The War of the World
A parable with apologies to H. G. and Orson
(If you want to hear why this is written in this strange style, go to www.audible.com and download the 1939 radio version of "War of the Worlds.")
We know now that in the mid years of the 20th Century and even earlier, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man, yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
With infamous complacency people went to and fro the Earth about their affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this spinning fragment of solar driftwood, which by chance and design man had inherited out of the dark mystery of time and space. Yet, across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that to our minds are as ours to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
In the 50th year of the 21st Century the first spaceships landed. There were many Earthly preparations for this invasion, drawing on the simultaneous data retrieval and analysis by the Russians, the Europeans, the Chinese and the Americans in the early years of the century. The data indicated some objects were approaching which, if their course and speed did not change, would enter the Earth’s orbit forty years hence. The electronic data was subsequently confirmed by sightings as the years passed.
Much, but not all was learned about the invaders from the analyses of remains of the scout ships recovered and hidden in New Mexico in the middle of the 20th Century and in Arkaim many centuries before. A combination of denial of the scientific evidence of the coming intrusion, the End Time belief that this would be the beginning of The Rapture, the uncertainty regarding the objective of the visitors—peace or conquest—delayed preparations.
Space probes that were met with fiery destruction ruled out any hope of a peaceful encounter with those hurtling toward the planet. Ultimately, there came a realization that this threat, which could end life as we knew it, made small the inter-nation, inter-religious conflicts on the planet. All such squabbles seemed like petty bickering in the face of this external specter. This threat, combined with a need at the time to end a persistent global economic malaise bordering on depression, brought the world together. Capital was provided. Technologies were shared. Ideologies blended. Peace prevailed, and the war preparations to confront these extra-celestial visitors began.
A variety of global agendas were implemented as science and hard data overcame superstition and politics. The pace of technological development accelerated. As had happened historically in the developed world, the war-based technologies spilled over into quotidian life.
There grew a continuing need to develop very powerful energy sources to match the force of the star-based weapons that annihilated the ever more sophisticated and hardened probes launched toward the oncoming armada. Carbon-based energy--coal, petroleum, gas--the residuals from the effect of the sun and insufficient vs. the more powerful and sustainable direct solar-based energies, were replaced at a higher rate than ever would have occurred in the pre-predator world of parochial and non-scientific views of what and who were causing the warming trend of the planet. Enhanced communications increased the transparency of all that was happening around the globe and reinforced the positive behaviors that encompassed more of humanity. A generation grew up with this coming threat overhanging it, living in a world where the bickerings of the past existed only in recorded histories.
Life went on. The technological advances brought the 3 billion souls who would have lived outside the global economy into a better existence—even with the approaching threat of the invasion. There was an underlying optimism that this threat would be met successfully even though there was, at no time, evidence of a capability to repel the invader.
The attempt to end the invasion in space failed. The warships entered the atmosphere wreaking havoc on structures and humanity, much as might have occurred over the previous forty years without the vast changes wrought by the single determined focus on the external threat. Coastal areas were the most devastated as the invaders strangely turned much of their weaponry toward melting the glacial coverings of the extreme northern and southern latitudes. Over the span of 90 days the flooding of the coastal areas and the severe storms from the changed wind and water patterns caused more loss of lives and property than any direct attack would have. Despair and panic prevailed as the destruction of the human race seemed imminent.
Then, suddenly, the destruction ceased.
As the remaining elements of humanity emerged from their shelters, they came across the wreckage of the spaceships and the remains of the alien creatures with the appearance of those discovered and hidden in previous centuries. What had caused their demise? Was it the childhood diseases as described in the great fiction of the late 19th Century describing an invasion from our neighbor in our own solar system? The re-creation of what happened indicated otherwise.
What became apparent, as analysts pieced together all the evidence was an interesting tale—some of which was surmise and some based on hard fact:
As the invaders approached the Earth it appeared that, except for defensive purposes, their targets were the vast snow-covered regions of the northern and southern climes. The invaders had set Earth as their destination based on their judgments that the planet, at the end of their long journey, would provide a suitable environment for colonization. The natural resources were similar and not as depleted as those in their own solar system. While their scouts had not survived the previous incursions on the planet, the data submitted by the latest mission told a tale that spoke to sustainable existence in an approaching time.
However, as the colonists neared the planet, they realized that the primary ingredient for survival, the right atmosphere, did not, in fact, exist as the earlier data had predicted. The stored atmosphere on the ships was depleting rapidly, as had been expected by the end of their journey. Thus, the frozen regions of the Earth became the primary targets. The belief was that if the methane and other gases trapped in and below the frozen climes were released, it was possible that the atmosphere would quickly be life-sustaining for them. They required an atmosphere with enough carbon-based gases to survive. Anything above 450 parts per million of CO2 would have been sufficient. The data from their scouts regarding the likely path of industrial carbon-based development on the planet, had predicted that such an atmosphere, even while bringing with it severe meteorological patterns, was more than assured to exist by the time the colonists landed.
As the travelers approached the Earth they realized that the air contained insufficient carbon and would not sustain them. In a desperate ill-conceived attempt to quickly change the mix, they used their high energy weapons to free the trapped gases under the frozen water, knowing, also, that the change in sea level would produce the chaos their scouts had predicted they would find already in existence on the planet. All of which would ease the way for dominance and ultimate extermination of the native population.
The carbon-insufficient atmosphere that greeted and destroyed them was a side effect of the global response to meet the threat of their invasion. The planet was saved. Rebuilding and recovery began. And the lessons of global focus and sharing sustained a peaceful world for many generations.
Is there a lesson we can take away from this fictional tale? I think so. We are facing the equivalent of an alien invasion that will destroy life as we have come to know it. It will manifest itself in the form of the devastation that will come from the anthropogenic atmospheric changes that will occur over the next four decades. All we need to save the planet, humanity and our standard of living is an atmosphere with less than 450 parts per million of CO2. 350 would be even better.
Can we mobilize the technologies and the energies of the people of this planet to put aside our differences, accept the scientific evidence, avoid the politics and the blame game and turn away the aliens—aliens, not of another solar system--that are multiplying right within the world around us?
We are under attack and we must respond individually and as a planet. We know the danger. Contrary to our fictional counterparts above, we know we can provide the solutions. And, as above, we know the timetable in which the solutions must be implemented. If we don’t begin taking individual responsibility now, global responsibility will never happen.
The alien force is approaching.
