Carl Sagan rationalized the Fermi paradox in terms of nuclear annihilation in one of his Cosmos episodes, which was created during endgame of the cold war. The

Carl Sagan rationalized the Fermi paradox in terms of nuclear annihilation in one of his Cosmos episodes, which was created during endgame of the cold war. The same episode introduced the Drake equation too. This article framing the paradox in context of climate change is simply doing the same thing, framing it in context of our most pressing existential threats of the day. Also, like Sagan, implicitly overstating the impacts of those threats to us as a species. Its a useless exercise and brings no new information to understanding the Fermi paradox and doesn't bring us anywhere closer to resolving it. Edit and clarification, since I think some people take issue with what I wrote above: ======== Existential threats I mentioned, nuclear and climate change, are in their worst possible realizations will be planetary wide catastrophes which have the power to cause us, as a species, enormous harm. But they do not measure up as the existential threats implied by Sagan or author of this article : so they are not answers to the Fermi paradox. I am looking at these two things strictly from POV of the paradox, not as pressing policy issues.