
Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of dreaming of other planets - ciconia
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/2019-nobel-prize-physics-chemistry-climate-change-global-warming-a9237346.html
======
nickserv
I'll take both, please!

This is an old and tired viewpoint, that space is just a huge waste of
resources that could be applied to more down to Earth (haha) needs. It's
usually used when discussing poverty, though.

For the current climate emergency, it's factually wrong, without even getting
into philosophy. Two words: artificial satellites. Without them we would be
unable to track deforestation, thinning ice sheets, atmospheric composition,
surface temperature, all of which are absolutely critical in understanding
climate change and monitoring our impact.

And while the rockets that have placed these satellites in orbit are not
capable of sending humanity to other worlds, I'm sure that the people that
design them would love for that to be the case.

~~~
perfunctory
> Two words: artificial satellites. Without them we would be unable to track
> deforestation, thinning ice sheets, atmospheric composition, surface
> temperature, all of which are absolutely critical in understanding climate
> change and monitoring our impact.

This is not what article is about

" Didier Queloz ... denounced those who argue _against_ fighting climate
change because of the distant possibility that humanity “might leave the Earth
at some point”. "

~~~
larnmar
Do the people he’s denouncing actually exist?

~~~
Zanni
The only one "cited" in the article is Stephen Hawking, but 1) he doesn't
argue against fighting climate change and 2) he presents a list of threats to
a single-planet humanity, including wars, epidemics, asteroid strikes and
overpopulation.

~~~
imtringued
How is overpopulation a threat? As long as you increase the number of women in
the workplace we will all have less children.

------
larnmar
This got me thinking about the economics of sunshades.

According to
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade)
the simplest plan involves a huge cluster of lightweight shades at the Earth-
Sun L1 point. Supposedly it would require around twenty years of daily
launches of a 100-ton-to-LEO vehicle, which used to sound like science
fiction.

But soon we will (fingers crossed) have Starship, a reusable space vehicle
capable of 150 tons(?) to LEO and multiple launches per day. With a claimed
cost to orbit of $2 million, suddenly we’re talking only around $10 billion in
launch costs and five years for a 2% solar shield, which means we can solve
global warming quicker and cheaper than we can build an aircraft carrier or a
new subway tunnel (let alone a high speed train from Fresno to Bakersfield).

Those are optimistic estimates, yes, but it seems odd that this solution is
barely on anyone’s radar.

~~~
ailideex
This will get everyone riled up but I think the problem with solving climate
change is that the people crying the loudest does not want to solve climate
change but want to fundamentally restructure economies and societies - as
support for my point of view here I would cite the green new deal.

If people were interested in solving it instead of using it to drive another
agenda it would have already been solved.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
This is just a talking point promoted by the very same people that said:

It's not happening, the scientist are lying.

Okay, it is happening, but it's not man made.

Okay it is man made, but there's nothing we can do.

In fact, it's probably a good thing, CO2 is plant food!

Okay, it's bad, and there are things we can do, but I don't like the
suggestions that other people are making.

We would have solved it already if people weren't so left wing <\-- we are
here

I will also strongly imply that the reason they don't just accept other
solutions is that it's not a real thing (taking us back to step one).

And no, I won't implement even the right-wing, market friendly stuff I
previously claimed I wanted, like a carbon tax or reducing subsidies on carbon
generating stuff.

Honestly, listen to yourself. The current American president literally said it
was a hoax and pulled out of the Paris agreement. He got the head of Exxon to
be his embassador to Russia.

And you're claiming that the real problem is the democratic socialists who
want to ensure coalminers get retrained and that poor people houses are
insulated?

~~~
beatgammit
The problem is both sides.

If the right says carbon taxes are acceptable, why hasn't the left jumped on
board? They could even propose that it be made progressive by redistributing
the tax proceeds as a tax credit inversely proportional to income, because
supposedly poorer people are affected more (higher cooling costs, more
exposure to pollution, etc). The point of a carbon tax is to reduce carbon
emissions, not provide funding to government or be a UBI, so how it is
returned to the population is completely separated from the programs goals.
And in this case, it would be a double-win: conservatives pass a solution
without a ton of regulations, and the left passes a solution that's helps the
poor.

What we need is a coming together to find a solution that works for both sides
and actually has a chance of making progress. But what we get is name calling
and grandstanding. The left proposes solutions they know the right won't even
consider, and the right argues the problem doesn't exist. Both sides are in
the wrong here. Perhaps the right is a little more problematic, but both sides
are dogmatic and apparently incapable of talking about the problem rationally.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Both sides is a political cliche for exactly this reason.

Carbon taxes have been applied in many places around the world, mostly by
governments that would be considered left by American standards. Yet the
American left, which is right wing by comparison is too uncompromisingly
communist to even contemplate this? It just doesn't add up.

In Australia their conservatives repealed it after it was introduced. And I
believe they did return the money to people by reducing other taxes. So
there's a clear pattern here and it's not supporting your claim of "both
sides" being at fault.

------
74ls00
This is a false equivalence. Climate chance is a political and economic issue,
not a technical or scientific one. If we stopped all work on space-science
tomorrow, the scientists and engineers wouldn’t suddenly channel their time
and energy into implementing a carbon tax, move fossil fuel subsidies to solar
and wind subsidies, or retrofit every building to be more energy efficient.
Climate change has known solutions, we just need to implement them.

~~~
hvasilev
What are some known solutions to climate change? As far as I know it is a
purely technological issue and we have zero viable solutions or any real ideas
how to tackle the problem.

~~~
TheGallopedHigh
Zero viable ideas? Renewable energy, electrification of transport, carbon
capture via machine and/or natural (trees). These are all possible and doable
if it were not for the political atmosphere around the problem.

------
growlist
This seems to me like a false dichotomy of interplanetary scale - there's no
reason we can't both fix the Earth and also venture forth. I'm starting to
have some sympathy for the conspiracy theory that there are forces working to
stymie man's progress in space because they cannot bear the prospect of there
being a portion of humanity outside of their control.

------
IXxXI
The climate crisis is only the latest in a long series of "crisis"
deliberately created and manufactured to force an agenda of encouraging people
to forfeit rights and freedoms for the "greater good".

------
mr_toad
Or we could just as easily use a similar amount of money that gets spent every
year on defence, the entertainment industry, or sports, to name but a few.

------
deogeo
> Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of dreaming of other planets

Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of investing billions in high-frequency
trading and other adversarial financial instruments.

Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of spending hundreds of billions on new
movies, despite an overwhelming abundance of existing movies.

Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of wasting enormous amounts of very
talented people's time on showing and selling more ads.

Why is it always space exploration we have to sacrifice?

