Why the Earth Is Not a Type 1 Technological Civilization

According to one theory about how we harness energy, Type 1s have total control over planetary energy resources

- Bibek Bhattacharya

One of the most frustrating and comical aspects of humanity's reluctance to ditch fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil for renewable energy sources is that it reveals just how small our horizons as a species are. Whether you consider expansionist wars like in Ukraine, brutal oppression as in Gaza, or the nihilist frog-in-a-well politics of Donald Trump's US, it would seem that human beings are incapable of looking at the bigger picture. Do we want to mature as a planetary civilization and look to the stars while preserving the well-being of the people and ecosystems on Earth? Or do we fight and die in the same old ways, while just looking more 'modern' with our suits and supercomputers?

I recently came across a very interesting discussion about an obscure but highly influential study published way back in 1964 by Russian physicist Nikolai Kardashev, in a YouTube video from the Public Broadcasting Service's (PBS) Space Time channel. The paper, titled Transmission Of Information By Extraterrestrial Civilizations, had a simple and elegant answer for why humanity hasn't yet discovered alien life. Kardashev was looking to understand the amount of energy required to boost a signal through space. He surmised that if we were to try and communicate with intelligent life out in the cosmos or vice versa, communication signals would have to be propelled by an immense amount of energy. Human civilization, both back in 1964 and in 2024, simply does not control that level of energy.