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"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. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain."
Oh no no no. They'll just show up with popcorn, and watch. "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
ha! my good friend is the lead author on the original article. small world after all and all that.
Meh. The hell with gasses. Always blame the fart on the dog.
So someone got stoned and watch The Day the Earth Stood Still — the shitty-ass remake, not the original — and called it science? Wait, some dudes got stoned, watched a bunch of alien movies, wrote a paper and The Guardian called it science.
@KenWheaton At least one of the guys neither smokes pot nor reads/watches science fiction. Hard to believe, I know.
@bluesuedeshoes Extremely hard to believe. REALLY HARD TO BELIEVE.
I love the idea that the aliens wouldn't just be monitoring our radio communications, which would tell them all they need to know!!
@josiah A rare moment of seriousness here: monitoring our radio communications is a lot harder than you may think. Consider that upon receipt of this signal for the first time, the underlying content is in a language for which they know absolutely none of the grammar or vocabulary. Then it's modulated in some way that may or may not be obvious (in other words, broadcast as AM, FM, television, etc…). Finally, it's attentuated beyond belief and mixed with large quantities of static. I think that prospective aliens at any distance would be lucky to even RECOGNIZE our radio comms as communications, much less be able to interpret them. As an example, consider linear A – still undeciphered after all this time… and it's just a piece of writing we can look at. Without any sort of context, these kinds of things are all but impossible to decipher.
Which is not to say that I'm onboard with the "fix global warming so we don't get eaten by space aliens" theory. That's… just kind of dumb.
foolish mortals! The Machines will get us long before the aliens ever get their shit together.
Oh honest to pete. Really. Enough.
We're already living on borrowed time.
http://www.viruscomix.com/warpdrives.jpg
Yeah, if Earth is dressed that way, she is asking for it.
@johnpseudonym I thought we were supposed to get beyond orb-shming.
No no NO,this is all wrong. The aliens are ALREADY HERE, and they are TERRAFORMING OUR PLANET. Just wear the damn sunglasses already.
No need for "drastic action' – intelligent aliens will recognize the accumulation of greenhouse gasses as a sign we're keeping ourselves "from becoming a more serious threat."
@Ralph Haygood I think that makes more sense than the original theory.
So? The aliens can eat me!