Reality check
While we should be thrilled a Russian mogul has put up big euros to search for extraterrestrial life, a reality check might be in order. This planet has been alive for a few hundred millions of years, if any observer from afar was to look. Only in the past few thousands of those years has any significant impact been made on this blue rock by its highest evolved life form. In an instant, in a continuum scientists can see evidence of stretching back billions of years into the past. Good luck seeking evidence of life in all that vastness of time and space. And if something was found—would it not be of a spark of life, extinct light-years ago?  Â
Which brings to mind an MTC request, sent out to transit advocates earlier this year, asking what they envision the Bay Area to look like in 2040, when 2 million more humans live here, working at 1.1 million more jobs. Sounds like ruination for a livable environment, as we have known it. Â Â
Sure wish some big euros were put towards figuring what might be a population this planet can sustain. A critical dilemma, yet what is being done? How long is this instant of intelligent life on our planet going to last, folks? Â Â
—Hobart Bartshire
