Slightly tangentially: the conversation about Mars always seems to turn to colonization. And it makes me sad that humans fantasize about terraforming Mars when they can't even stop themselves de-terraforming Earth. This discovery is interesting in itself though.
You don't make progress by hitting the brakes. A humanity that destroys earth and is forced to move into space will be more successful overall, potentially, than one that does nothing on earth because we might harm the environment. It takes seven billion minds, seven billion human beings, to come up with the minds capable of solving the ideas that need solved. You only get an einstein every few million people, and you only get great inventions from greed and need. By saying we should hold back, we restrict that capability for mankind to progress. That we look to mars as we destroy earth is not a crime, it is a great thing, and part of human nature. We never hold back, we adapt to what hits us, defeat it, and keep progressing until something new threatens us. We won't fix this earth, or learn to fix mars, without being forced to. So it's better we are than not. Even thousands of death at the hands of global warming will make up for the potential millions, if not billions, that result from mankind's reach into space. Just as the industrial revolution killed thousands in factories, inspired the efficient death camps of the Nazis, but improved the world nonetheless. To me, global warming is a sign, and a strong sign, that humanity is moving forward. We have become aware of the effects of our actions, first as nations, now as a world. And we will find a way to terraform earth, to fix what we fucked up, develop the technologies that let us do so, before we unlock the path to mars. And it makes me sad that humans fantasize about terraforming Mars when they can't even stop themselves de-terraforming Earth.
The problem is "just treat it a little better" is hard, if not impossible to do efficiently. The best we can do is make a carbon tax, and invest that money into renewable research and reversing co2 emissions. At the end of the day we have a choice. Lower living standards, or fewer people. We aren't willing to give those up, and for good reason. My point is that the course humanity is on, the process of destroying the earth, realizing we screwed up, and being forced to band "together" and fix it, will set the stage to give us the knowledge to do the same to another planet. Just as ICBM's and nukes brought us space travel and (closer to) world peace. We will never go to mars if we never have to. As things are going now, we will have to, or have motivation to.
Nonsense. Human beings have been able to sustain the ever-growing population for thousands of years in billions, even. We're currently sustaining seven billion - who's to say we won't progress to nine? ten? twelve? Surely, the amount of resources necessary is going to grow, and fast, but so far, we've been able to survive and not completely destroy our planent in the process - which is both good and bad. I'm sure you can piece together why is it good. It's bad because, well, we are destroying our planet slowly. Not just changing it to fit us a bit better - no, we're sucking it dry where we can, and we're leaving what we can't repurpose - which happens to be stuff that's terrible for the environement - to rot and decay, which won't even happen soon - all the while the technologies not just to start the recycling but to sustain it in the long run are already there. It's a shame that the reason we aren't using it is because it's not profitable enough. Aren't we just splendid. So here's your motivation to do better: unless we do, we're going to either starve, die of sickness or drown, and we, as a sentient species, are going to suck all the way through our impending death unless we do something not from our greed and ego but from our heart and our sincere intent to do better. If we don't and if by that time we aren't capable of travelling to Mars and sustain living there, we're done, and it's going to be all humanity's fault - yes, even mine and yours.The best we can do is make a carbon tax, and invest that money into renewable research and reversing co2 emissions.
At the end of the day we have a choice. Lower living standards, or fewer people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:Population_curve.svg The rates of population growth we have today only really started at most 2000 years ago, and even then we didn't start having a huge population growth until the near 1500's. The rest of your comment is in a similar format. Grand claims about how we are "sucking the earth dry" without describing a single actual situation in which it is true, or showing how these situations are dire or of massive issue. The only think I am aware of myself is the fishing in the oceans, where we are absolutely screwing things over. Otherwise, most environmental issues faced today tend to be well regulated and maintained. And recycling things most often isn't worth it. Money is not just a thing people collect, it's a proxy for resources used to accomplish a task. Something not being profitable, such as recycling, is a tell that the energy and effort required to recycle costs more, and as a proxy, damages the environment more, than just getting more oil out of the ground. Most all land use by humanity is in the form of farms. Most of our most severe non-global warming pollution (in the first world) comes from making food, and maybe cars. The tech to be sustainable in matters like that may be there, but it's neither effective, or worth it. If it were, people would be using it. What you are forgetting is that people are doing better. When the challenge rises, we face it. We don't sit around with our thumbs stuck into various areas, waiting for everything to fix itself. Even today, renewable energy is rapidly expanding, becoming more efficient, and looking to replace other forms of fuel. Pioneers in electric cars are making vehicles that are just better than what exists today. It's a pattern repeated time and time again. We find something new, and use a resource. Oil, for example, used to be largely supplied by whales. Then, when that resource starts to deplete, new technologies are founded. Real oil, electric lighting. Finally, we start to run low on that new resource, and move on to the next one. Copper used to be something that would run out. Then we found fiber cable. People have been declaring famine and the end of human population growth for centuries, never correct. If society shut down the moment we faced big obstacles like this, we wouldn't be here today. It'll adapt, figure out what to do, and beat whatever the world throws at it, and will continue to do so regardless of how many doomsayers announce the end at every corner. Global warming isn't going to be an issue, because we will find a way to fix it. It's a long-standing pattern in society. However, we can't just shut down in the meantime, expect everyone to just stop using resources, because then we end that pattern.Human beings have been able to sustain the ever-growing population for thousands of years in billions, even.
So here's your motivation to do better: unless we do, we're going to either starve, die of sickness or drown
Must I really point out how destructive this kind of behavior is, to both you as a terran and to the planet we inhabit? Depriving ourselves and the planet of resources you hold so dear is exactly what leads to the trouble we're heading towards. But you're right, of course. Humanity will most likely persevere and do fine afterwards. However, we won't do so by doing the same thing we're doing right now. Not that we ought to stop draining resources, either, though it would be preferable for humanity to live off less (as if we ever need this much). Throughout history, progress came through change; this time, this change might as well be changing our paradigm of how we view resources and consumption.Oil, for example, used to be largely supplied by whales. Then, when that resource starts to deplete, new technologies are founded. Real oil, electric lighting. Finally, we start to run low on that new resource, and move on to the next one.
The pattern through history has not been to give up resource use, but to continue using as much as is feasible, while developing new technologies that allow the shift to new, more common, resources and using less harmful methods to collect them. To live off less is not a "change" as previous ones have been, it would require a massive shift in what human beings are. this isn't going to happen, and it would hurt society more than it helps to do so. It is through luxury, through frivolous crap like facebook, that new industries are formed, that progress is made. The computer was a hobbyists plaything. The internet driven by people who found it fun. What do we restrict? How do we lower resource usage? You can't do it without harming progress more than you buy time, not in a way that substantially lengthens the time humanity has left on earth.
Well, they are until we figure out a better way of getting meaningful tonnage into orbit. Currently, the only way we can do that is with rockets. Which are pretty bad for the atmosphere, let alone the ecological damage necessary to produce them. And to supply the support staff to make missions successful.
It's always going to cost a lot of energy to pull mass out of our gravity-well. Trying to discourage space travel on environmental grounds seems wildly misguided to me - you get much bigger bang-for-buck tackling things like airline and automobile travel. It will be a LONG time before rocket-damage to the environment comes anywhere close to just those two.
It depends what you count as success. Destroying your home planet and wiping out those who live with us here on Earth could be seen as less than successful. A neighbour who creates huge problems for everyone else on the street yet takes pride in their wealth and problem-solving abilities might come over as a little blind to their own problem-creating abilities. And that blindness might too be seen as less than optimal. It's not unreasonable to see "living harmoniously with others" as part of a good life. This discussion turns us towards fundamental assumptions: is there such a thing as a successful life, and what is it? Does it belong to someone, or must it be shared? I hope we can be optimistic about these things, but we shouldn't underplay the suffering that capitalism, industry and technological progress have brought and their power to alienate us from our world, even as we celebrate their successes. And, as thx1138 pointed out, the alternative isn't "doing nothing" but being considerate.A humanity that destroys earth and is forced to move into space will be more successful overall, potentially, than one that does nothing on earth because we might harm the environment.
Firstly, I don't think we will ever be capable of destroying the earth, not to the point where it looks anywhere like mars, or comes close to the point of threatening humanity. Secondly, if humanity goes to mars, we become a multi-planet species, and will go to other planets as well. We are successful if we do so, or more so than if we remain on a well kept earth. Success is having more humanity, having more power, having more capability to have more people living more lives. Success is not stagnation, while we may find happiness in stagnation, we will find much more in continued growth. Seven billion members of a modern society, but having created all the issues we face today, is far better than having humanity remain an agrarian society, happy to live little lives and die when plague, injury, or disease wipes them out. I do not believe this is a controversial opinion. The waste, the pollution, and so on, are necessary byproducts of our system. They always have been since the moment we began to farm, depleting nitrogen from the ground. The emissions cannot be avoided, and the luxuries we live with are human nature, to say we could be "more caring about the earth" is just not true. We can do only two things, stop using resources and have fewer luxuries, or we can reduce the amount of human life to allow the few to have more luxuries. Neither of those are acceptable, not by my opinion. This isn't a question of a single person, living in a single moment, in a single civilization. This is looking at human kind. The net result of all our actions. A single life can be lived, in ease, and die, to be successful, but that doesn't make human kind, as a species, successful. Success, for a species, has always been in population. The more humans we have, the better. It is in adaptability, suitability, in our power to manipulate the world to ensure our species remains on top. Humanity doesn't have feelings, even if it's members do. What you are doing here, is underplaying the lack of suffering that capitalism, industry, and technological progress have brought. And you underestimate their ability to save our world. For each day of suffering, people find joy. Even those in the worst conditions will find a way to, at least, ease their pain, to survive another day. A factory worker in China, paid two dollars an hour chooses to live every day. We, as a species, pick suffering over death over and over again. It is clear that we would rather live, for our families, our nations, our communities, than die to avoid pain. The biggest downfall of capitalism? What? Complaints that things are bad? Yes, they are bad, but they would be worse if capitalism wasn't there. 90% of us would hardly even be alive without technological progress. And, guess what happens without technology. Humanity lives. We live our happy little lives before we fall to diseases. We have another generation, they live their "happy" lives. This goes on... Then, after a few thousand years, a meteor hits, the ice age happens, humanity evolves to fit different environments without the boats to see us over the oceans, and planes to connect the different continents. Humanity dies. We lose our planet. What's the biggest risk with technology, with capitalism? Our planet dies a few thousand years sooner? Is that such a big deal? It was destined to happen anyways, and the way we are going, we are headed to new worlds, we have the minds, the ideas, the technologies to harness power and drive our environment like never before. We track and can counter asteroids, we can see and track when our sun will explode on us. We can leave our planet, go to new ones, colonize them, spread. And even then, there are seven billion lives today. Without technology, that number could be in the hundred thousands, or millions. Even if we keep that number up for a few million years, there will be more happy homes, more happy lives, more philosophy, more thought, than without technology, even if we destroy our world in doing so. So, I don't see the downside myself. ___ Now, do I think this means we shouldn't constantly seek to improve our resource use, to ensure that our world does stay decent? Not at all. I think we should seek to force the development of technologies and enforce regulations that make companies keep reasonable levels of pollution. We should seek to fix the environment, to end the use of coal, to make new strides in what we can accomplish as a species. We just shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot while doing so. We need to instill carbon taxes and enforce new technologies, not encourage people to go back to living lives that they do not consume as much. Whatever we do, we need to ensure that progress is made, not slowed down. is there such a thing as a successful life, and what is it?
but we shouldn't underplay the suffering that capitalism, industry and technological progress have brought and their power to alienate us from our world
On the contrary, there is a reason species fluctuate around a carrying population. Biology builds in a control mechanism so that the delicate ecology in which we find ourselves is not unbalanced. Humans have shattered that ceiling and are in the midst of spending hundreds of years dealing with the consequences. Success is measured by the longevity of a species, not its members, nor the amount of space they occupy. A dangerous misconception that the technoutopianists like to spout (as above). We defy natural laws at our own peril.
I'm not ignorant of biology. But the carrying capacity is determined by the spatial limits placed upon a species. The earth can only carry so many humans (At a specified quality of life) but that knowledge SHOULD drive the process of getting our genetic heritage off-planet, rather than a reduction in total population or quality of life. Carrying capacity is only an issue if we can't establish viable human populations off-planet. We can't yet, but we will.
I think myself and the other commentors in this thread are trying to figure out who or what you are arguing against. Where are you reading that anyone wants to get rid of technology? Why do you think a "well kept earth" is incompatible with going to other planets? It really seems like you are inventing an opposing argument and only considering a very narrow list of options you've created yourself. As I re-read your comments I'm inclined to agree with ThatFanficGuy.
My point is that our current levels of resource use are sustainable, because our current levels of use are part of a system that has, and will continue to, adapt and change when it is needed to. If we artificially use less resources, we do nothing but hurt ourselves, and any attempts to artificially restrict resource use will do more harm than good.
And it makes me sad that humans fantasize about terraforming Mars when they can't even stop themselves de-terraforming Earth.
Why? Do you think that Mars has feelings? Would Mars care if we inhabited it and used it's natural resources to sustain us?
No, I mean that we are easily distracted into fantasy when we find the real problems before us overwhelming. And we tend to overestimate our abilities: the best proof that we could terraform Mars would, surely, be fixing the climate problems we're creating here on Earth.