Saturday, December 13, 2014

Turn Humans into Morlocks to Mitigate Global Warming?


Morlocks for planetary geoengineering  

Since the idea of geoengineering and modifying earth's climate to reduce the effect of global warming, is so controversial perhaps it was inevitable that someone would suggest that the best way to cope with global warming is to leave the Earth alone and instead modify the human species.

Prof. Liao of New York University has suggested that the best way to accommodate future climate change is to embrace human genetic engineering instead of planetary geoengineering.    For instance, Prof. Liao proposes genetic engineeringing be applied to the human species to make us shorter and smaller because a population of  three-foot-tall humans would consume less food and need fewer natural resources than modern humans do.  Another of his ideas is to genetically reengineer humans to improve night vision, so humans could get along better in dimly lit rooms, thus reducing energy consumption.    Add more body hair to reduce the need for clothes and central heating, and you've got a dystopian vision of a future populated by shambolic sub-human creature living in the dark.

Prof. Liao's vision of humanity in the future is surprisingly similar to H.G. Well's creation of the Morlocks in his 1898 science fiction novel The Time Machine.  H.G. Wells also described a future in which part of humanity had intentionally been turned into shorter, hairier light-sensitive creatures, the  sub-human Morlocks, in order to better adjust to their terrible work conditions.    But unlike Prof. Liao, H.G. Wells also had the common sense  to realize there was something horrifying about the idea of genetically modifying humans to fit the conditions rather than modifying the conditions to better suit humans.  H.G. Wells wrote in the Time Machine:   "there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks—a something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. "

I feel much the same way about Prof. Liao's proposal to genetically modify humans to make them more adaptable to climate change.  I loathe Prof. Liao's idea.  Probably most people would loathe Prof. Liao's idea.    I think even the Morlocks would loathe the idea.  In fact, if they had a choice, I bet Morlocks would be some of the biggest supporters of planetary geoengineering over genetic reengineering.




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