Pale Blue Dot

I just finished reading Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It's an incredibly humbling and enlightening work, and I highly recommend reading it.

From the very beginning he illustrates how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe.  Sagan vigorously talks about our successes so far.  Some highlights, the Voyager spacecrafts launched to explore our galaxy contain large samples of our culture, and will carry them for 600 billion years to the center of the Milky Way.  The Voyagers will last far passed the time when our solar system is destroyed and all traces of us from this day and age will be gone.

He goes on to talk about the horrific problems we face.  We currently face three potentially self inflected environmental disasters that could end life on our world.  First is the destruction of our Ozone due to CFCs.  As a species we have made remarkable effort to prevent any further creation of CFCs, but what we've already done will continue to destroy our ozone layer for roughly 100 years.  Whether we stopped in time has yet to be determined.

Secondly we face global warming.  With slight increases in global temperatures due to an increased presence of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans will evaporate at a faster rate than it can precipitate, which in tern will trap more heat.  This vicious irreversible cycle will eventually leave our planet a charred volcanic crisp just like Venus.

Lastly we face a potential nuclear winter if we find ourselves in the unfortunate state of nuclear war.  The nuclear winter will freeze life, leaving our planet like Mars.

Which do you think is the most dangerous of the self inflicted apocalypses?

Certainty any other life that comes across our voyagers will be wondering if we made it through these trying times.  If we do come across any sort of life in our solar system, I wonder if it can survive with our interference.

We, who cannot even put our own planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatreds, despoiling our environment, murdering one another through irritation and inattention as well as on deadly purpose, and moreover a species that until only recently was convinced that the Universe was made for its sole benefit- are we to venture out into space, move worlds, re-engineer planets, spread to neighboring star systems?

We seem to have overcome our first stepping stone where a group of people has the means to destroy us all.  There are certainty problems we face; large scale environmental disasters to overcome, but we're still progressing forward.  Assuming we can overcome our current crises, I believe there will be a point in technology where any Individual has the means to destroy the world. Will we be prepared for that?  There will likely be a new species in the near future, a species that evolves at will through genetic and artificial manipulation.  Hawking's mentions it in his book The Universe in a Nutshell  and in his lecture discussed here.  Hopefully we will seek wisdom over power with superior intellect.  These are certainty exciting times.

Sagan's finishing words are uplifting:

If we have been locked and bolted into a prison of the self, here is an escape hatch-something worthy, something vastly larger than ourselves, a crucial act on behalf of humanity.  Peopling other worlds unifies nations and ethnic groups, binds the generations, and requires us to be both smart and wise.  It liberates our nature and, in part, returns us to our beginnings.

Here's to hoping we can find peace and unification.  That we can put our differences aside and achieve the unimaginable.