- May 31, 2022
It’s time to talk about UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and climate change. Wait! What? Well, yes, UPEC (Utah Population and Environment Council) has a mission beyond nudging us toward lower populations.
(And, by the way, our efforts here have been very successful! Utah’s Total Fertility Rate is now under 2, and even India’s Total Fertility Rate has fallen below 2.1, the replacement rate.)
We all need to continue to educate people about the environmental and economic benefits of smaller families, but, with the global success of our population mission, UPEC can begin to focus more on the “E” in UPEC, namely, the environment.
My primary research as an economist exposes the acute problem of using carbon-based energy sources so that deniers or deflectors have nowhere to hide. Because of our reliance on dirty energy sources, we are well down the path of a 3–4℃ increase in average global temperatures. This warming poses enormous risks, many of which we do not yet fully understand, to ecological systems and to our quality of life.
This warming is dangerous and must be arrested as much as possible.
Reducing populations at home and abroad is part of the equation, of course. There are also major energy fixes right around the corner, which is where UFOs become important. Serious scientific analysis of their performance characteristics shows they use an essentially unlimited source of energy, and that these sources are clearly not carbon-based. More specifically, they use field effects (e.g., the interaction of magnetic fields) for propulsion.
Of course, even mentioning UFOs seriously evokes skepticism and worse. Such knee-jerk reactions are demonstrably wrong. As we saw very recently in congressional hearings, many experts and government agencies now believe that UFOs — or, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) — are real. Not only are they real, but we (the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or ODNI) also cannot explain where UAPs come from¹
— only that they are not American, not Russian, and not Chinese. Other guesses, anyone?
So my point is that we may be able to solve carbon-induced global warming if we can study and copy UFOs’ technology.
Although this seems far-fetched at the moment, such technology transfer is feasible. At the very least, the topic is a thought-starter that demands much more scientific attention (once we dispense with the requisite UFO jokes).
Until we figure out how to reverse-engineer UFOs, science has demonstrated the availability/possibility of multiple extremely cheap and clean energy sources, such as cold fusion² and direct electricity.³ These sources have potential far beyond the current fleet of renewable sources without so many drawbacks. Let’s invest in these sources and bring them to market!
The world can be a depressing place right now, and it seems that little is going right for those who want a greener, less crowded, and more peaceful world. But we can look forward to a cleaner and cooler future. UPEC says, “Look to the sky”!
Steve Bannister, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah, joined UPEC in 2018. Bannister is an economist specializing in the role of energy revolutions in causing industrial revolutions and the impact on economic and financial systems. He builds long-range models of economic activity, energy consumption, and consequent financial and environmental impacts.
¹ Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena 25 June 2021.” www.dni.gov, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 25 June 2021, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf. Accessed 25 May 2022.
² https://lenr-canr.org/
³ https://www.iccf24.org/
