Global warming could stimulate our economy -- here's how

Since President Obama isn't planning to unveil any sort of jobs plan until after he returns from his Martha's Vineyard vacation, I thought I'd offer up my own. Best of all, my jobs plan relies on the expertise of people like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and the geniuses of NASA.  Get excited.

The first step of my jobs plan is to warm the planet as much as we can. According to NASA-affiliated scientists and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University, a warming planet could provoke a preemptive alien attack:

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. [...]

"A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

Au contraire. Warming the planet is merely phase one of my plan.  The next step would be to welcome an attack from our would-be slave master alien invaders.  An intergalactic war with an alien species may be just what we need to get Americans back to work.  As NYTimes economist Paul Krugman recently suggested:

“If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months,” he said. “And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren’t any aliens, we’d be better–.”

Although Krugman suggests we take a Twilight Zone approach and fake the threat of total annihilation to spur the economy, I have to disagree.  Just imagine how much harder people would work if their lives literally depended on it. Productive workers = saved planet + booming economy. Problem solved, everyone wins... except environmentalists who will undoubtedly oppose my warming plan.  (I can't wait to accuse them of "hating children" and being "racists.")

It's time to get this country back to work and maybe even spur a global economic rebound. So, can we enjoy our SUVs, kick alien butt and get our economy back on track? I say Yes We Can!

Update:

Looks like Krugman's economic plan is already being launched.

Update II:

The UK's Guardian regrets to inform us that the "report for NASA" it reported on yesterday was actually written by a bored intern. In other news, journalism is dead.