Credit: iStockphoto
I love our planet. I love its trees, its mountains, its oceans, its big beautiful skies and its extraordinary diversity of life. What we have on this world is precious — it's worth cherishing and nurturing.
But that doesn't mean I think that travelling beyond this planet is a waste of time or resources; or that I think we should instead focus on getting our world right before venturing into space. That's just plain silly: did we fix Europe before embarking for the Far East and the Americas? Did we perfect an idyllic nomadic society before leaving the African plains? Waiting to get our 'house in order' will achieve nothing but guarantee the demise and eventual destruction of our planet, our ecosystem and our species. Going into space is one of the best things we can do to save our world, and ourselves.
It's in our nature to venture out: since the dawn of our species, we have explored, adapted and expanded. In doing so, we have become the most powerful creatures on Earth, capable of splitting the atom and affecting the climate. Like a teenager experiencing the first flushes of hormones, we have felt powerful and invincible — then slowly grown aware that our behaviour and newfound strength can harm others.
It's because of our extraordinary success, our ability to harness resources and bend them to our will, that we are encroaching on our neighbours. We live in a closed system — the planet Earth — but often behave recklessly as if its resources are limitless. In the past, we've overcome these constraints by expanding into new territories.
The solution is not to abandon modern industrial civilisation: we're not going to give up our cities or technologies. In fact, without the large-scale mechanisation of industry, transport and agriculture, we would be unable to feed our massive and growing population. Going 'back to nature' may sound romantic, but would consign billions to starvation.
The first thing to do is reduce our impact on the planet: make technologies more efficient and our cities, transport systems and industrial processes less damaging to ecosystems. We rely on the web of life to sustain us: we need bees to pollinate, trees to make oxygen and worms to aerate the soil, or we would swiftly perish.
And after that? Do we mandate population controls? Do we nominate an arbitrary age at which people need to 'retire', as in the dystopian fictional vision of Logan's Run? Because populations will continue to grow, especially as child mortality falls and science finds ways of extending human lives. The logical thing to do is to expand beyond Earth: to build colonies on Mars, floating habitats in Earth's Lagrange orbits, mines on the Moon and the asteroids, and expand deeper into our Solar System.
It may sound unappealing to some. But so was the prospect — just a few centuries ago — of a long and arduous journey across treacherous oceans in cramped conditions, only to arrive in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness where conditions were difficult and starvation was a real possibility. And yet, tens of thousands of people set off for Australia and North America, among many other places, in search of a new life. Thousands perished. And yet, more came.
We need to expand into space because Earth alone cannot sustain us. Space provides a pressure valve, but exploring it will also ensure our survival. Because one day, a massive calamity will befall our world — an asteroid strike, ice ages, supervolcanoes, solar bursts or nuclear war — and we may disappear, or our civilisation fall.
Some ask: so what if humans pass into history? It's not just a tragedy for us, but also one for nature. Without us, there is no one to witness its infinite beauty; no one to marvel at a sunset, revel in a view, or thrill to the breaking of a wave on a beach. As the late astronomer and author Carl Sagan once said, "we are a way for the universe to know itself".
But we also deserve to continue because we have created things greater than ourselves. Not only scientific and engineering knowledge, valuable as this is — we have also created new and beautiful ways to see the world through art, music, literature and performance.
Think of the plays of Shakespeare, the concertos of Bach, the philosophy of Confucius, the epic poetry of Virgil, the suiboku ink painting of Shubun, the fado laments of Amália Rodrigues, the morality tales of Javanese wayang kulit shadow puppetry, the Islamic calligraphy of the Diwani Al Jali style, the novels of Cervantes, the harvest bhangra dances of Pakistan, the rhythms of the didgeridoo, and anything by Leonardo da Vinci.
Even if the cosmos is brimming with other advanced civilisations, we still deserve to be here. Nature in its diversity has made us as we are: we too are children of the universe, and have something to contribute.
Wilson da Silva is the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmos, and the past president of the World Federation of Science Journalists.
Concertos of Bach!
Thanks for spotting that slip. The wonderful thing about the Internet is you can quickly correct a bobo.
Cheers
Wilson da Silva
Materialists viewpoint
Interesting article, but it's ability to convince maybe depending on the readers philosophy. I mean the 'think of the poor universe'- argument. I would say that, if there were no one around to witness the universe, the universe really wouldn't exit.
Makes me wonder....
In response to all the "we're doomed comments", I wonder if 3 or so billion years ago, when the first single celled organisms started to produce oxygen, one turned to the other and said, "ARE YOU MAD?!, we breath in carbon dioxide, your oxygen production will kill us all!"
Waiting to get our 'house in
Waiting to get our 'house in order' will achieve nothing but guarantee the demise and eventual destruction of our planet...
I beg to differ; [we] humans still use violence as a primary method for conflict resolution. The idea of exporting this behaviour to the space beyond our planetary system (and beyond) is a sign of immaturity, ignorance and arrogance. Get up the house in order, first! Education. Education. Education and transformation of consciousness. Break up the old outdated patterns of religious intolerance, inequality etc..etc...
Yet, the dominant economic system based on the primal greed will not allow this cleaning to happen, for it thrives on destruction and rebulding. It (capitalism) will cut off the branch that it is sitting on, since the resource on this planet are finite; 10% growth of GDP [unending re-building] has a very concrete ceiling in time domain.
Luna Philosophie and R.O.M.E. project
You may want to share this vision with others.
As a "traveller of both time and space" in virtual
worlds and cyberspace, I came across the NASA Colab,
http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/node/34
Bacteria
Trying to argue against the nature of reality is for madmen. This sounded to me like the US government strategy for winning in Iraq: arguing over the facts until you convince yourself you're winning. Or like US government arguing against Climate Change and how we need to do nothing.
Too bad arguing over the facts isn't enough to convince the reality to act differently or change anything. And neither should it. Neither is this diatribe going to change any facts. Humanity is going to stay on Earth forever and die here. We evolved to live on this planet. There are no other planets out there for us. If anything from us is ever going to survive out there, it will adapt to wherever it's going to be living. Not the other way around. Just like the fish adapted to live on land.
How long a while humanity survives, remains to be seen, depending on how selfishly destructive we are going to be. Americans collectively are not doing much to help stop our early demise: throwing dirt and lobbying against clear observations of danger and arguing how somebody is doing less than the country that consumes 27% of oil in this world while consisting only 4% of it's population. Clearly, if 4% has power over 27%, those with real power to act are that 4%. And they are not the poor folk in China. Instead of acting, US government has been content hitting on the gas pedal to ensure short term economic benefits for USA, at the detriment of Kyoto, and possibly all of us. We should collectively have acted 8 years ago. We failed. Humanity on Earth acts as the bacteria on a petri dish, eating away all the nutrients, until the collapse.
We as a species are failing to collectively act intelligently for our own preservation and long-term survival. Some of us are just hitting on the gas pedal for more speed and faster self destruction. It is because of this that insignificance is our fate. Superstitious beliefs, hope and prayers will never change the cold hard facts. Selfish wins lead to collective loss.
USA in Iraq and Kyoto Treaty are good examples. Planetary self-mutilation for the benefit of the few, but at a loss for the collective humanity.
Change is brewing....
Right now we are on the eve of an age of absolute abundance. There are two rapidly advancing technologies which will make this so.
First off is solar power. Records are being made all the time in this field. If we had spent the money we've wasted in Iraq on solar power using the currently available technologies American would be completely energy independent, once our transportation technology caught up with the abundance of renewable energy.
The second is nano-technology, and the ability to build anything from the molecular level. This technology will solve a huge number of problems facing our society.
The only problem here is that the elites of the world know this is coming, and they don't want to share that with everyone. Their aggressively working to enslave the world so that only they will benefit from this amazing technology, along with life extension technology. They want to create a world with a limited pool of slave class workers that they rule over.
No other threat we face is greater than this. They are building the technology to control and enslave us, and if we let them accomplish this goal there will be no coming back.
What about Venus?
Given that Venus is roughly the same size and composition as the earth, and about the same distance from the sun... it makes a perfect terraforming candidate.
Yeah, 800 degrees F surface temperature and a year long day might be a bit annoying, but Earth had that problem once, and it was solved by a rogue planet striking at just the right angle to form a moon, and with it, a 24-hour day spin, causing the molten iron core (which went solid on Mars) to generate a magnetic field that deflects a good portion of the suns radiation. Let it cool down enough to add some anaerobic bacteria... and your soon on your way to a livable atmosphere.
I've heard some speculate that we could use the oversupply of nuclear weapons to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids... maybe (and I don't know the mechanics involved), they could be used to move worthless planets like Mars or Mercury to the proper trajectory to make a moon for Venus.
Just don't miscalculate and hit Earth! Don't want to sink the 8-ball before the end of the game!
This might also give a clue as to where Earth's water came from (hopefully, oceans form upon cooling).
Stupid Hippies!
I'm sick of these doomsayers and goddamn hippies! You guys are self-hating human beings?! You're and human be proud of it! If nature hadn't intended for us to take over the planet she would have found some way to destroy us by now, she does a pretty good already with natural disasters and our predisposition for greed and war so be happy hippy that we are the way we are otherwise the world would be in even more trouble. Yes absolutely I think we should be more respecting and caring of the environment. But I will never support any movement that is for reverting human's thirst for knowledge of the outside world and the use of his noodle, so that goes for various anti-technological movements and religious views as well. We need to go out into space, it is our destiny and furthermore we can't meet the little green men that some of you talk about without us doing that :-) The universe would be definetly be more boring without us!
Self-Hating Humans ... Destroy the Earth for Profit
Hello Ivam,
> You guys are self-hating human beings?!
Do you know how absurd you sound as you claim that your love for humanity compels you to destroy the only home which humankind will ever inhabit?
Environmentalists love humankind and prefer to save humankind from committing a global act of self-inflicted suicide. Unfortunately for the environmentalists, humankind's global economy is set up to reward the most reprehensible acts of violence, destruction and wastefulness by humankind.
Humankind's extinction is inevitable simply because extinction is more profitable than survival.
> If nature hadn't intended for us to take over the planet she would have found some way to destroy us by now ...
Nature has found a way to destroy humankind. That much is certain. Humans are destroying the Earth, polluting it horrendously, and rendering the planet inhospitable to human life.
Those who want our species to survive must fight these suicidally self-destructive behaviors, but our species resists wisdom because humans are not especially intelligent animals.
> But I will never support any movement that is for reverting human's thirst for knowledge of the outside world and the use of his noodle, so that goes for various anti-technological movements and religious views as well.
For the sake of technology you will drive humankind to extinction. How smart is that? Human knowledge won't mean much when there aren't any humans.
> The universe would be definetly be more boring without us!
Please. Do you really believe that the Universe actually needs humankind?
Don't you know that for about 99.9999% of the Universe's existence humankind did not exist?
The Universe doesn't need humankind. The Earth doesn't need humankind. Nature doesn't need humankind.
If humankind's survival means anything at all to humankind, humans will have to live differently on the Earth. But our foolish species values profits over survival and this is the reason why we have poisoned the Earth and spent so much time engaged in warfare against Nature and each other.
The human story ends in the Apocalypse.
David Mathews