Space and planetary settlement.

xenophile, I do agree with you that we need space based technology or
facilities in order to clean up Earth. But until then, we need to do
something now. Listen to me carefully. Our health depends on healthy
environment. We are getting more and more pullution related sickness
than before. That is a problem, a major problem at that. We have more
smog, more wild weather and stuff.

I know that governments and corporations are just part of the
solution. We, as a civilisation as a whole, need to be very
accountable as well. We need to be one civilisation not
individualistic nations fighting each other over who wants to be
dominant over one or the other. By the way, globalisation isn't, in
essence dominance, it is global civilisation, one civilisation. I
will duscuss this in another time.

Steve

--- In spacesettlers@y..., xenophile2002@y... wrote:

We not be ABLE to clean up Mother Earth without space-based
industry. All that recycling (which I think is a very good idea,
BTW) takes a lot of energy. Where do we get that? Nuclear? What
about the waste? Coal and oil? What about greenhouse gasses? Most
of the world's population lives in poverty, and the rich countries
aren't about to join them there if they can keep from it. Nor is
there any moral value to condeming *another* billion people to that
sort of life. However, there *is* moral value to helping *them join
us* in enjoying a high standard of living. The question is how to do
that without harming the environment to a much worse degree than we
are already. If space industry and settlement help us to do that,
then that alone makes it a morally better choice than not doing it.

We don't stay in the cradle forever. Life didn't stay in the ocean,
though there is lots of life still there. People didn't stay in
Africa. But people live in Africa now. And the rest of the world.
And, soon, in space.

Holding governments and corporations accountable is very important,
but it is not enough. If a pipe breaks in your house, you may need
to LEAVE the house to SAVE the house. The same with the Earth.

About persons with disabilities: Yes. We must fully integrate people
with disabilities into society UNTIL WE CAN CURE THE DISABILITIES.
My girlfriend broke her leg, and needed the wheelchair ramps and
other facilities that are there to accomodate those who do not have
full use of their legs. But it is much better that she no longer
needs them. Her leg has healed. Accomodation is needed because we
can not yet fix everything that is wrong with a person's body.
I think that such articles and websites assume that if people are
spiritual on Earth, then they will also be spiritual in space. So
they use the print space or bandwidth to discuss things that will not
take care of themselves, like keeping the air from leaking out and
radiation shielding. People not being spiritual is not a problem
that can be solved by engineering.

And it is indeed food for thought. If people trully followed the
Golden Rule, we would be in space already. We would not tolerate
grinding poverty for a majority of the world's people, and would do
what is nesessary to change this.