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Scientists have found possible signs of life on a distant exoplanet. What’s called biosignatures -in this case dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide; chemicals found only as byproduct of algal/microbial life here on Earth- were found on K2-18b, a planet in a Goldilocks zone 100 light years away.

I wish it were good news. But it seems so punishingly obvious that, in time, this potentially world-shattering discovery will feel like a cruel joke. A cruel joke of the cosmic variety- the worst and final kind.

A joke whose setup is this: so once there was a society that achieved so much, produced so much brilliance and beauty, and frittered it all away. Despite being warned about global warming as early as 1896(!), it was a society that steamrolled through stop sign after stop sign, disregarding every ultimately futile message preaching caution, and conservation and moderation. A society that had enough to provide for all but decided instead to become a vassalage to billionaires and other lesser oligarchs; to cretins, crooks, clowns and conmen. That worshipped at the feet of capitalism, licking the dirty, sockless, nutrient-less toes, while the earth was laid to waste in the background.

And so the punchline is this distant, seemingly reachable, habitable planet. Although reachable only on another timeline, in a different universe. Inaccessible now because we hurtled ourselves too greedily down the wrong path.

Calls to mind this passage from Great Expectations:

“I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”

Had we prioritized peace, and cooperation, and societal endurance, maybe we could’ve gotten there.

But now we never will.

And so out there it’ll tantalizingly remain.

Close enough to see but too far away to reach. A taunting unfulfillable dream, looming celestially above us, as we burn ourselves to ashes. Like a dying man, bellydown- skin red, suppurated and covered in boils, outstretched arm pointed in the direction of the oasis…

(!) True(ish) story. Google: Svante Arrhenius. Although “warned” might not be the right word exactly because Arrhenius thought the warming could actually be a good thing. But we cannot say that we didn’t know. And by the mid-20th century, we surely did know; not just what climate change was but what it meant.