No, I mean in the sense that space colonization is romantic idiocy. If we're "ruining" the planet, we're better off dumping that money to fix it, not chase things we've already proven capable of and realized there's no point in revisiting.
There is a universe to explore. By that token Colombus came back to Spain, said yep, told you so and that was that. As an ex anti-poaching ranger I get you just I don't see a lot of hope due to the nature of the bad humans. Maybe if we MRI scanned all the kids and euthanize the psychopaths we will would do better than this stumble forward... not going to happen is it? As it is redundancy is I believe, essential. After 4.3 billion years of life on Earth, probably best something survives.
Im all for deep space exploration, just the notion of starting a feasible colony in a different planet/satellite being easier than fixing Earth is utterly ridiculous.
An exponentially growing populace can't fix the Earth, it can only consume it. Then we will leave. I'd say get a head start while there is still something of the old girl left.
Easier to make peninsulas on the ocean or under water colonies. Easier to engineer higher yield crops or vertical farming methods. Easier to educate developing populations on birth control. I'm in the Midwest, there's a whole lot of nothing out here ready for the next wave of humans/immigrants/etc...
Easier to engineer higher yield crops or vertical farming methods. Great idea. Monsanto will come up with something that eventually leads to three headed humans. Easier to educate developing populations on birth control. To date this idea has been an abject failure. Better to just kill them all off if we're stuck here.
Or we go with Al Franken's visionary plan from 1996. These plans will work for some, not work for many. I would not be a happy bunny living in an apartment stack in the mid-west as high as Denver. I believe we will do both, some will go and most will stay until a really great alternative is found. I'm wealthy enough that I have some bone marrow (really not fun), blood and various tissue samples stored on the off chance it will be useful to extend my life. Possibly I will live past 120 in reasonable health, who knows. I expect my daughter's chances are way higher to get into the 120 to 200 year band, her kids might be effectively immortal. With these longer lives, the stars become a reasonable goal. All airy-fairy, but my grandchild is probably going to be a fry cook on Venus. The tech we create up there will help us here. Space based power plants, enough energy for some climate control, space elevators.. I'm all excited when I think about it.
Except 1/3rd of the population would have starved had we not already done it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug Good luck birthing/rearing healthy humans in low gravity colonies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolff's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_space#Gravity_and_microgravity
Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...f-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ We don't have a lot of time. Unless we get the population down to maybe 2 billion we nudge all other life off the edge soon enough. There are potential fixes for everything, We can live in giant Elysium type structures but we need to get on it. If we don't then it will get so crowded and miserable the leading cause of death for under 50s will become suicide I can imagine.
Like I said, vertical farming doesn't even use soil. We've engineered crops to also take the most advantage of nutrients, lessen impact on soils, etc.... Basically any problem we may encounter on Earth is miniscule in comparison to going star trekking.