Earth to Klaatu: No, I'm not dying (at least not yet)

“Global humanity, for example, resembles a pioneer species colonizing a new niche; to achieve the global equivalent of successional maturity--to last in the biospheric long run--we will have to increase our connections with other species, and recycle our materials more adeptly through global biosystems of greater diversity and complexity.”

- Eric D. Schneider, “Gaia: Toward a Thermodynamics of Life,” in Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century

The Rare Earth hypothesis claims that planets with complex life (i.e. anything bigger than a bacterium) are probably exceedingly rare, which makes them indescribably precious. This is the premise used by Klaatu in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still to justify destroying humanity. Which might make sense, if we were an actual threat to the existence of complex life on Earth. The quote above, along with the fact that Earth has weathered five previous mass extinction events in which a large percentage of all species died out (around 90% in one case), strongly suggests otherwise.

It's not all life on Earth that's in danger--just the relative environmental stability that makes our current technological civilization possible. If Klaatu just waits a few more decades and we continue to damage that stability, the problem will resolve itself--and of course, if we instead figure out how to become a more ecologically mature species using new technologies, Klaatu will likewise no longer have to worry.

Now, maybe twenty years from now we'll invent some superweapon capable of sterilizing the whole planet, and maybe that's what Klaatu's masters were predicting. But without making that explicit, the premise of the movie just looks stupid. (Unfortunately, with that addition, the whole thing would spiral dangerously close to imitating the plot of Plan 9 from Outer Space, widely regarded as one of the worst movies of all time.)

( Spoilers )

All in all, this movie was unhelpful, and quite possibly harmful, to the environmental movement.