Whenever climate change is discussed, it’s almost always about how it will affect the human race and the animals of the Earth. But what about other species? Are there other civilizations out there that are sustainable or does every civilization only last a few centuries before it succumbs to the wrath of climate change?

In an attempt to answer these questions and others in the same category, astrophysicist Adam Frank from the University of Rochester has published a study in the journal Astrobiology. “Astrobiology is the study of life and its possibilities in a planetary context,” says Frank. “That includes ‘exo-civilizations’ or what we usually call aliens.”





As civilizations grow they use more and more of their planet’s resources, an in doing so, they end up changing the conditions on the planet. Civilizations and planets evolve together, not separately. And the future of own civilization is very much dependant on how we use the Earth’s natural resources.

To demonstrate how civilizations and planets evolve alongside one another, Frank and his colleagues developed a model that shows the many ways in which a planet and its technologically advanced civilization evolves together. By thinking of these two as a whole, researchers can predict better what may be needed for civilization to survive.

“The point is to recognize that driving climate change may be something generic,” says Frank. “The laws of physics demand that any young population, building an energy-intensive civilization like ours, is going to have feedback on its planet. Seeing climate change in this cosmic context may give us better insight into what’s happening to us now and how to deal with it.”





Using their newly designed model, the researchers found four possible scenarios that could happen in a civilization-planet system :

1 – Die-out. In this situation, both the population and the state of the planet rise very quickly. When the population finally peaks, it then declines rapidly. This raises the temperature of the planet, making it more difficult for species to survive. While a steady population is eventually achieved, it’s only a fraction of the population at its peak.

2 – Sustained. This is when both the population and the temperature rise. However, unlike the above scenario, they both become steady without any major changes taking place first. This kind of scenario happens when civilization recognizes it’s affecting the planet negatively and switches from using resources of high-impact such as oil, to using low-impact resources such as solar energy.

3 – Collapse without a change in resources. Here, both the population and temperature rise very quickly. Once the population has peaked it begins to drop precipitously. Whether or not the species dies out completely is unknown.

4 – Collapse with a change in resources. In this situation, both the population and temperature rise, but the population notices there’s a problem and quickly switches from using high-impact resources to low-impact resources. While the situation looks ok for a while, it appears their actions have come too late and the population dies out anyway.

These models were created based partly on ancient civilizations such as those which inhibited Easter Island. Colonization began here sometime around 400 to 700 AD and peaked at a population of around 10,000 between 1200 and 1500 AD. However, by the time the 18th century had arrived the planet’s resources had been depleted and as a result, the population shrank to around 2,000.

This dying off of the people demonstrates a concept known as carrying capacity. It’s basically the maximum number of a species any one environment can support. “If you go through really strong climate change, then your carrying capacity may drop, because, for example, large-scale agriculture might be strongly disrupted,” says Frank. “Imagine if climate change caused rain to stop falling in the Midwest. We wouldn’t be able to grow food, and our population would diminish.”





As of yet, there’s no definitive way to predict the Earth’s or our own civilization’s future. But, we do know that climate change is here and it is causing problems. “If you change the earth’s climate enough, you might not be able to change it back,” says Frank. “Even if you backed off and started to use solar or other less impactful resources, it could be too late, because the planet has already been changing. These models show we can’t just think about a population evolving on its own. We have to think about our planets and civilizations co-evolving.”

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