Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of dreaming of other planets
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
This is an old and tired viewpoint, that space is just a huge waste of resources that could be applied to more down to Earth (haha) needs. It's usually used when discussing poverty, though.
For the current climate emergency, it's factually wrong, without even getting into philosophy. Two words: artificial satellites. Without them we would be unable to track deforestation, thinning ice sheets, atmospheric composition, surface temperature, all of which are absolutely critical in understanding climate change and monitoring our impact.
And while the rockets that have placed these satellites in orbit are not capable of sending humanity to other worlds, I'm sure that the people that design them would love for that to be the case.
This is not what article is about
" Didier Queloz ... denounced those who argue against fighting climate change because of the distant possibility that humanity “might leave the Earth at some point”. "
According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade the simplest plan involves a huge cluster of lightweight shades at the Earth-Sun L1 point. Supposedly it would require around twenty years of daily launches of a 100-ton-to-LEO vehicle, which used to sound like science fiction.
But soon we will (fingers crossed) have Starship, a reusable space vehicle capable of 150 tons(?) to LEO and multiple launches per day. With a claimed cost to orbit of $2 million, suddenly we’re talking only around $10 billion in launch costs and five years for a 2% solar shield, which means we can solve global warming quicker and cheaper than we can build an aircraft carrier or a new subway tunnel (let alone a high speed train from Fresno to Bakersfield).
Those are optimistic estimates, yes, but it seems odd that this solution is barely on anyone’s radar.
If people were interested in solving it instead of using it to drive another agenda it would have already been solved.
It's not happening, the scientist are lying.
Okay, it is happening, but it's not man made.
Okay it is man made, but there's nothing we can do.
In fact, it's probably a good thing, CO2 is plant food!
Okay, it's bad, and there are things we can do, but I don't like the suggestions that other people are making.
We would have solved it already if people weren't so left wing <-- we are here
I will also strongly imply that the reason they don't just accept other solutions is that it's not a real thing (taking us back to step one).
And no, I won't implement even the right-wing, market friendly stuff I previously claimed I wanted, like a carbon tax or reducing subsidies on carbon generating stuff.
Honestly, listen to yourself. The current American president literally said it was a hoax and pulled out of the Paris agreement. He got the head of Exxon to be his embassador to Russia.
And you're claiming that the real problem is the democratic socialists who want to ensure coalminers get retrained and that poor people houses are insulated?
If the right says carbon taxes are acceptable, why hasn't the left jumped on board? They could even propose that it be made progressive by redistributing the tax proceeds as a tax credit inversely proportional to income, because supposedly poorer people are affected more (higher cooling costs, more exposure to pollution, etc). The point of a carbon tax is to reduce carbon emissions, not provide funding to government or be a UBI, so how it is returned to the population is completely separated from the programs goals. And in this case, it would be a double-win: conservatives pass a solution without a ton of regulations, and the left passes a solution that's helps the poor.
What we need is a coming together to find a solution that works for both sides and actually has a chance of making progress. But what we get is name calling and grandstanding. The left proposes solutions they know the right won't even consider, and the right argues the problem doesn't exist. Both sides are in the wrong here. Perhaps the right is a little more problematic, but both sides are dogmatic and apparently incapable of talking about the problem rationally.
Carbon taxes have been applied in many places around the world, mostly by governments that would be considered left by American standards. Yet the American left, which is right wing by comparison is too uncompromisingly communist to even contemplate this? It just doesn't add up.
In Australia their conservatives repealed it after it was introduced. And I believe they did return the money to people by reducing other taxes. So there's a clear pattern here and it's not supporting your claim of "both sides" being at fault.
Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of investing billions in high-frequency trading and other adversarial financial instruments.
Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of spending hundreds of billions on new movies, despite an overwhelming abundance of existing movies.
Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of wasting enormous amounts of very talented people's time on showing and selling more ads.
Why is it always space exploration we have to sacrifice?