Billions & Billions

by Carl Sagan

  How long is a billion years? In a billion years the continents of Earth would be so altered that we would not recognize the surface of our own planet. One thousand million years ago, the most complex life forms on Earth were bacteria. In the midst of the nuclear arms race, our future, even in the short term, seemed a dubious prospect. Those of us privileged to work on the making of the Voyager message did so with a sense of sacred purpose. It was conceivable that, Noah-like, we were assembling the ark of human culture, the only artifact that would survive into the unimaginably far distant future.

  In the course of my daunting search for the single most worthy piece of Chinese music, I phoned Carl and left a message at his hotel in Tucson where he was giving a talk. An hour later the phone rang in my apartment in Manhattan. I picked it up and heard a voice say: “I got back to my room and found a message that said ‘Annie called.’ And I asked myself, why didn’t you leave me that message ten years ago?”

  Bluffing, joking, I responded lightheartedly. “Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Carl.” And then, more soberly, “Do you mean for keeps?”

  “Yes, for keeps,” he said tenderly. “Let’s get married.”

  “Yes,” I said and that moment we felt we knew what it must be like to discover a new law of nature. It was a “eureka,” a moment in which a great truth was revealed, one that would be reaffirmed through countless independent lines of evidence over the next twenty years. But it was also the assumption of an unlimited liability. Once you were allowed into this wonder-world, how could you ever again be content outside of it? It was June 1, our love’s Holy Day. Thereafter, anytime one of us was being unreasonable with the other, the invocation of June 1 would usually bring the offender to his or her senses.

  Earlier I had asked Carl if those putative extraterrestrials of a billion years from now could conceivably interpret the brain waves of a meditator. “Who knows? A billion years is a long, long time,” was his reply. “On the chance that it might be possible why don’t we give it a try?”

  Two days after our life-changing phone call, I entered a laboratory at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and was hooked up to a computer that turned all the data from my brain and heart into sound. I had a one-hour mental itinerary of the information I wished to convey. I began by thinking about the history of Earth and the life it sustains. To the best of my abilities I tried to think something of the history of ideas and human social organization. I thought about the predicament that our civilization finds itself in and about the violence and poverty that make this planet a hell for so many of its inhabitants. Toward the end I permitted myself a personal statement of what it was like to fall in love.

  —

  Now Carl’s fever raged. I kept kissing him and rubbing my face against his burning, unshaven cheek. The heat of his skin was oddly reassuring. I wanted to do it enough so that his vibrant, physical self would become an indelibly etched sensory memory. I was torn between exhorting him to fight on and wanting him freed from the torture apparatus of life support and the demon that had tormented him for two years.

  I called his sister, Cari, who had given so much of herself to prevent this outcome, and his grown sons, Dorion, Jeremy, and Nicholas, and grandson, Tonio. Our whole family had celebrated Thanksgiving together at our house in Ithaca just weeks before. By unanimous acclaim it had been the best Thanksgiving we’d ever had. We all came away from it with a kind of glow. There had been an authenticity and a closeness in this gathering that had given us a greater sense of unity. Now I placed the phone near Carl’s ear so that he could hear, one by one, their good-byes.

  Our friend writer/producer Lynda Obst rushed in from Los Angeles to be with us. Lynda was there that first enchanted evening at Nora’s when Carl and I met. She had witnessed firsthand, more than anyone else, both our personal and professional collaborations. As original producer of the motion picture Contact, she had worked closely with us for the sixteen years it had taken to guide the project into production.

  Lynda had observed that the sustained incandescence of our love exerted a kind of tyranny on those around us who have been less fortunate in their search for a soul mate. However, instead of resenting our relationship, Lynda cherished it as a mathematician would an existence theorem, something that demonstrates a thing is possible. She used to call me Miss Bliss. Carl and I especially treasured those times we spent with her, laughing, talking far into the night about science, philosophy, gossip, popular culture, everything. Now this woman who had soared with us, who had been with me on the giddy day I picked out my wedding gown, was there by our side as we said good-bye forever.

  For days and nights Sasha and I had taken turns whispering into Carl’s ear. Sasha told him how much she loved him and all the ways that she would find in her life to honor him. “Brave man, wonderful life,” I said to him over and over. “Well done. With pride and joy in our love, I let you go. Without fear. June 1. June 1. For keeps …”

  —

  As I make the changes in proof that Carl feared might be necessary, his son Jeremy is upstairs giving Sam his nightly computer lesson. Sasha is in her room doing homework. The Voyager spacecraft, with their revelations of a tiny world graced by music and love, are beyond the outermost planets, making for the open sea of interstellar space. They are hurtling at a speed of forty thousand miles per hour toward the stars and a destiny about which we can only dream. I sit surrounded by cartons of mail from people all over the planet who mourn Carl’s loss. Many of them credit him with their awakenings. Some of them say that Carl’s example has inspired them to work for science and reason against the forces of superstition and fundamentalism. These thoughts comfort me and lift me up out of my heartache. They allow me to feel, without resorting to the supernatural, that Carl lives.

  ANN DRUYAN

  February 14, 1997

  Ithaca, New York

  Acknowledgments*

  As always, this book has been immeasurably informed and improved by Annie Druyan’s insightful comments, suggestions on content and stylistic felicity, and her writing. When I grow up, I hope to be like her.

  Helpful comments on some or all of this book were supplied by many friends and colleagues; I’m most grateful to them all. Among them are David Black, James Hansen, Jonathan Lunine, Geoff Marcy, Richard Turco, and George Wetherill. Others who responded generously to our requests for information include Linden Blue of General Atomics, John Bryson of Southern California Edison, Jane Callen and Jerry Donahoe at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Punam Chuhan and Julie Rickman at the World Bank, Peter Nathanielsz of the Department of Physiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell, James Rachels of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Boubacar Touré at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and Tom Welch at the U.S. Department of Energy. I thank Leslie LaRocco, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, for translation services in comparing Parade with Ogonyok versions of “The Common Enemy.”

  I appreciate the wisdom and support of Mort Janklow and Cynthia Cannell at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, and Ann Godoff, Harry Evans, Alberto Vitale, Kathy Rosenbloom, and Martha Schwartz at Random House.

  I owe a special debt to William Barnett for meticulous transcription, research assistance, proofreading, and for steering the manuscript through its various stages of completion. Bill accomplished all this while I was battling a grave illness. That I felt I could rely on him with complete confidence was a mercy for which I am grateful. Andrea Barnett and Laurel Parker of my Cornell University office provided essential correspondence and research support. I also thank Karenn Gobrecht and Cindi Vita Vogel of Annie’s office for their able assistance.

  While all the material in this book is newly revised or new, the nuclei of many chapters have been previously published in Parade; I thank Walter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, and David Currier, Senior Editor, for this and for their unwavering support over the years. Parts of a few chapters have appeared in American Journal of Physics; Forb
es-FYI; Environment in Peril, Anthony Wolbarst, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press) (from a talk I gave to the Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.); the Los Angeles Times Syndicate; and Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, William Safire, ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992).

  Patrick McDonnell has generously agreed to the inclusion of his sketches to illustrate the text. I am also grateful to Carson Productions Group for permission to use a photograph showing me with Johnny Carson; to Barbara Boettcher for graphic artwork; to James Hansen for permission to use graphs in Chapter 11; and to Lennart Nilsson for permission to have drawings made after his pioneering photographs of human fetuses in utero.

  *Dr. Sagan died before he was able to complete these acknowledgments. The editors regret the omission of the names of any persons or institutions he would have mentioned had he been able to complete these remarks.

  References

  (a few citations and suggestions for further reading)

  Chapter 1, Billions and Billions

  Robert L. Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Life Beyond (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986).

  Chapter 3, Monday-Night Hunters

  Harvey Araton, “Nuggets’ Abdul-Rauf Shouldn’t Stand for It,” The New York Times, March 14, 1996.

  A good anecdotal summary of professional sports and its admirers is Fans! by Michael Roberts (Washington, D.C.: New Republic Book Co., 1976). A classic study of hunter-gatherer society is The !Kung San by Richard Borshay Lee (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Most of the hunter-gatherer customs mentioned in this book apply to the !Kung and to many other nonmarginal hunter-gatherer cultures worldwide—before they were destroyed by civilization.

  Chapter 4, The Gaze of God and the Dripping Faucet

  Kumi Yoshida, et al., “Cause of Blue Petal Colour,” Nature, vol. 373, 1995, p. 291.

  Chapter 9, Croesus and Cassandra

  Managing Planet Earth: Readings from “Scientific American” Magazine (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1990).

  A. J. McMichael, Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

  Richard Turco, Earth Under Siege: Air Pollution and Global Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

  Chapter 10, A Piece of the Sky Is Missing

  Eric Alterman, “Voodoo Science,” The Nation, February 5, 1996, pp. 6–7.

  Richard Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

  William Brune, “There’s Safety in Numbers,” Nature, vol. 379, 1996, pp. 486–87.

  Arjun Makhijani and Kevin Gurney, Mending the Ozone Hole (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).

  Stephen A. Montzka, et al., “Decline in the Tropospheric Abundance of Halogen for Halocarbons: Implications for Stratospheric Ozone Depletion,” Science, vol. 272, 1996, pp. 1318–22.

  F. Sherwood Rowland, “The Ozone Depletion Phenomenon,” in Beyond Discovery (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1996).

  James M. Russell III et al., “Satellite Confirmation of the Dominance of Chlorofluorocarbons in the Global Stratospheric Chlorine Budget,” Nature, vol. 379, 1996, pp. 526–29.

  Chapter 11, Ambush: The Warming of the World

  Jack Anderson, “Lessons for Us to Learn from the Persian Gulf,” Ithaca Journal, September 29, 1990, p. 10A.

  Robert Balling, Jr., “Keep Cool About Global Warming,” letter to The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 1995, p. A14.

  Hugh W. Ellsaesser, Gregory A. Inskip, and Tom M. L. Wigley, “Apply Cold Science to a Hot Topic,” separate letters to The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 1995.

  Vivien Gornitz, “Sea-Level Rise: A Review of Recent Past and Near-Future Trends,” Earth Surface Processes and Land Forms, vol. 20, 1995, pp. 7–20.

  James Hansen, “Climatic Change: Understanding Global Warming,” in One World, ed. by Robert Lanza (Health Press: Santa Fe, NM, 1996).

  Ola M. Johannessen, et al., “The Arctic’s Shrinking Sea Ice,” Nature, vol. 376, 1995, pp. 126–27.

  Richard A. Kerr, “Scientists See Greenhouse, Semiofficially,” Science, vol. 269, 1995, p. 1657.

  _______, “It’s Official: First Glimmer of Greenhouse Warming Seen,” Science, vol. 270, 1995, pp. 1565–67.

  Michael MacCracken, “Climate Change: the Evidence Mounts Up,” Nature, vol. 376, 1995, pp. 645–46.

  Michael Oppenheimer, “The Big Greenhouse Is Getting Warmer,” letter to The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1995, p. A15.

  Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel, “Potential Impacts of Climatic Change on Agriculture and Food Supply,” Consequences, vol. 1, Summer 1995, pp. 23–32.

  Stephen E. Schwartz and Meinrat O. Andreae, “Uncertainty in Climate Change Caused by Aerosols,” Science, vol. 272, 1996, pp. 1121–22.

  William Sprigg, “Climate Change: Doctors Watch the Forecasts,” Nature, vol. 379, 1996, p. 582.

  William K. Stevens, “A Skeptic Asks, Is It Getting Hotter, or Is It Just the Computer Model?” The New York Times, June 18, 1996, p. C1.

  Julia Uppenbrink, “Arrhenius and Global Warming,” Science, vol. 272, 1996, p. 1122.

  Chapter 12, Escape from Ambush

  Ghossen Asrar and Jeff Dozier, EOS: Science Strategy for the Earth Observing System (Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics Press, 1994).

  Business and the Environment (Cutter Information Corp.), January 1996, p. 4.

  “FAS Hosts Climate Change Conference for World Bank,” FAS (Federation of American Scientists), Public Interest Report, March/April 1996.

  Kennedy Graham, The Planetary Interest, Global Security Programme, University of Cambridge, UK, 1995.

  Jeremy Leggett, ed., Global Warming (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

  Thomas R. Mancini, James M. Chavez, and Gregory J. Kolb, “Solar Thermal Power Today and Tomorrow,” Mechanical Engineering, vol. 116, 1994, pp. 74–79.

  Michael Valenti, “Storing Solar Energy in Salt,” Mechanical Engineering, vol. 117, 1995, pp. 72–75.

  Chapter 13, Religion and Science: An Alliance

  Julie Edelson Halport, “Harnessing the Sun and Selling It Abroad: U.S. Solar Industry in Export Boom,” The New York Times, June 5, 1995, p. D1.

  Raimon Panikkar, University of California at Santa Barbara, at Global World Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, Oxford, U.K., April 1988.

  Carl Sagan, et al, “Preserving and Cherishing the Earth,” American Journal of Physics, vol. 58, 1990, pp. 615–17.

  Peter Steinfels, “Evangelical Group Defends Laws Protecting Endangered Species as a Modern ‘Noah’s Ark,’ ” The New York Times, January 31, 1996.

  Chapter 14, The Common Enemy

  Georgi Arbatov, The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Times Books, 1992).

  Mikhail Heller and Aleksander M. Nekrich, translated by Phyllis B. Carlos, Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present (New York: Summit Books, 1986).

  Chapter 15, Abortion: Is It Possible to Be

  Both “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice”?

  John Connery, S.J., Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1977).

  M. A. England, The Color Atlas of Life Before Birth: Normal Fetal Development, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Yearbook Medical Publishers, Inc., 1990).

  Jane Hurst, The History of Abortion in the Catholic Church: The Untold Story (Washington, D.C.: Catholics for a Free Choice, 1989).

  Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977).

  Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are (New York: Random House, 1992).

  Chapter 17, Gettysburg and Now

  Lawrence J. Korb, “Military Metamorphosis,” Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 1995/6, pp. 75–77.

  Chapter 19, In the Valley of the Shadow

  Albert Einstein, The
World as I See It (New York: Covici Friede Publishers, 1934).

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CARL SAGAN was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the American space program since its inception. He was a consultant and adviser to NASA since the 1950s, briefed the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon, and was an experimenter on the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to the planets. He helped solve the mysteries of the high temperature of Venus (answer: massive greenhouse effect), the seasonal changes on Mars (answer: windblown dust), and the reddish haze of Titan (answer: complex organic molecules).

  For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society (“for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science.… As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates”).

  He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences (for “distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare.… Carl Sagan has been enormously successful in communicating the wonder and importance of science. His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent achievement”).