This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to effort

This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to efforts to colonize the galaxy. Living in Antarctica or in the middle of the Gobi desert or at the bottom of the ocean (independently and sustainably) are way easier than living on Mars, and that’s orders of magnitude easier than finding and reaching a viable exoplanet. The break even point for living on an exoplanet or Mars is when Earth is the worse environment, and I don’t think even a serious Dinosaur-killer asteroid impact makes Earth less habitable to mammals than anywhere else we know about. Maybe a gamma-ray burst would but at some point if the universe wants you, it’ll get you. Climate change is real, environmental pollution is serious, the powers that be most likely aren’t going to do enough in time, so we’re going to get a screwed-up Earth. But it’ll still be the best place we have access to for living in.