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> "I have spent so much time now looking at the satellite images, and I really love this ice shelf, it would be such a tragic thing to see this thing go." Remi
by tominous 10y ago
> "I have spent so much time now looking at the satellite images, and I really love this ice shelf, it would be such a tragic thing to see this thing go."
Reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. We humans can fall in love with large chunks of ice just by looking at them long enough. How will we ever bring ourselves to terraform another planet?
- r00fus 10y agoI doubt it's a passing fascination with featureless ice, but more of a dread of the things to come...
- tominous 10y agoThe article specifically distinguishes it from the concern about sea level. I think it's about the attachment to something you've studied and the desire to preserve it.
- aboodman 10y agoI really loved that plotline and the thought experiment around the ethics of changing a place, even a place without life.
- arethuza 10y agoArguably the entire Mars trilogy is a romance between the original Green, Sax Russel, and the original Red, Ann Clayborne.
- milcron 10y agoBringing ourselves to terraform another planet will be very easy -- the one who pushes the button will be one who hasn't looked at the planet long enough to be attached to it.
- treve 10y agoSounds a bit like the death penalty.
- intended 10y agoIsn't it already common knowledge that Mars cant be terraformed? No magnetosphere, cold core too iirc (and thats related to the moons being tidally locked.
- hawski 10y agoIt was speculated that it is possible to create magnetosphere, by creating giant magnet :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protecting_the_atmosphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protectin...
- intended 10y agoI am chagrined by the impoverishment of my imagination. Thanks, in more ways than one.
- zamalek 10y agoHear-say: although the magnetosphere is a problem, it's supposedly possible to out-pace it because the original atmosphere loss occurred over millions/billions of years.
- nl 10y agoOh my! I'd say that judgement is a bit premature. We are talking about a planet-scale engineering project; something that is millions of times the scale of anything that has been attempted. We have only d 13 landing on it, and only something 70 space craft have travelled to Mars or beyond[1]. We have only just found traces of water there, and who knows what else is available (or not). We have never even attempted to terraform anything, and the closest we've come has been maybe things like desert control programs. And yet it is supposed to be common knowledge that "it can't be done"? Sure, that is likely to be true, but the idea that we already know the specific things that will stop us seems unlikely. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes
- latj 10y ago"Its its got to be us or them, its going to be them." --The Humans
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago"Its its its a mental disorder, ass ass ass assssshole." --Stuttering Humans
- jfoutz 10y agoLet's see how terraforming this one works out before we go off terraforming another.
- stcredzero 10y agoTerra-deforming?
- foota 10y agoMight be better to terraform an already messed up planet before our own. (which is arguably somewhat messed up, but not Mars-level. Yet)
- snowwrestler 10y agoI think the parent's point is that we are already currently terraforming our planet, whether or not we would like to admit it.
- BurningFrog 10y agoYou don't experiment on your production planet. Mars could be a decent staging planet!
- antisthenes 10y agoIn software, the testing environment usually isn't more expensive by several orders of magnitude.
- MaulingMonkey 10y agoTesting in the emulator is way slower, as is testing with all my conditional breakpoints in place, as is testing with all debug assertions enabled. Devkits are often more expensive than retail kits by a significant margin.
- bryanrasmussen 10y agoit's ok, we're doing agile terraforming!
- flukus 10y agoThe article reminds me of the part in the trilogy where a huge chunk of Antarctica breaks off and sea levels rise by meters in weeks.
- marcoperaza 10y agoThe Mars environmentalists will be one of the stupidest interest groups in human history. And they will certainly exist.
- whyenot 10y agoWhy is it so important that we terraform other planets? Is it really a desirable thing to spread across the solar system and beyond like mold on stale bread?
- evincarofautumn 10y agoWell, it’s important to the mold.
- Mchl 10y agoGasp! Could we be... just a means for mold to spread across the universe?
- fnord123 10y agoIt is important because we have the power to wipe out all life on this planet. We need to spread further than our destructive power or face the end of our species. If you are happy for the end of the species, then that's fine.
- igf 10y agoWell, it's too damn crowded on this planet.
- vocatus_gate 10y agoI'm currently in Antarctica, the giant cold dead place, and I can assure you that being crowded is one thing we do not suffer from.
- zamalek 10y agoIf we can terraform Mars, maybe we can revert the terraforming that we have been doing on Earth (without risking the species on our first attempt at corrective terraforming).
- NoGravitas 10y agoIt also reminded me of the Mars trilogy, but because the separation of a major Antarctic ice shelf and the resulting mass flooding on Earth was the trigger for the second revolt on Mars.