You are creating a false choice. No one is suggesting we do nothing on earth, just treat it a little better. Looking to Mars and looking after our environment are NOT mutually exclusive ideas.
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.