It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, October 10, 2022
Megadroughts helped topple ancient empires. They're in Australia's past, with more to come
by Kathryn Allen, Alison O'Donnell, Benjamin I. Cook, Jonathan Palmer and Pauline Grierson, The Conversation
The Khmer Empire in Cambodia suffered decades-long dry periods.Credit: Fred Nassar/Unsplash, CC BY
Most Australians have known drought in their lifetimes, and have memories of cracked earth and empty streams, paddocks of dust and stories of city reservoirs with only a few weeks' storage. But our new research finds over the last 1,000 years, Australia has suffered longer, larger and more severe droughts than those recorded over the last century.
These are called "megadroughts," and they're likely to occur again in coming decades. Megadroughts can last multiple decades—or even centuries—with occasional wet years offering only brief relief. Megadroughts can also be shorter periods of very extreme conditions.
We show megadroughts have occurred several times across every inhabited continent over the last two millennia. They've dealt profound damage to agriculture and water supplies, increased fire risk, and have even contributed to toppling civilizations.
Unless we incorporate the full potential of Australian drought into our planning, management and design, their impacts on society and the environment will likely worsen in coming decades.
The role of climate change
Instrumental records only go back so far. In Australia, they cover only the last 120 years or so. Scientists can gauge local, yearly climate further back in time, by deciphering clues written in tree rings, corals, and buried ice (known as ice cores), among other archives.
To look at previous occurrences of megadroughts, we consolidated findings drawn from such datasets and a range of other long-term records.
Historically, droughts have been defined by rainfall deficits, and these deficits can be largely attributed to complex interactions between oceans and the atmosphere over a long time. For example, decades-long La Niña conditions have been linked to medieval droughts in North and South America.
In contrast, research suggests human-caused climate changeis now playing a more important role in amplifying drought conditions, as rising global temperatures increase evaporation.
There is some uncertainty in climate models about the effect of climate change on rainfall at local and regional scales. However, climate change is putting places that have previously endured megadroughts—such as Australia—at an increased risk of megadroughts in future.
Megadroughts and collapsing civilizations
Currently, parts of the United States—including Arizona, Nevada and Utah—are in the throes of a megadrought, lasting some two decades. Historically, megadroughts have profoundly impacted societies and environments.
In the American southwest, megadroughts in the late 1200s likely contributed to the desertion of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. Likewise, the Hohokam peoples relied heavily on a canal system, and this dependence in a time of severe and extended drought may have contributed to their decline over the 14th and 15th centuries.
In Central America, a megadrought between 1149 and 1167 likely brought instability to the Toltec state. And a megadrought between 1514–1539 weakened the Aztec state just prior to Spanish conquest.
Europe and Asia have had their share of megadroughts, too. Research shows severe megadroughts in Asia in the 1300s and early 1400s quite likely helped cause the collapse of Cambodia's vast Khmer Empire.
Megadroughts in Australia
While many Australians may remember the severity of the Millennium Drought between 1997 and 2009, we found this drought wasn't actually particularly unusual. Megadroughts of the same or greater severity have occurred over the past 1,000 years across several parts of Australia, and were relatively common over much of eastern Australia.
This includes megadroughts between 1500 and the 1520s, and between the 1820s and 1840s. And while relatively short, a dry period between 1789 and 1795, coinciding with European invasion, included several years of severe drought. The year 1792 in particular was extremely dry over almost all of eastern Australia.
Western Australia's wheat belt is currently experiencing a decline in rainfall. This, too, isn't unusual compared to droughts there in the past. Tree rings in the region reveal that longer, more severe droughts occurred there six times in the last 700 years, including the years 1393–1407, 1755–1785, and 1889–1908.
Even in Tasmania, evidence suggests prolonged dry periods occurred in the latter part of the 16th century, with a shorter but more severe downturn from 1670–1704.
We need to be better prepared
Water management in Australia has relied on short instrumental data. These do not capture the full range of variability in our rainfall.
This means, for example, that Australia's infrastructure may be inadequately designed or managed to cope with major flood events or prolonged dry conditions.
Now, even relatively short but very dry periods can lead to major problems. We saw this recently in Tasmania in the summer of 2015 and 2016 when, after a dry winter and spring, water levels in major catchments were minimal and fires raged in the west. The Basslink cable, which connects Tasmania to the national grid, broke, resulting in the use of diesel power generation to keep power on in the state.
Future megadroughts will amplify the pressures on already degraded Australian ecosystems. We know from Australia's recent past the harm relatively smaller droughts can impose on the environment, the economy, and our mental and physical health.
We must carefully consider whether current management regimes and water infrastructure are fit-for-purpose, given the projected increased frequency of megadroughts.
The recent history of the Roman Bowl–(A) the area where the bowl was found in relation to other Roman sites, exact findspot cannot be shown to protect the site (B) the interior and (C) exterior of the bowl during conservation and (D) the bowl on display at Sandwich Museum. Credit: Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17902-9
A corroded Roman bowl dated to the Late Iron Age (between 43 and 410 AD) contains traces of chlorobenzenes, a chemical once used in pesticides that is known to accumulate in soil and water sources. The study, published in Scientific Reports, highlights that soil polluted with chlorobenzenes may pose a continuing threat to the preservation of archaeological material still in the ground
Chlorobenzenes are synthetic compounds that can be toxic at high levels and most have been prohibited for use in the UK following concerns being raised about environmental pollution. These compounds are thought, however, to have accumulated in the environment through previous agricultural and industrial activities. A Roman bowl, made of a copper-alloy, was found in 2016 on a farm in Kent (UK), a site that was known to have been used for agriculture since at least 1936.
Luciana da Costa Carvalho and colleagues analyzed the green and brown-colored corrosion on the bowl to identify their different components. They found elements that were indicative of the changes over time in the soil caused by human activities. In the green-colored corrosion, the authors found chlorobenzenes were present. The authors also found diethyltoluamide (also known as DEET) in the brown-colored corrosion, a modern compound that is still used in insect repellents.
The authors suggest that the chlorobenzenes were associated with increased corrosion in the Roman bowl. They conclude that even though chlorobenzenes are no longer used in the UK, polluted soil may still threaten the preservation of archaeological material still buried and more research needs to be undertaken to better understand the processes involved.Study reveals corrosion mechanism of magnesium alloys in marine atmospheric environment
More information: Luciana da Costa Carvalho, The influence of pesticides on the corrosion of a Roman bowl excavated in Kent, UK, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17902-9
Just 20% of climate change studies are 'written by women'
by Dann Okoth, SciDev.Net
Professor Chioma Blaise Chikere at work. Credit: SciDev.Net’
Chioma Blaise Chikere is at the pinnacle of her career, as a professor of environmental microbiology and biotechnology at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria and director of the institution's Entrepreneurial Center.
Yet in this part of the world, such an achievement by a female scholar can be misleading.
Peel away the trappings that come with her office and you reveal a litany of struggles, obstacles and stereotypes that continue to dog the careers of many women scientists from the global South.
"My dream of becoming a world-class scientist was slipping through my fingers due to lack of funds," Chikere says of her earlier struggles. "My journey during early career days as a researcher and scientist was seriously limited by lack of access to educational resources for internationalization."
From a lack of access to standard scientific equipment and laboratories, to inadequate mentorship and scholarship opportunities, Chikere's career progression was in serious doubt.
Her story mirrors that of many researchers from the global South who still struggle to be on par with their counterparts in the North in terms of funding, collaboration and publishing—with negative impacts on global development.
"If there were biases in knowledge, then those biases translated themselves into innovations, creativity and development," says Elizabeth Pollitzer, the founder and director of Portia, a non-profit organization established to advance understanding of gender issues in science.
"Research shows that when you have a gender balance in a team, the collective intelligence of that team goes up. We need this diversity of cognitive approaches and problem solving."
Climate of exclusion
Despite progress on gender representation in science and research in recent decades, disparities still exist. Women author fewer of the papers that are published in journals than men, and higher numbers of women leave research, according to the findings by the scientific publisher Elsevier.
The gender gap is particularly prevalent in climate science. Only about 20% of published climate change research was attributed to female authors, according to an analysis by the International Center for the Study of Research, published in Scopus, Elsevier's abstract and citation database.
It considered research output data between 1996 and 2020, and showed that nearly 80% of all climate change research was attributed to men.
Regionally, the global North still dominated the climate change research landscape, accounting for more than 80% of all research in the past two decades—and this global share rises to more than 90% if China is excluded from the list of global South countries.
Pollitzer condemns "a culture that excludes women," adding, "Even when you have enough women in the talent pool, it's the men who will be invited to join research teams.
"Something strange happens where women appear to be systematically excluded."
Research funders, academic institutions and publishing firms must make deliberate efforts to increase the visibility of women researchers from the global South, Pollitzer says.
Visibility gaps
Chikere is one example of how institutional support can benefit the careers of women scientists.
The opportunity for Chikere came in 2017 after she applied for the Chemistry for Climate Action Challenge, a competition jointly run by the Elsevier Foundation—part of the corporate responsibility program of global publishing body Elsevier—and Elsevier's chemistry journals team. The challenge recognizes individuals and organizations whose projects use green and sustainable chemistry solutions to tackle the developing world's greatest sustainability challenges.
Chikere was awarded second prize at the finals in Berlin, Germany. Her project entailed eco-friendly field-scale clean-up of an oil-polluted site in Tombia village in the Degema local government area in Nigeria.
The project, which involved use of poultry droppings as bio-stimulants and soil conditioners to enhance hydrocarbon removal, embraced circular economy, citizen science, indigenous knowledge and integrated waste management.
Earlier, Chikere acquired a Ph.D. fellowship by the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). The Elsevier Foundation collaborates with OWSD to address visibility issues among women researchers through awards and recognition programs for talented early career women scientists from Africa, the Arab region, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
"The Chemistry for Climate Action Challenge and other gender-based initiatives that encourage and support women scientists in the developing world to build their capacities in research need to be encouraged," Chikere says.
"I can say the support from Elsevier Foundation has greatly enhanced my career trajectory."
Bridging the gap
Nitya Rao, director of the Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development (NISD), a member of the global research group the Adaptation of Research Alliance (ARA), says gender gaps in climate change research persist because of a lack of understanding of gender.
She says existing gender training is often reduced to women's issues and there is a need to look at the wider factors which underpin gender disparity.
"The gaps can be bridged if we make changes in different elements of research cycle," says Rao, gender and development professor at the University of East Anglia's School of International Development.
"From identification of the research question/problem, to the methods of data collection, analysis and writing, often gender monitoring and evaluation focus only on numbers—men and women who have attended meetings, or are co-authors of papers. We need to go beyond this."
Sheela Patel, founder and director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), an India-based NGO focusing on the urban poor, says the criteria for researcher selection needs to change.
"So long as it's the number of research papers published [which] remains the criteria for who to invite to do research, then women will always be disadvantaged, as highlighted by the latest data on climate change research output."
Spotted hyena with Maasai pastoralist and cattle in Ngorongoro Crater. Credit: Oliver Höner/Leibniz-IZW
Pastoralists herding their livestock through the territories of spotted hyena clans along dedicated paths during daytime do not reduce the reproductive performance of hyena clans, nor elevate the physiological "stress" of spotted hyenas. This is the result of a new study led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA).
The scientists analyzed 24 years of demographic and physiological data from eight spotted hyena clans—two of which were exposed to activities by pastoralists. The activities of pastoralists were predictable, diurnal and did not disrupt important behaviors in the mostly nocturnal hyenas. This may have allowed the population to perform well, the scientists suggest. The open access paper is published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
Human activities can strongly affect wildlife but the effects can vary greatly, depending on the type of activity and the characteristics of the wildlife species involved. To promote human-wildlife coexistence, it is therefore important to assess which activities are sustainable for a given species.
Most past research has documented major changes in the behavioral response of such species to human activities, but did not examine whether such changes are indicative of the Darwinian fitness of wildlife (in terms of its survival and reproductive success) or physiological effects such as "stress" or allostatic load, which are much more relevant to conservation.
"Acquiring the long-term data for such research—especially on large, group-living carnivores, which may be particularly conflict-prone—is not easy because of the enormous financial and temporal demands involved. We assessed for the first time the Darwinian fitness and the physiological effects of a common human activity—livestock herding—in light of the biology and social system of our wildlife species," explains first author Arjun Dheer, doctoral student at the Leibniz-IZW.
The investigation was conducted on eight clans of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) living in the Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Tanzania. "Livestock grazing and using mineral licks occurred predictably on a near-daily basis within the territories of two of our eight study clans between 1996 and 2016," adds Dheer.
This created a natural experiment of exposed and unexposed clans which the scientists exploited. "We tested whether the hyenas of the exposed clans had fewer surviving offspring than the unexposed hyenas and whether the herding activities increased the physiological 'stress' of the hyenas," explains Dr. Oliver Höner (Leibniz-IZW), head of the Ngorongoro Hyena Project and senior author of the paper.
To assess the fitness effects, the scientists used 24 years of detailed demographic data from the eight clans and to estimate physiological stress, they measured the concentration of glucocorticoid metabolites (fGMC) in 975 feces from 475 hyenas. The team also accounted for the effects of additional ecological parameters such as disease outbreaks and the abundance of African lions (Panthera leo), the hyenas' main competitor, and prey.
The main result was that hyena clans exposed to Maasai pastoralists moving through their territory with their livestock had similar juvenile recruitment and fGMC levels as unexposed clans. "Our results suggest that the hyenas in the Ngorongoro Crater coped well with daytime pastoralism," explains Dheer. A likely explanation for the lack of detectable effect on hyenas is that the activity was predictable and minimally disruptive because it occurred during daytime.
"Hyenas are mostly nocturnal when it comes to critical behaviors such as hunting," explains Höner. Even if pastoralist activities forced other critical hyena behaviors such as the nursing of young cubs into nighttime, it might not have been too much of an adjustment for them to make. "Spotted hyenas are behaviourally flexible. In other areas, they were observed to move their cubs to dens further away from the paths that pastoralists used, or to nurse more at night," Höner says.
The authors caution that such results should not be extrapolated in uncritical fashion. "In areas where pastoralism is more intense and environmental conditions such as the abundance of wild prey are less favorable than in the Ngorongoro Crater, pastoralist activities may well have a significant detrimental effect even on a behaviorally highly flexible species such as the spotted hyena," explains Höner.
"Our investigation highlights the need to develop evidence-based coexistence strategies within a local context to benefit both stakeholders and wildlife. It also underscores the importance of interpreting the effects of human activity in light of the socio-ecology of the species of conservation interest," concludes Victoria Shayo (Head, Department of Wildlife and Rangeland Management, Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority). Additional scientific analyses that cover a variety of anthropogenic activities and species—and that measure effects on fitness and physiology—will be conducive to promoting human-wildlife coexistence.Emotions and culture are most important for acceptance of carnivore management strategies
More information: Arjun Dheer et al, Diurnal pastoralism does not reduce juvenile recruitment nor elevate allostatic load in spotted hyenas, Journal of Animal Ecology (2022). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13812
COVID-19 has rightfully dominated infectious disease news since 2020. However, that doesn't mean other infectious diseases took a break. In fact, U.S. rates of infection by gonorrhea have risen during the pandemic.
Unlike COVID-19, which is a new virus, gonorrhea is an ancient disease. The first known reports of gonorrhea date from China in 2600 BC, and the disease has plagued humans ever since. Gonorrhea has long been one of the most commonly reported bacterial infections in the U.S.. It is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which can infect mucous membranes in the genitals, rectum, throat and eyes.
In 2020, gonorrhea infections initially went down 30%, most likely due to pandemic lockdowns and social distancing. However, by the end of 2020—the last year for which data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is available—reported infections were up 10% from 2019.
It is unclear why infections went up even though some social distancing measures were still in place. But the CDC notes that reduced access to health care may have led to longer infections and more opportunity to spread the disease, and sexual activity may have increased when initial shelter-in-place orders were lifted.
Gonorrhea, in particular, is a major public health concern, but there are concrete steps that people can take to prevent it from getting worse, and new antibiotics and vaccines may improve care in the future.
Typical early signs of symptomatic gonorrhea include a painful or burning sensation when peeing, vaginal or penal discharge, or anal itching, bleeding or discharge. Left untreated, gonorrhea can cause blindness and infertility. Antibiotic treatment can cure most cases of gonorrhea as long as the infection is susceptible to at least one antibiotic.
There is currently only one recommended treatment for gonorrhea in the U.S.—an antibiotic called ceftriaxone—because the bacteria have become resistant to other antibiotics that were formerly effective against it. Seven different families of antibiotics have been used to treat gonorrhea in the past, but many strains are now resistant to one or more of these drugs.
Why gonorrhea is on the rise
A few factors have contributed to the increase in infections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CDC tracks the emergence and spread of drug-resistant gonorrhea strains.
Many people have avoided clinics and hospitals during the pandemic, which has decreased opportunities to identify and treat gonorrhea infections before they spread. In fact, because of decreased screening over the past two and a half years, health care experts don't know exactly how much antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea has spread.
Also, early in the pandemic, many doctors prescribed antibiotics to COVID-19 patients even though antibiotics do not work on viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Improper use of antibiotics can contribute to greater drug resistance, so it is reasonable to suspect that this has happened with gonorrhea.
Overuse of antibiotics
Even prior to the pandemic, resistance to antibiotic treatment for bacterial infections was a growing problem. In the U.S., antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea infections increased by over 70% from 2017–2019.
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a specialist at picking up new genes from other pathogens and from "commensal," or helpful, bacteria. These helpful bacteria can also become antibiotic-resistant, providing more opportunities for the gonorrhea bacterium to acquire resistant genes.
Strains resistant to ceftriaxone have been observed in other countries, including Japan, Thailand,Australia and the U.K., raising the possibility that some gonorrhea infections may soon be completely untreatable.
However, additional efforts are needed to delay or prevent an era of untreatable gonorrhea.
Scientists can create new antibiotics that are effective against resistant strains; however, decreased investment in this research and development over the past 30 years has slowed the introduction of new antibiotics to a trickle. No new drugs to treat gonorrhea have been introduced since 2019, although two are in the final stage of clinical trials.
Vaccination against gonorrhea isn't possible presently, but it could be in the future. Vaccines effective against the meningitis bacterium, a close relative of gonorrhea, can sometimes also provide protection against gonorrhea. This suggests that a gonorrhea vaccine should be achievable.
The World Health Organization has begun an initiative to reduce gonorrhea worldwide by 90% before 2030. This initiative aims to promote safe sexual practices, increase access to high-quality health care for sexually transmitted diseases and expand testing so that asymptomatic infections can be treated before they spread. The initiative is also advocating for increased research into vaccines and new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea.
Setbacks in fighting drug-resistant gonorrhea during the COVID-19 pandemic make these actions even more urgent.
While some impacts can be beneficial, many are harmful, making it difficult to understand the overall effects of climate on individual species and ecosystems. Despite these challenges, we urgently need to understand how changing climate conditions affect marine life to plan and develop adaptation approaches to steward it effectively under climate change.
In our new study, my co-authors and I developed the Climate Risk Index for Biodiversity, which captures the climate risk for nearly 25,000 marine species and their ecosystems. This new index lays the groundwork for supporting climate-smart approaches to managing and conserving marine life.
A climate report card
We used a data-driven statistical approach to create a "climate report card" for each species and ecosystem that tells us which ones will win or lose under climate change. This approach enabled us to study a broad spectrum of life forms, from microscopic plankton to large predators and whales, across all marine ecosystems from the tropics to the poles.
Just as a report card grades students on subjects such as math and science, we assessed each species on 12 specific climate risk factors depending on two different future scenarios—one with lower emissions and one with higher emissions.
The climate risk factors express how the innate characteristics of a species—their body size and temperature tolerance—intersect with past, present and future ocean conditions at all locations where they are found.
The resulting risk scale ranges from negligible (lowest) to critical (highest) and represents both the severity of harmful climate impacts on species and their likelihood of occurring.
Divergent climate futures
Our study focuses on two possible shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios of how future society—and the greenhouse gas emissions it produces—could transpire. The results paint two wildly divergent pictures for marine life and people.
In the high emissions scenario, the global average ocean temperature will increase by three to five degrees Celcius by 2100. Under this scenario, almost 90% of the 25,000 species we assessed were at a "high" or "critical" climate risk. The average species was at risk across 85% of its geographic range.
The proportion of marine species at high or critical climate risk under high emissions by 2100. Darkest red shading denotes the highest risk areas, and darkest blue the lowest. Credit: Daniel G. Boyce
Top predators like sharks and tunas were at significantly higher risk than species further down the food chain, like forage fishes. Such predators can have massive effects on ecosystem structure and functioning.
Our findings also suggest severe ripple effects for people who most rely on the ocean. Under high emissions, climate risks for fished species such as cod and lobsters were consistently greater within the territories of low-income nations, where people depend more on fisheries to meet their nutritional needs.
Our study stresses that we are at a critical fork in the road and that choosing a more sustainable path that prioritizes climate mitigation will lead to clear benefits for ocean life and people.
Under a low emissions scenario, average ocean temperatures are expected to increase by one to two degrees Celsius by 2100, as per the two degrees Celsius global warming limit in the Paris Agreement.
Under this future, we found a reduced climate risk for virtually all marine life (98.2%). The disproportionate risk for ecosystem structure, biodiversity, fisheries and low-income nations are greatly reduced or eliminated.
Averting harmful climate risks
Our approaches to fisheries management, protected area planning and biodiversity conservation originated in a world with a relatively stable climate. But climate change is rewriting the rule books and threatening to undermine the effectiveness of these traditional approaches.
Cutting emissions is the most direct approach to reducing climate risks. Yet, even with strong mitigation, our study suggests that climate change will continue to affect marine life.
In addition to reducing emissions, it is imperative that we simultaneously find ways to adapt to a warming climate to protect our oceans. We must incorporate new methods and adaptation strategies, develop capacity in under-resourced parts of the world and carefully weigh the pros and cons of adaptation measures.
Our study provides a new tool and index to help inform decision-makers when navigating these complex issues. It can assist with developing strategies to manage and conserve marine life under climate change, monitor changing climate risk and gauge progress towards risk reduction.
This artist’s impression shows the view from the surface of one of the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. A powerful laser beacon using current and near-future technology could send a signal strong enough to be detected by any alien astronomers here. If we can build one, certainly an advanced civilization could. Maybe an ETI somewhere has already sent a signal and is on its way. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST
Science fiction is the realm where people traditionally wrestle with the idea of contact with an ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence.) But now, those discussions are migrating from science fiction into more serious realms. Academics are going back and forth, one paper at a time, concerning the response and geopolitical fallout from potential contact with an ETI.
The discussion is interesting whether you think it's likely or even remotely possible that humanity ever contacts an ETI. And it might tell us more about humanity than it does about an ETI.
A new paper titled "Geopolitical Implications of a Successful SETI Program" is the latest salvo in the back and forth among professional thinkers. The paper's three authors are associated with institutions including NASA, the Penn State ETI Center, the Department of Philosophy at Spring Hill College, and Harvard Law School. The lead author is Jason T. Wright from Penn State University. The paper's been accepted for publication by the journal Space Policy, and it's currently available on the pre-print site arXiv.org.
This paper is a response to a previous article published in 2020 called "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A Realpolitik Consideration." That paper was also published in the journal Space Policy, bringing a new emphasis to the discussion around potential contact with an ETI. The authors are Kenneth Wisian and John Traphagan. Wisian is from the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas, and Traphagan is from the Department of Religious Studies and Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations, also at the University of Texas. We'll refer to their paper as WT 2020.
In WT 2020, the two authors pointed out that much of the thinking around ETIs is centered on the risks of Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Messaging an Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI.) What if the ETI is technologically advanced and menacing? What if they're like conquistadors or something? Stephen Hawking expressed this fear well in 2010 when he said, "Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach."
Those types of invading aliens make millions of dollars for Hollywood, but the authors of WT 2020 focused on a different risk, one which doesn't garner as much attention. What's that risk? "Specifically, the risk of merely detecting an alien signal from passive SETI activity is usually considered to be negligible," they write.
What's so risky about merely detecting a signal? Us and our realpolitik.
If you're unfamiliar with the term realpolitik, history is full of examples. Merriam-Webster defines realpolitik as "Politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives." In WT 2020, the authors use this definition of realpolitik from historian John Bew: "…the view of interstate relations where 'the notion that the state could be regulated or controlled by law [is] flawed' and that 'power obey[s] only greater power.'"
Realpolitik is the down-and-dirty, nitty-gritty politics between political groups, usually nations. Realpolitik is separate from the oration political leaders use in elections and public-facing situations, where leaders use political theater to sway the populace and advance their causes. Realpolitik is about the mechanics of power in our world.
A great example of realpolitik comes from World War 2. The American President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Churchill played nice with Stalin and Russia. They called Stalin an ally, shook his hand and smiled when they met with him. They needed Stalin to continue to fight and weaken Hitler, and the Americans even sent a steady stream of supplies to Russia to enable their war effort. All good on the surface, as this famous clip from the Yalta Conference shows. At the 2:35 mark, we can watch the three leaders make nice with each other.
But behind the scenes, realpolitik spun a different web. Churchill and Roosevelt needed Stalin to help win the war, and Stalin knew that. Stalin promised democratic elections for Poland after the war because he needed the allies to help him beat Germany. He backtracked on that as soon as the war ended, occupied Poland and other countries, and Russia and the West became open enemies. That's all realpolitik, and Stalin practiced it well.
But that was long ago, and the world was at war. Why is it relevant to our more modern age and the potential contact with an ETI?
Because human nature hasn't changed.
If we passively detect a signal from an ETI, it could be troubling for religious people. Their worldview could be severely threatened, and there may be some significant upheaval in religious countries or even religious extremist violence. But it would die down, the thinking goes, and people would return to their daily lives. It would be revolutionary for scientists, but most people would move on with their lives. That's how the WT 2020 paper sums up the thinking. But how would nations and their political leaders react?
But whenever nations are vying with one another, there will be some measure of realpolitik. And when it comes to contact with an ETI, monopolizing that contact presents potential benefits for the nation that monopolizes it. "The history of international relations viewed through the lens of the realpolitik tradition of realist political thought suggests, however, that there is a measurable risk of conflict over the perceived benefit of monopoly access to ETI communication channels," the authors write in WT 2020. "This possibility needs to be considered when analyzing the potential risks and benefits of contact with ETI."
For Wisian and Traphagan, the danger lies in what we might do to ourselves.
Any ETI would likely have an enormous technological advantage over us, and as long as the ETI wasn't malicious, that advantage presents an opportunity to nations. If a government monopolizes communications with the ETI, it could gain a technological edge. Imagine China, Russia, or the U.S. coveting that technological advantage. Or North Korea, Iran, etc. This is the realpolitik lens that the authors are examining. It could lead to conflict or other undesirable consequences.
In WT 2020, the authors say that realpolitik considerations should be important in planning for successful passive SETI. They make several recommendations. They suggest that scientists working in SETI form supportive relationships with local law enforcement, strengthen the perimeters and security of their institutions, and strengthen personnel security for scientists and their families. The WT 2020 authors also suggest that observational facilities like radio telescopes adopt security measures similar to those of nuclear power plants.
But the new paper, which is a rebuttal to the WT 2020 paper and their realpolitik concerns, doesn't see these security actions as helpful. They also disagree that it's likely any nation could somehow monopolize communications with an ETI.
"While we do not dispute that a realpolitik response is possible, we uncover concerns with W&T's presentation of the realpolitik paradigm," the authors write. They say there are flaws in the WT 2020 analysis and that "… sufficient reason is not given to justify treating this potential scenario as action-guiding over other candidate geopolitical responses."
If a realpolitik response does come into play, it could be the most relevant response. The new paper's authors agree with that much but show that "… it is highly unlikely that a nation could successfully monopolize communication with ETI." The more realistic threat is that a nation thinks it could monopolize communications.
The authors criticize other aspects of the WT 2020 realpolitik scenario, too. For example, if it's a western democracy that detects a signal, could it monopolize it? Unlikely, according to the authors, since western science is well-integrated internationally. Our most powerful observatories have multiple nations and institutions as partners, so monopolization seems doubtful. The scientific community runs on openness, not informational protectionism.
The authors also criticize the sample contact scenario in WT 2020. WT 2020 contends that contact that seems trivial to an ETI could contain valuable technical information that could be useful to a monopolizing nation. This is unlikely. "That this could happen is not obvious at all. First of all, science is cumulative and nonlinear: for a new insight to be useful, we must first have the appropriate scientific context to understand it," they write. Could medieval scholars make use of a textbook on nuclear weapons design? If they could understand it, could they act on it? Not likely, according to the authors, and the same is true of advanced technological information from a highly-advanced ETI.
Also, what specific technological advantage could be gained? We already have enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization. We have bioweapons, too. Could an ETI unintentionally share information that could allow the monopolizer to build some sort of super-weapon? According to the authors, this is drifting into the realm of science fiction and leaving realpolitik behind.
For the authors, the best way to prevent state actors from even thinking they may gain a monopoly is through openness rather than stricter security and state policing measures. In fact, the measures urged in WT 2020 could precipitate precisely what they're trying to avoid: a realpolitik nightmare.
In their new paper, the authors explain this clearly: "Finally, it is important that implementing extensive security protections in the SETI and METI fields could itself cause the very problems W&T warns about. The existence of hardened facilities and locked-down information flows could itself be interpreted by outsiders as evidence that some world-altering activity was occurring within that community or facility, thus leading to exactly the kind of espionage and conflict that W&T are trying to avoid in the first place, even if nothing had actually been discovered."
There's some agreement between the papers about the risks inherent in contact. "W&T's legitimate worry is that the mere perception of an information monopoly could be enough to generate dangerous conflict," the authors of the new paper write. History shows us that antagonistic nations can be paranoid, engage in saber-rattling, and even launch pre-emptive strikes if they think they're in danger. With all the unknowns around potential contact with an ETI, the worry and fear would be more difficult for some societies to bear than others. There would be flashpoints.
Another point of agreement concerns the security of scientists working on contact with an ETI. "However, even if we have good reason to avoid extensive security protections of facilities per se, there remain other reasons to enact security measures meant to protect the SETI practitioners themselves, especially in the event of detection," the authors write. These scientists could very well become targets of harassment and even assault. There are a lot of crazies out there, as the COVID pandemic showed us, and a rising tide of anti-science thinking.
In their conclusion, the authors say that "… a realpolitik response to a contact scenario is worth considering, but we maintain that it is just one of the various candidate post-contact responses that merit consideration."
They suggest that there are much better alternatives and involve responses "… that might generate cohesion or greater collaboration at the level of international relations."
They also say that the WT 2020 paper relies on the premise that political leaders will misperceive the potential for contact with an ETI to be manipulated by another state. While that fear isn't unfounded, according to the authors, and it needs to be considered, the authors of this paper disagree with the recommendations given in WT 2020.
What do they suggest the world should do when we contact an ETI?
Instead of hardening security at SETI sites, the authors "… recommend transparency, data sharing, and education of policymakers."
Imagine that. It doesn't make for good science fiction, but it might prevent us from struggling with each other.
More information: Jason T. Wright, Chelsea Haramia, Gabriel Swiney, Geopolitical Implications of a Successful SETI Program. arXiv:2209.15125v1 [astro-ph.IM], arxiv.org/abs/2209.15125
