I have been a save-the-planet type of environmentalist since before I was a preteen.
Climate change (with its surplus of support being evinced by scientists and intellectuals, and having been corroborated by a seemingly inexhaustible amount of practically incontrovertible and exceedingly rigorous scientific research, data, and careful analyses) was the first topic I had researched extensively about what I was lead to think of as humanity's thoughtless destruction, greedy and haphazard despoilment, and unchecked and unconcerned depletion of the lithosphere and decimation of its biosphere.
That was when I was about 13 years old.
When I got a little older, I remember stumbling upon this very popular YouTube video (q.v.
https://youtu.be/zORv8wwiadQ) wherein some guy, Greg Craven, argues the case for environmentalism by essentially narrowing the situation down to essentially two choices:
Choice A.) Humanity can be incredulous and skeptical about climate change, then do nothing to prevent or curtail or reverse the damages the planet has so far sustained, only for us all to be annihilated by the possibility of some self-caused natural calamity we never prepared for or tried to prevent or even acknowledged; or
Choice B.) Humanity can invest money to fund taking action to prevent or prepare for such a calamity, regardless of whether the science is mistaken and the data are wrong, effectively preventing our almost certain extinction from an environmental threat—whether imaginary or real.
Obviously, at least to thinking humans, choice B, while possibly advancing the allocation of trillions of dollars in the desperate hope to protect something that may be either unprotectible or unreal, is most sensible of the two choices. It would be tantamount to buying an umbrella today to prevent getting soaked by a rainstorm tomorrow. Even if those forecasted torrential rains never come, having the umbrella without needing it still seems more sensible to me than needing the umbrella and not having it.
But lately, my opinions have changed. Here's why:
1.) Mass extinction events are a frequent occurrence on Earth (consider the worldwide extinction of the dinosaurs and all other animals larger than, say, a chihuahua which occurred 65 million years ago, all by single a meteor).
2.) It is therefore reasonable to assume that such a terrifyingly destructive extraterrestrial threat will happen again. It's just a matter of time before a monstrosity of a meteor, for example, comes into our trajectory and we don't have the technological capabilities to thwart or explode the largest rocks in even the meteor belt just past Mars. What about a very unfortunately well-aimed gamma ray burst?
3.) Worse still, what if we were to invest in the preservation of our Earth's geologically very brief period of human-sustaining conditions, but our efforts and endeavors are still as unavailing as if we hadn't done anything? What then? We've only wasted money and time without anything tangible or appreciable to show for it.
4.) In light of this diversity of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns (Rumsfeld allusion; his logic is perfectly valid here) of threats which may have results of inescapable mass death and extinction, as well as the irony of humanity trying to clean up and "save" a planet we were too irresponsible to keep clean and safe for millennia in the first place, the aforementioned "case" for environmentalism seems more of a false dichotomy than a collectively exhaustive binary set of events.
5.) How can we trust our race to fix what we were too stupid or careless or irresponsible to not break at the outset? Any possible solution to our environmental malady couldn't possibly be trusted to work if the responsibility or onus of finding and implementing that solution falls on the people (our race) that proved their impotence and incompetence by first having caused the problem we now feel drunk enough on our own pseudo-omnipotent abilities to remedy. That's not advisable, it is disquietingly absurd.
6.) Is saving the planet (or, to put it less euphemistically and magnanimous, saving ourselves) even feasible over the long run? Or do we not care and are simply trying to insert meaning into our lives by deluding ourselves into accepting the preposterous notion that we humans can actually save a whole planet (but can barely locate a matching pair of socks in the morning)? And by recycling? Being vegan? Come on. I'd call it stupid, but it seems more like societal schizophrenia than plain imprudence.
7.) Since this rock called Earth and all its biology and geology will eventually die or become unrecognizably disfigured no matter what we do or do not do whilst blindly in love with this flawed and faltering planet, and since planting urban gardens, restoring the rainforests, saving the ozone, etc., are all patently abortive, why don't we do the exact opposite of environmentalism? I personally think we evolved our incredible brains not just to sit on this blue-green boulder for the entirety of our species short existence and act as its bodyguard.
8.) Rather, I think we should mine, excavate, dredge up, disinter, and use every resource this incommodious little rock harbors. We should use every nutrient, every element and their isotopes, every thing there is to take for the taking. Then, cooperating all as one race and with every human's helping hand, we should invest all our money and wealth into science to motivate the preponderance of underpaid scientists to get to work using their recently begotten wherewithal to research and investigate more efficient ways of space exploration.
9.) Then, utilizing our procured resources we shoveled up from the ground, we could use our new scientific research and use it to inform the construction of better spacecraft, and then we might just be able emigrate from this Godforsaken planet and head somewhere more habitable. Transforming ourselves from a sedentary species into a technologically advanced, space-exploring nomadic race.
10.) Planting trees and saving endangered species is a waste of precious time. This planet as we know it will change and we will all die one day. It could be another Ice Age; a supervolcanic eruption or a reactivated massive caldera; a lucky-shot gamma ray burst; a meteor too large to do anything realistic about; the possibility of our environmental destruction being like an irreversible snowball effect, being too far gone to go back; the ice sheets continuing to melt and rising sea levels such that only montane environments, at most, are habitable; and so on.
11.) We need to get over these abandonment issues we have with the Earth, pack up our shit, and go someplace less unstable, less uninhabitable, and start a new existence, in my opinion. I mean, this isn't some dope-inspired, quixotic pipe dream eithe:
Cosmic Census Finds Billions of Planets that Could be Earth-Like
Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars
There are other planets that could theoretically support our existence. All we need is the technological sophistication to get to them and then we can say goodbye for good to this precarious rock. But we may never achieve extrasolar space travel. But the possibility still exists, if only we had some adequately smart and discerning scientists working o7 the job and only if the whole 7.5 billion of us are willing to get involved any way we know how. Then it's even more possible.
But, one thing that will never be a possibility is saving this planet. You can't save it, no more than you can save someone by rescuing them from a collision with an oncoming train. All one can really do is prolong the lifespan, but death is incredibly resourceful; what doesn't kill you only makes the probability of a future death less unlikely.
In summary, I think we should make the most of what we've got, and use up everything this planet has to offer, so as to build and develop ways to leave it.
But I'm interested in other people's perspectives. So, should we save the environment or invest our finite resources and money in leaving it for someplace that doesn't need saving?
in a previously suicidally depressed individual.)
