What the search for alien life can tell us about exhausting Earth’s resources

American physicist Enrico Fermi may be best known as one of the architects of the atomic bomb, but he is a cult-like figure for cosmologists as well. That is due to the so-called Fermi Paradox, a proposition that came out of a casual conversation that Fermi had with some fellow-physicists in 1950.

The gist of the matter is this: If our galaxy—the Milky Way—consists of 100-400 billion stars (many of which are nearly as old as the Big Bang), and if these stars preside over their own solar systems, with many hosting Earth-like planets, then the likelihood of advanced space faring civilisations must be extremely high. In which case, to quote Fermi, “Where is everybody?”

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Many hypotheses have been advanced to answer this paradox, none of which are comforting our own human civilization. One of these—called the Great Filter hypothesis—is that, given stable planetary conditions like our own, high technology civilisations probably grow too big too carelessly, and self-destruct before they can become space-faring ones, much like we might with runaway climate change or nuclear war.

The darkest explanation for the Fermi Paradox is the Dark Forest hypothesis, originated by the acclaimed Chinese science fiction writer Cixin Liu, and named after the second book of his wildly popular The Three Body Problem trilogy of novels. To put it simply, a Dark Forest universe is one where every planetary civilization is both the hunter and the hunted, locked in a stealthy death spiral for the control of resources with every other advanced civilization. In such a scenario, it is better to maintain radio silence and survive, and never alert other beings of your existence. Hence, the Dark Forest.

Liu’s trilogy is a work of hard science fiction that bases its plot on a variety of real world scenarios of quantum physics and cosmology. Liu posits a quite ingenious explanation for the Dark Forest hypothesis, based on two “axioms” of a hypothetical cosmic sociology, i.e. the study of civilizations that make up cosmic society. These are: “Survival is the primary need of civilization”, and that “Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the Universe remains constant”. In the race to acquire and exploit the finite resources of a galaxy, spacefaring alien civilizations consider each other with extreme suspicion, and think it is a better idea to annihilate other cultures first, and ask questions later.

Liu’s concept of such a nihilistic universe is based on Earth’s bloody history of military conquest and colonialism. After all, one of the outcomes of European colonisation of large swathes of Asia, including India, was that other Asian cultures like Japan and China sought to isolate and hide themselves—with various degrees of success—from European rapaciousness.

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Now, how does it all pertain to climate change? As Amitav Ghosh puts it so succinctly in his book The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables Of A Planet In Crisis (2021), the history of resource-extractive colonialism is the history of climate change and environmental collapse. Fuelled by the technological leap of the Industrial Revolution, western European powers and later the USA laid waste to large chunks of the planet and obliterated entire cultures, supercharging their own economic rise at the expense of the global South.

And while doing so, the West guzzled fossil fuels like never before, ultimately leading to the high concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and the present climate crisis. The entire idea of climate justice, and by extension climate finance, is rooted in this colonial history.

If we were to take the axioms of the Dark Forest hypothesis and transplant it back on Earth, they remain equally true. After all, nearly every nation wants to grow, but on a planet with finite resources. Take the Earth Overshoot Day: it is the date, in a given year, when our demand for ecological resources and services provided by the planet outstrips its capacity. An average of the individual overshoot day for every country in the world, the global date is slated to fall on 1 August this year.

This date highlights the stark disparities in resource consumption and the underlying tensions that fuel global conflicts. For instance, while wealthier nations with more significant ecological footprints reach their overshoot day much earlier in the year (for the US it is early March), poorer countries with lesser consumption exceed their ecological capacity much later (Indonesia, late November).

The resource scarcity highlighted by Earth Overshoot Day reflects a microcosm of the larger interstellar scenario described by Liu. Just as advanced civilizations in the Dark Forest are driven to eliminate potential threats to secure resources, nations on Earth engage in competitive behaviours in the pursuit of limited resources such as water, arable land, and fossil fuels. And this invariably leads to environmental destruction and geopolitical strife, mirroring the Dark Forest’s predatory dynamics.

The relentless pursuit of growth for growth’s sake has nearly pushed our planet's ecosystems beyond their capacity to recover. The Dark Forest hypothesis offers a chilling perspective on our planetary future, which underscores the urgent need for cooperative strategies to address climate change and resource scarcity.

Recognizing the interconnectedness of these issues could help us navigate the precarious balance between survival and sustainability in our own “forest” of finite resources. Otherwise, notwithstanding the reassuring voices and earnest pledges at every annual UN climate summit, in this globalised world, there will be nowhere to hide.

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