My grandson, last week, told me of all people, that one day the earth will be a cinder that will not support life and that we will have to take flight to another Earth-like planet and start ruining that planet next. I'm not sure who has taught him such utter nonsense and at first I did not even reply. My world view was challenged in a fundamental way, trying to grasp just how and why you would teach a child that. The reason that I worked for a non-profit environmental organization for over a decade, the reason I taught Bradley Method childbirth classes and the reason we home-schooled our children was because, as parents, we had hope for not only finding ways to live lightly on the planet, but because we had glimpsed the great abundance that awaits those who learn to interact with natural systems that have been established that work and create health, wealth and satisfaction without raping the planet, our bodies or our minds.
Whatever forces exist that are popularizing the ignorant notion that our whole planet is just some sort of kleenex to be used, abused and thrown away, I for one, am putting you on notice, this is not going to get any easier. Pushing the idea onto the next generation that the inevitable destruction of our entire planet is not only acceptable, but part of some sort of science fiction that we are to believe in is a crime against humanity as well as Planet Earth. I thought through my response to my grandson for several days and then took the time to tell him that it was upsetting to hear him say those things about what he assumed to be a sensible future.
I explained that if we could travel at light speed, we would need to live in space for five hundred years to make the trip to this "New Earth". Looking in the rear-view of history to imagine just how long five hundred years is, the majority of native people in the New World (they actually called North and South America that five hundred years ago) had still not seen a white person. Guns had to be loaded for each shot fired and life spans were roughly half of what they are now. Generations were still the same however, about twenty years each. That means that twenty-five consecutive generations would have to be cooped up inside a small craft, hurling through space for the entire five hundred years. Odd to imagine because we have taken more than a decade to send out out first ever probe that just recently passed beyond the outer limits of what we call our Solar System. Over 600 million dollars was spent to shoot this first unmanned probe into the Universe. Lofting even a single 200 pound person out of our solar system would be exponentially more expensive.
We have seen the results of spending one year in space. It cripples the astronaut. Gravity keeps us here for a reason and our organisms are adapted to live on Earth. Escaping the relatively tiny blue marble we call our home planet may be a wonderful pipe dream, or diversion, but 500 years in a tin can would be impossible, especially if we do not learn how to live in a self contained ecosystem that only has radiation and a few asteroids falling into it. Whatever solutions we may find to the biggest problems with space travel, they will pale in comparison to finding solutions to our humanity. Say, for instance, we do manage to travel at warp speed, cutting the trip by half or even more, would a trip of two hundred years turn out any better? What about just spending five generations in a box? Some people have said that we could be frozen and just thawed and re-animated when we arrive and that would eliminate the need for us to be living while we travel. This would eliminate the potential hazards and costs of feeding ourselves for twenty-five generations, but it would also drastically increase the useless equipment that we would have to send all that way. The microbes and creatures living in our guts and on our skin would be alien life forms wherever we went in the Universe, so we would begin our first steps on the new planet as contaminants.
I am not sure what we think would be accomplished by just changing our address in space, if we refuse to change our approach, we would need to immediately start to make plans for abandoning cinder number two when that has been desecrated as well. There are solutions to all of the ills that face us here on Planet Earth, there is food enough for everyone, we just lack efficient distribution systems and a sense of the sacred nature of the foods we consume. There are enough houses for everyone, but we defend the corporate elites that keep housing from the people who need it. There is even enough water on our planet, but again there are issues with distribution and "ownership" of this precious gift. Once we commodify the sacred, we can only destroy the life-giving properties of that which we have put a price on. Whatever forces have conspired to warp my grandson's mind, get ready to be called out, ruthlessly educated and publicly humiliated. I intend to speak truth to your power with every last ounce of strength that I can muster, every breath that I draw and every example i can provide will be brought to the table in an effort to stop the insanity that flows from desperation.
Whatever forces exist that are popularizing the ignorant notion that our whole planet is just some sort of kleenex to be used, abused and thrown away, I for one, am putting you on notice, this is not going to get any easier. Pushing the idea onto the next generation that the inevitable destruction of our entire planet is not only acceptable, but part of some sort of science fiction that we are to believe in is a crime against humanity as well as Planet Earth. I thought through my response to my grandson for several days and then took the time to tell him that it was upsetting to hear him say those things about what he assumed to be a sensible future.
I explained that if we could travel at light speed, we would need to live in space for five hundred years to make the trip to this "New Earth". Looking in the rear-view of history to imagine just how long five hundred years is, the majority of native people in the New World (they actually called North and South America that five hundred years ago) had still not seen a white person. Guns had to be loaded for each shot fired and life spans were roughly half of what they are now. Generations were still the same however, about twenty years each. That means that twenty-five consecutive generations would have to be cooped up inside a small craft, hurling through space for the entire five hundred years. Odd to imagine because we have taken more than a decade to send out out first ever probe that just recently passed beyond the outer limits of what we call our Solar System. Over 600 million dollars was spent to shoot this first unmanned probe into the Universe. Lofting even a single 200 pound person out of our solar system would be exponentially more expensive.
We have seen the results of spending one year in space. It cripples the astronaut. Gravity keeps us here for a reason and our organisms are adapted to live on Earth. Escaping the relatively tiny blue marble we call our home planet may be a wonderful pipe dream, or diversion, but 500 years in a tin can would be impossible, especially if we do not learn how to live in a self contained ecosystem that only has radiation and a few asteroids falling into it. Whatever solutions we may find to the biggest problems with space travel, they will pale in comparison to finding solutions to our humanity. Say, for instance, we do manage to travel at warp speed, cutting the trip by half or even more, would a trip of two hundred years turn out any better? What about just spending five generations in a box? Some people have said that we could be frozen and just thawed and re-animated when we arrive and that would eliminate the need for us to be living while we travel. This would eliminate the potential hazards and costs of feeding ourselves for twenty-five generations, but it would also drastically increase the useless equipment that we would have to send all that way. The microbes and creatures living in our guts and on our skin would be alien life forms wherever we went in the Universe, so we would begin our first steps on the new planet as contaminants.
I am not sure what we think would be accomplished by just changing our address in space, if we refuse to change our approach, we would need to immediately start to make plans for abandoning cinder number two when that has been desecrated as well. There are solutions to all of the ills that face us here on Planet Earth, there is food enough for everyone, we just lack efficient distribution systems and a sense of the sacred nature of the foods we consume. There are enough houses for everyone, but we defend the corporate elites that keep housing from the people who need it. There is even enough water on our planet, but again there are issues with distribution and "ownership" of this precious gift. Once we commodify the sacred, we can only destroy the life-giving properties of that which we have put a price on. Whatever forces have conspired to warp my grandson's mind, get ready to be called out, ruthlessly educated and publicly humiliated. I intend to speak truth to your power with every last ounce of strength that I can muster, every breath that I draw and every example i can provide will be brought to the table in an effort to stop the insanity that flows from desperation.
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