August 2, 2006--World War IX

We may now very well be fighting World War Three.

I know that Huntington’s notion of civilizational clash has been challenged by various academics who see it to be reductionist, that Islam is far from monolithic, and thus it is simplistic to perceive the current situation in the Middle East to be a confrontation between the Western and Islamic “civilizations.” After all, Indonesia is the world’s largest Islamic nation, India is second: and Islam there is as different from Islam in Iran as the Shiite and Sunni versions are different from each other in Iraq. In other words, there is great diversity in Islam and to see all of this variation as a single civilization not only misses the point but is inflammatory and dangerous.

But just in case Huntington is right, where might this lead? Or, if WW III or environmental degradation or a catastrophic collision with an asteroid of the sort that wiped out the dinosaurs do not lead to the end of life as we know it, what will be our fate as humans after, say, World War IX?

Not to worry, because any number of scientists are working on solutions. For example, according to the NY Times (article linked below), the Norwegian government recently funded the establishment of a “Doomsday Vault” in which, under the Artic tundra, they will store crop seeds which will be useful after one kind or another of global catastrophe, while a British group, the Frozen Ark, is freezing away DNA samples of endangered species such as the British Field cricket.

But schemes of this kind all include a basic limitation—they are all Earth-bound and might not survive a true nuclear winter. After we nuke ourselves into oblivion who will be around to check out the Cricket DNA from its storage place in London? Not an inconsiderable problem.

But there is thankfully an answer to this as well. A group of scientists led by Robert Shapiro, a biochemist at New York University, has got us covered. According to the Times, here’s what they are up to: It’s simple, on the surface of the moon set up a hermitically-sealed base in which would be stored samples of all of Earth’s DNA.

So far so good—but who would be there to keep an eye on things; and after the dust or whatever settles on Earth, what would they then do? Also simple—it would be manned by people who through fertility treatments and frozen human eggs and sperm would, in effect, serve as the new Adam and Eve.

If this sounds remarkably like Dr. Strangelove’s plans for a post nuclear holocaust Earth, you would not be wide of the mark. As I remember Peter Sellers’ delicious portrayal of Dr. S’s mad scheme, he volunteered to serve as principal sperm donor for a bevy of “sexually-attractive” women. This also sounds remarkable similar to what Islamic suicide bombers are told awaits them once they blow themselves up and get to heaven.

Crazy as this may sound there is significant movement in Congress to fund such a moon-based project. President Bush has indicated he is willing to sign this legislation, though I am not sure that he knows much about what Dr. Shapiro and his colleagues have in mind for it.

But the more I think about it maybe this is also the solution to what to do with all the frozen embryos that will not be used for stem cell research.

On the other hand, if we humans blast ourselves and the Earth into oblivion, I vote to forget about repopulating the Earth with humans and just set the British Field Crickets loose and let them run things.