A society has to become wealthy enough to be able to care about things like clean rivers and air. When you are a few meals away from starvation, and water is scarce, filth in the river or the health of the forest is the least of your worries.
The cornerstone of civilization's future is clean, abundant power. If you have that, you can do almost anything else. CO2 or no CO2, it's pretty obvious that we aren't going to raise seven billion people to U.S. living standards burning coal. It's also obvious that we aren't going to be able to live comfortably on a planet where a fraction of that population lives at U.S. standards and the others are on the outside looking in, like in "Zardoz."
One big reason I was into spaceflight in college, and still am, was that I could see it as a solution to at least energy and resource issues (I had no illusions about it as a population relief method).
Flame » in reply to why the hell use a planet that already has a unique ecosystem?
We're actually not doing half-bad.
The whole thread (51 posts)
- Ok...you anti-human environmentalist psychos...
- What prevents us from turning the entire surface of the earth into a mile-high metroplex?
- Nothing to fear.
- Heat Dissipation, for one...
- That it isn't sensible, economic, or necessary. (n/t)
- re: What prevents us from turning the entire surface of the earth into a mile-high metroplex?
- Humans, the stupidest species on Earth!
- PS
- Don't you know that you can count me in.
- Ironically...
- What prevents us from turning the entire surface of the earth into a mile-high metroplex?