ForumGarden - Space and Astronomy http://www.forumgarden.com/forums en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:44:01 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg ForumGarden - Space and Astronomy http://www.forumgarden.com/forums Colonising Space http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/space-astronomy/48737-colonising-space.html Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:08:47 GMT Here's a comment from today's New Scientist:
One of Pratchett's preoccupations is with the natural world and what is happening to it. "I think we're doomed," he pronounces, "because politicians think in five years at a time. Every time I remember that we live on a planet, it scares the **** out of me, because they're such dangerous things to live on: two miles down there you burn, two miles up there you freeze. It's so delicate."

Terry Pratchett: Fighting to keep the fantasy alive - opinion - 04 November 2009 - New Scientist
There's been the occasional comment on FG to the effect that diverting effort into space colonisation is a waste of resources and that Earth should be the chief focus. Save the planet, keep the ecosystem running, prevent the destruction of the environment from pollution and runaway catastrophe.

I'm not convinced at all. Eggs in one basket, that's all Earth is. Given the choice of spreading to more planets and eventually populating the galaxy at the cost of leaving the Earth entirely dead, or putting the planet into pristine shape and staying here, I'd go for the all-out departure every time. One day, sooner or later but during the lifetime of this species, Earth is going to see the last of us die. If we're not out there by then, we're ended.

Here's a review in this month's New York Review Of Books, to indicate where we're headed:
this is precisely what Lovelock attempts to do—using his own computer modeling—in The Vanishing Face of Gaia. A new climatic jump, he concludes, will occur within the next few years or decades, and will involve an abrupt increase in average global surface temperature of 9 degrees Celsius—from 15 to 24 degrees Celsius (59 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit). Such a shift, he contends, will trigger the collapse of our global civilization and the near extinction of humanity.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: by James Lovelock
I don't mind what it takes or how much of our worldwide resources we have to plunder to get a permanent presence off-planet, we have to make it happen. If all we leave behind is a life-free cinder then that's a cost well worth paying. ]]> Space and Astronomy spot http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/space-astronomy/48737-colonising-space.html