Where Are The Aliens? Scientist Says "Extinct"

The last decade or so has been rife with news about newly discovered planets found all over the galaxy. Moreover, many exoplanets have even been classified as existing within a “habitable zone,” a distance from the sun that would be optimal for developing intelligent alien life on an Earth-like world. And yet the question remains: if there are so many Earth-like planets in the universe, why haven’t we found any evidence of any intelligent life? One scientist believes he has the answer. They’re dead.

Dr. Aditya Chopra of the Australian National University told The Irish Times “To produce a habitable planet life forms need to regulate greenhouse gases such as water and carbon dioxide to keep surface temperatures stable…The mystery of why we haven’t found signs of aliens may have less to do with the likelihood of the origin of life or intelligence and have more to do with the rarity of the rapid emergence of biological regulation of feedback cycles on planetary surfaces.”

Or, simply put, alien life could be common–even rampant–across the universe. But their existence, and evidence of existence, has less to do with their intelligence and more to do with whether they could survive their planet’s highly unstable changes. Aliens could be all over. But if they can’t survive long enough to develop interstellar travel, they’re doomed if they’re planet becomes inhospitable.

This begs the question: will we also be one of many to have possibly come and go so soon?

2014 was the hottest year on record until 2015 came and went. Then 2015 broke that record and got even warmer. Christmas Day in New York actually reached around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, something previously unheard of. And each year we continue to deny climate change as the temperatures drastically change in many regions. More storms are developing and tearing up our coasts, more forest fires are blazing through our forests and homes, and more cold fronts are wrecking regions that have never experienced such chills before. Everything is changing, even while climate change deniers continue to fight the evidence in lieu of avoiding progress.

Progress costs. We’ve depended on oil for so long and it hasn’t always been the best for us economically. Alternative energy is in vogue now only because we’ve had to push for it to become “a thing,” and that usable oil is nearly depleted. But we should have been working on a transition a long time ago. We need to stop dragging our feet when it comes to change, or else climate change will turn us into the next species that will have come and gone and vanished relatively too soon.

And then we’ll be the ones that aliens will be looking for when they’re wondering why they’re so alone.

Let’s stick around long enough to meet the neighbors.

Source: The Irish Times, via IGN