As the question was originally put in the famous Drake Equation (formulated in 1960-1961 by Frank Drake, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California—Santa Cruz), what is the average lifetime of a civilization advanced enough to be detectable by intelligent beings located on other planets? In answer to that question if polled on the streets, many if not most Americans would likely express the opinion that it would last thousands of years. But, what if, as the historian of science, Michael Shermer, predicts, the average lifetime of a technological civilization is only 300 years?
A logical follow-up question is, why would high-tech civilizations only last a relatively short time? If we use our present circumstances as a guide, many might conclude that technological civilizations that fail do not recognize until it is too late that the civilization had become ecologically unstable and self-destructive. In other words, by the time a species has developed technology capable of communicating with intelligent life on other planets, they most likely also have created and are using that technology to destroy their environment and thus the foundation of their civilization. The dark thought we must consider is that when short-term economic gain (meaning self-centeredness and greed), ignorance, indifference, and system-wide inertia—once a system has moved in a specific direction in terms of allocating resources it is extraordinarily difficult for it to change direction—take precedence over ecological health, the results are predictable, disastrous, and nearly impossible to reverse.
That prospect means that the far greater majority of all high-tech civilizations might disappear within 300 years of becoming high-tech owing to the above listed self-destructive propensities. The bottom line is whether Earth’s current civilization has what it takes to work through the technology-ecology conflict we are currently experiencing to the other side in a way that ensures survival for thousands of years. To aid this mini-test, we’ll assume our base year for calculation is the approximate start of the Industrial Revolution, 1800 CE.
The reality should be easy to see. In today’s America, many millions believe global warming/climate change, smart growth, green development, and sustainability are made-up nonsense and constitute socialist attacks on individual freedom, liberty, and property rights. Many if not most of those same people also believe that their elected representatives should get rid of the US EPA or, at the very least, scale it back until it is ineffectual in preventing corporations from doing whatever they please in terms of the environment.
In the U.S. today, many millions are determined to stop or eviscerate federal programs that address the 5.14 billion metric tons of CO2 (2017 estimates) Americans inject into the atmosphere every year. They are determined to ignore the meaning of methane released by the Arctic’s melting permafrost, deny the rapidly increased rate of melting of Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic sea ice, deny the implications of ocean acidification and heating, and ridicule the science that documents the rapidly changing geographic range of species that result from global warming.
Who are the people who sneer about global warming? They are voters who have given rise to the current malaise in the White House and in Congress. Americans like them form what is perhaps the most critical reason the U.S. has rejected coherent and effective policies to decrease air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, and environmental destruction that threaten our prosperity and our quality of life. People holding that worldview have elected national representatives who refuse to allow the U.S. to engage in international agreements that seek to cut CO2 emission on a global scale.
Although most of us don’t want to think about it, my personal conclusion is our high-tech civilization has already hit the critical tipping point and is on the decline. On those rare occasions we do think about it, we tend to throw up our hands in frustration because solutions are too hard to figure out or too far into the future to worry about. Yet, in reality, we seem hell-bent on ensuring Carl Sagan's chilling but prophetic words are fulfilled: “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” The trouble is the vast majority of us just want to go on living the sweet life as though tomorrow will never come and we will never have to pay the price for our profligate behavior.
Guess what. That tomorrow is around the corner but it will affect the coming generations far more than us. You should be relieved if you are more than 30 years old in 2018 but not so relieved if you have children or if you are over 65 and have grandchildren. Those children are the ones who will have to live with the decisions we’ve made. Isn't it comforting for us to be able to push the risk into the future and on someone else and not worry about consequences?
With all the physical evidence, it is hard not to see a bleak future when you look at our present conditions. Acidifying oceans. Rising sea levels. Warming climates. Increasing drought. Dying coral reefs. Increasing mercury levels and anti-biotic resistant diseases. Every place on Earth has been adversely affected by human agency. Countless species have been lost; others are endangered and are standing on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss.
The way our species has developed over the last several hundred thousand years has ensured we focus the far greater majority of our attention on immediate or short-term challenges, like threats to our current well-being, and basically ignore long-term, slowly emerging issues, like climate change, habitat destruction, or global population growth. What was once an evolutionary advantage has morphed into something far different, far more deadly to our survival.
Here’s my prediction. We are a species with nearly countless individuals
who are willfully blind to the consequences of our current actions and will
wind up destroying our high-tech civilization with a fatal combination of greed
and indifference. Our epitaph should be:
Although once we ruled the Earth,
we lacked the intelligence to survive.
