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My problem is that human activity for thousands of years is focused on using resources and basically consuming the planet. We take for example iron ore in a pla
by jiriknesl 6y ago
My problem is that human activity for thousands of years is focused on using resources and basically consuming the planet. We take for example iron ore in a places rich with iron, we turn them into the product and spread them across the world, so it is harder to reuse them. We take crude oil and transform some part to plastic, which is harder to reuse and we burn another part, which is irreversible.
And we do it on a huge scale, we need to do it to have drugs, houses, cars, energy, whatever. You can't make a solar panel without mining. You cannot feed 7 bln of people without tractors, etc.
So humankind somehow consumes the Earth. In 1 million of years, we may no longer have any crude oil left. But we are supposed to be here for much longer than 1 million of years.
As I know this, it seems to me, that these things are artificial cutoff. This is bad and that is ok, even when both things consume nature and are unsustainable for millions of years.
A problem is, as long as we are bound to the Earth, there are only two options. Either some form of primitivism, return back to the stone age (not to bronze age, it is mining) and reduce a population to <1% of today. Or to colonize space and "use" Earth (pollution, mining, reduction of diversity is all consumation) and everything so little we will be able to improve enough to colonize space and then start this consumation on much wider scale, that is unlimited (humankind isn't probably able to spread over the whole universe).
A problem with the second is that we are just in the beginning and we don't even have a smallest experience in things like making planets habitable, changing their trajectories, etc. To get there, we need highly speculative science. To get there, we need funds to support it. To have funds, we need profits. To have profits, we need efficient markets. To have efficient markets, we need freedom. And you probably know, anything starting with "The global campaign..." of any kind is definitely going to lower freedom.
- m4rtink 6y agoYou don't necessarily need to start with planet scale terraforming let alone planet orbit modification. Large scale space habitats (like the Oneil island 3 cylinder) are possible with 1980s technology. And if you really want to use planetary bodies then incremental covering its surface with a worldhouse is much more cost effective than a full scale terraformation where you need to invest huge resources for hundreds of years to only get the benefit at the very end of the whole project.