Hi Earthlings !

Copyright: Rolf Schmidt 2008

Copied with permission from www.spanglefish.com/greatreading
(See website for conditions)

Hi Earthlings
 
My name is Zgg Vrmmbw. I am the Chief Anthropologist on board the research vessel Ode to Knowledge from the star system OGLE-2006-BLG-109. This message is coming to you from your future. 
We first picked up your signals in your year 2108 from a distance of approximately 100 of your light years, and found them sufficiently intriguing to alter course and investigate. 
Imagine then our surprise when, instead of the cool, brilliant-blue jewel that we had glimpsed from your TV transmissions, we arrived at an over-heated, near-dead planet whose atmosphere contained high concentrations of methane and hydrogen sulphide. 
When I entered a lab where they had just opened a sample from the planet surface, my reaction was: “Whoaa! Somebody let off a big one in here!” 
Fortunately diluted with the ship’s air, the mixture was no more harmful than a rather malodorous fart of similar chemical composition. On the planet surface it is concentrated enough to be lethal to most life-forms; hence the near-complete extinction of life on your planet. Responsible for the bad smell are the anaerobic bacteria in your stagnant oceans. Conversely, the only life forms left on land are primitive slime molds which tolerate high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide.    
 
To solve the riddle of your dead planet and vanished civilisation, we had to match the data from the planet in front of us to any clues in the transmissions we received from the planet during our approach. This is where my contribution comes in.
During our 2 month approach, I had already studied these transmissions and learned some of your languages in preparation for first contact. Because your transmissions traveled at only the speed of light, they gave us a glimpse back in time, starting in your year 1935 and fizzling out by approximately 2000. It would have helped if we had picked up your signals right until the point of extinction. Unfortunately by your year 2000, most of your communications went via your “internet” which we were unable to eavesdrop into at long range. By the time we got within range, you had already disappeared and the internet with you. This means we have no direct footage of what happened to you after 2000. Due the flimsiness of your recording media, our archeological digs have not been able to shed much light on the matter either so far.  
Our sensor data and our samples indicate that the major change in your atmosphere was caused by the release of methane that had accumulated on your ocean floors. Such methane deposits occur on many water-rich planets, and can be destabilised by meteor impacts or extreme volcanic activity. On Earth we found no evidence of any such calamity. The most likely remaining explanation was a sharp temperature rise. But what would have caused this? I am proud to say that the honour of putting the final piece into the jigsaw goes to me. When I studied your culture, I noticed that you derive most of your energy from burning carbon deposits which were left by hundreds of millions of years of life on your planet. The resulting increase in carbon-dioxide in your atmosphere raises the temperature through what you call the greenhouse effect. In your present time, this is already causing your ocean level to rise and your climates to change. A carbon-induced temperature rise of 1-2 degrees, in combination with an over-all weakening of the carbon absorption capability of your planet through pollution and deforestation, is sufficient to trigger run-away warming beyond the 6 degrees needed to destabilise the methane. 
My theory is that once your oceans began to belch up their methane, the fireballs and shockwaves of it igniting destroyed your few remaining cities (those not already flooded or otherwise devastated by climate change), together with most living things. The end result is the rotting corpse of a planet that I can see from my cabin window as I dictate this message to my ship’s computer.       
 
That brings me to the reason why I send this message back through time. Incidentally we have not invented time travel as yet, but we have limited capability to communicate back through time.
What puzzles me, and what makes your case such a major discovery in my field of research, is that no civilisation in the entire universe that we know of has ever committed collective suicide. So what is the reason? You had everything going for you: A wonderful planet; much more attractive than the one I was born on. Your arts were among the finest I have seen in the entire galaxy. You had powerful brains; you developed from stone-age to pretty-near interstellar travel in just a few hundred years. That took my race a thousand generations! And yet I note your aggression and mistrust towards each other, and the schizoid way in which you can subscribe to truths but not act according to them. 
Of course the laws of nature prevent this message from changing your history. However, the same laws have no problem with information from the past changing the future; in particular my career by contributing to my next, ground-breaking research paper. 
To get to the point: I am sending this message to your leading journals for publication in the year 2008, when according to our calculations the planet is about to pass its tipping point towards extinction. In the interest of science, I kindly ask you to respond. 
My question is this: Earth civilisation had full knowledge of global warming and its consequences. It also had every opportunity to reduce its carbon emissions. So why did it do nothing to prevent its own demise? Please send your analysis on quality paper in a water-tight envelope and addressed in permanent ink, to: Ode to Science Earth Study 2108, Poste Restante, 111 Baker Street, Westminster, London W1U 6SG, where I will be able to locate it on my next expedition to the submerged ruins of London. 
Apart from about 2 cubic metres of artifacts, and apart from the complete episodes of “Star Trek Next Generation” which I rather enjoyed watching and which I have added to the archives of my faculty, this study will be the only significant trace to remain of your species. You have my sincere thanks for your cooperation. 
 
With kind regards
 
Zgg Vrmmbw       
 
Professor of Anthropology, University of Glbh on the 4th planet of 2006-BLG-109