It's sexy! It's cool! Space ships! SOLAR FREAKING ROADWAYS! Oh, wrong thread... Dreams are nice. Dreams don't feed people. But they do give people reason

It's sexy! It's cool! Space ships! SOLAR FREAKING ROADWAYS! Oh, wrong thread... Dreams are nice. Dreams don't feed people. But they do give people reason for hope. Which is why it's easier to concentrate on "OMFG we colonize Mars!", than the engineering realities of: * climate change could very well destroy modern human civilization. Fixing that will involve convincing rich, powerful, people that they're wrong. And, spending lots of money which they'd rather spend on pretty toys or lining their pockets * feeding the planet is easy (from an engineering point of view). Getting the food to people involves dealing with psycho warlords, or corrupt politicians Etc. etc... It's easier to dream about "OMFG MARS!" than to go through the decade-long daily grind of fixing problems at home.