As part of the Global Risks 2013 report, the World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network has identified five "X Factor" risks in partnership with Nature. These look beyond mainstream risks to five emerging potential game-changers.
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Given the pace of space exploration, it is increasingly conceivable
that we may discover the existence of alien life or other planets that
could support human life. What would be the effects on science funding
flows and humanity’s self-image?
It was only in 1995 that we first found evidence that other stars
also have planets orbiting them. Now thousands of “exoplanets” revolving
around distant stars have been detected. NASA’s Kepler mission to
identify Earth-sized planets located in the “Goldilocks zone” (not too
hot, not too cold) of sun-like stars has been operating for only three
years and has already turned up thousands of candidates, including one
the size of Earth. The fact that Kepler has found so many planet
candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests that there are
countless Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy. In
10 years’ time we may have evidence not only that Earth is not unique
but also that life exists elsewhere in the universe.
Suppose the astronomers who study exoplanets one day find chemical
signs of life – for example, a spectrum showing the presence of oxygen, a
highly reactive element that would quickly disappear from Earth’s
atmosphere if it weren’t being replenished by plants. Money might well
start flowing for new telescopes to study these living worlds in detail,
both from the ground and from space. New funding and new brain power
might be attracted to the challenges of human space flight and the
technologies necessary for humanity, or its artificial-intelligence
emissaries, to survive an inter-stellar crossing.
The discovery would certainly be one of the biggest news stories of
the year and interest would be intense. But it would not change the
world immediately. Alien life has been supposedly discovered before,
after all. Around the turn of the 20th century, the US astronomer
Percival Lowell convinced many people (including himself) that Mars was
crisscrossed by a vast system of canals built by a dying civilization.
But the belief that humankind was not alone did not do much to usher in
an era of goodwill and earthly harmony, nor did it stop the outbreak of
World War I in 1914.
The discovery’s largest near-term impact would likely be on science
itself. Suppose observations point to a potential future home for
humankind around another star, or the existence of life in our solar
system – in the Martian poles, in the subsurface oceans of Jupiter’s
frozen moon Europa, or even in the hydrocarbon lakes of Saturn’s moon
Titan. Scientists will immediately start pushing for robotic and even
human missions to study the life forms in situ – and funding agencies,
caught up in the excitement, might be willing to listen.
The fledgling space economy had a big year in 2012, which saw the
birth of space trucking when the first commercially built and operated
spacecraft had a successful rendezvous with the International Space
Station, and a host of celebrity billionaires declared intentions to
make asteroid mining a reality. Discovery of an Earth 2.0 or life beyond
our planet might inspire new generations of space entrepreneurs to meet
the challenge of taking human exploration of the galaxy from the realm
of fiction to fact.
Over the long term, the psychological and philosophical implications
of the discovery could be profound. If life forms (even fossilized life
forms) are found in our solar system, for example, the origin of life is
“easy” – that any place in the universe life can emerge, it will
emerge. It will suggest that life is as natural and as ubiquitous a part
of the universe as the stars and galaxies. The discovery of even simple
life would fuel speculation about the existence of other intelligent
beings and challenge many assumptions that underpin human philosophy and
religion.
Through basic education and awareness campaigns, the general public
can achieve a higher science and space literacy and cognitive resilience
that would prepare them and prevent undesired social consequences of
such a profound discovery and paradigm shift concerning humankind’s
position in the universe.
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