Question Earthority!

In QE’s news section, I’ve tried to include the latest “space news.” I thought the reasons for doing so were obvious, but on reflection, they probably require some explanation. Fortunately, Stephen Hawking came to my proximate rescue last month when he noted that getting humanity off this rock is probably a good idea … just in case.

Like many libertarians, I’ve had the “space bug” throughout most of my life. If variety is the spice of life, space is one big ol’ jalapeno: “Billions and billions” of stars, surrounded by “billions and billions” of planets.

Space is opportunity:

Opportunities to survive if we’ve screwed the ecological pooch here on earth.

Opportunities for new and better ways of living — and living together — to be explored, to fail or flourish, and to compete for human allegiance.

Opportunities to get it right.

Naturally, some “deep ecologists” disagree with me (for a good fictional treatment of the argument, read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy). Human exploration and habitation of space is obviously going to change — and in some cases effectively eradicate — natural ecosystems.

I can’t say that I’m overly concerned with that, so long as those ecosystems are not inhabited by sapient life forms, though. As a non-”deep ecologist,” I don’t consider ecospheres to be values “in themselves.” I’d rather humanity survived with less ecological diversity to appreciate than that ecological diversity thrived without humanity being around to appreciate it.

Besides, with “billions and billions” of ecosystems to explore and judge the value of altering, our impact is going to be minimal for, probably, millennia … which buys us time to get it right, or at least righter.

So … Earth First! And then Mars, and then Callisto …

See you (out) there.