What if the Earth Stands Still?

“Your planet is dying.”
“So you’ve come to save us!”
“No. I have come to save the planet.”
- Dialogue from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Global Warming. Climate Change. Air Pollution. Water Pollution. Land Pollution. Excessive Greenhouse Gas Effect. Thinning of the Ozone Layer. Melting glaciers. Fossil fuel shortage. A lot of these issues are now as commonplace as corruption and traffic—in this country, at least.
Thankfully, with campaigns launched for awareness about environmental issues, “going green” has also entered the mainstream. Energy conservation. Drives against Air and Water Pollution. Anti-Smoke Belching Act. All noble and well-meant efforts. But the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still poses an alternative, more radical solution:
Exterminate mankind.
In the movie, Keanu Reeves is a representative of a group of civilizations far more advanced in all aspects relative to earthlings. (Why is it that almost all sci-fi concepts make us inferior to our intergalactic peers?) They have also been keeping tags on Planet Earth and are aware that it is one of few planets capable of supporting life. Therefore, they have decided to save it. And there is only one clear way, that is, to get rid of all human beings and all man-made objects that destroy the planet. The aliens do this by unleashing thousands of locusts (much like a plague) that are capable of eating away at metal and reducing it to dust. Smaller termite-like insects eat away at the humans themselves.
They also sent out spheres to every corner of the globe to act as modern versions of Noah’s Ark, to save the Earth’s species. They took one of each, except humans, understandably.
It is a work of fiction, and yet... What if that is the only way?
“If the planet dies, you die. But if you die, the planet lives.”
We all know that this planet needs to be saved. But what is not resilient in common thought is that it needs to be saved from us. Most people think of it in terms of saving it from toxic wastes, from global warming, from fossil fuel emissions—but these are terms that only serve to distance us from the real problem at hand: US. Toxic wastes and whatnot are merely side effects. Human ingenuity and intellectual curiosity have led to the development of technology, and the thrill of discovery and the comfort and convenience it brought us has masked the ugly face of destruction. And has masked it for far too long.
But akin to the anti-venom that saves the poisoned victim, we are also the solution.
History teaches us that every civilization reaches a turning point where it is forced to substantiate or suffocate. Some survive, some don’t. There is a collective decision that has to be made, to determine whether it will fall off the precipice or further assert its existence. Maybe, in a figurative way, the earth is standing still and awaiting our decision. Will we make the right one now, or will we have to wait for an alien species to save us from ourselves?