Arthur C Clarke's 90th birthday wish list

David Smith
16 Dec 2007
Observer

Arthur C Clarke, author of science fiction including 2001: A Space Odyssey, celebrates his 90th birthday today and continues to embrace new technology: he has marked it by releasing a video on the website YouTube.

In the nine-minute message, recorded at his home in Sri Lanka, Clarke makes three wishes. First, he would like evidence of extraterrestrial life. 'I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe,' he says. 'But we are still waiting for ETs to call us - or give us some kind of a sign.'

Clarke aims his second wish at global warming: 'I would like to see us kick our addiction to oil and adopt clean energy sources. For more than a decade, I've been monitoring various new energy experiments, but they have yet to produce commercial scale results.

His third wish is closer to home: 'I've been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years and, half that time, I've been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country. I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible.'

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2228244,00.html