if we sorted out the problem for ourselves?
Alternatively you could look at it this way...
There is, mathematically speaking, a strong probability that there is other intelligent life in the universe... But it’s also mathematically unlikely that any race would have developed to a point where the speeds needed to reach us would be possible. Cosmically speaking we are here for such a short length of time that we don’t stand much of a chance of meeting up with anyone else who is also in existence for a the same relatively short time.
Yes, fiction brings us Warp drive, star/jump gates and a host of interesting alternatives but the same fictions also bring us invaders and races who "want our women" or something equally preposterous.
This “world” view would not offer alien life forms anything that they could not acquire easily from other places in the asteroid belt. (Never mind the rest of the universe.)
The only real reason to invade us would be to harvest the complex life forms that exist here. They may want our chlorophyll, or indeed just a new home.
Ice/water can be found in space as can all precious minerals and metals they could ever need.
It is only "life" that sets our space borne marble apart from the rest of the worlds.
Yes, we are in a goldilocks zone and have an atmosphere and magnetic shielding but these come with the planet and would be difficult to remove.
As we currently have no unified defence against an extra terrestrial threat we should ignore it for the purposes of this piece.
There is no UN.I.T. (or U.N.I.T. for anyone watching BBC TV before 2006) or Torchwood. No Terrahawks or Spectrum. No Mulder and Skully or even a Project Blue Book. Due to cuts at the UN and US state office very few people are watching the skys these days.
Our big problem is not one concerned with invasion. It is one concerned with greed, ignorance and stupidity.
If you ignore the evidence and don’t believe in global warming then that’s a decision for your own conscious.
What you can’t deny is that we are using up our resources at a rate that will end badly for us.
Obviously, factoring in global warming we are presented with a more urgent call to action where alternative solutions must be found. This simply makes the quest for an answer more urgent.