The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones. Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.
I would argue that achieving self-sustainability on Mars forces the issue, even. The problem we’ve had on Earth is that because the costs of being wasteful, polluting, etc are externalized, which makes such behavior “cheap” in the short term — on Earth, the environment is constantly handing out loans that we rarely if ever repay.
That’s not an option on settlements beyond Earth’s surface. There, you’re forced to live with every decision you make almost immediately, so if you’re wasteful or stupid it’s promptly going to bite you in the ass and potentially threaten the lives of everybody involved. You’re not given the option of fixing things later, you have to do the correct thing now, and I think that’s the type of environment it’s going to take for humanity to change its ways.
> The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones.
I agree that they’re parallel because the reality is that they’re both happening right now. I’m pointing out that there’s a huge risk in not figuring out A before B, which is that we’ll just be transporting our problems to a new planet (and if they succeed, then whoever controls Mars will be able to use their monopoly to exacerbate problems on Earth). Granted, the rocket sure is shiny, though... funny how that trick never fails ;)
> Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.
Or perhaps you’re in the equivalent of an “early internet” optimism phase around Mars exploration.
We have all the resources we need here. The research around mutualistic living (renewables, land use, food waste, etc) is making that clear. If we’re glorifying hard problems, then the real hard problem is figuring out how to get humanity to share our already abundant resources equitably and peacefully.
Once we solve that problem we will be ready for Mars.
And to be clear I share the dream of exploring the stars. But I can’t in good faith support that dream until we shift from a parasitic to a mutualistic relationship.
