HUMANS, THE HIGHEST LIFE FORM. SERIOUSLY!

Apartment Block in Huangzhou, China, housing 11,000 to 22,000 people

Most creatures on this planet spend their lives fighting for survival, but there is one exception - humans.  We consider ourselves to be superior to all the others based on our ability to reason, communicate, invent and have dominion over the rest.  However, in direct contradiction to all this cleverness, is our determination to drive ourselves to extinction.  It is worth noting that no other creature on the planet shares this death wish.  We are supposed to be blessed with foresight, but to all appearances, we aren't using it as we breed ourselves out of existence.

While we turn a global blind eye to population and ignore exponential equations and extrapolation, clever, socially isolated scientists and billionaires are working on ways to send humans to colonize Mars and even further afield.  Firstly, would you really want to live on a barren red planet?  Secondly, there's no place like home and, thirdly, those scientists and billionaires aren't planning on taking a whole lot of people with them.  Can you imagine eight billion people fitting into, say, five to ten space vehicles?  No, you can't.  The resources required to achieve it, let alone in time, simply don't exist.  For such a huge population, the idea is simply unfeasible.

So, let's grow up and stop blaming the burning of fossil fuels, et al, for climate change, shall we?  Those fossils fuels are being burned to sustain the energy needs, industry and travel needs of eight billion people.  The number of cows farting out methane is also based on the number of them being bred to feed the non-vegetarian humans of this world.  Let's also consider the rocket launches, and their associated fuel use, to send satellites into space to feed our addiction to mobile phones and the internet.  Aren't you just a little bit amazed that when a news bulletin shows you images of people in war torn parts of Africa (also courtesy of satellites), where the fleeing residents and rebels are equipped with mobile phones even though they are, apparently, poor?

I also see, via news reports, young, healthy, properly clothed (that is, not in rags) African men overloaded in boats crossing the Mediterranean to escape to a better life.  Some boats include women and children, of course, and some are genuine refugees, but access to the internet in these countries has, I believe, given the people in these poorer countries, an idealized view of life in Europe and elsewhere.  Europe is buckling under the deluge of them.  It is one thing to help immigrants, it is quite another to create economic chaos in your own country so that your own people will need to flee it to get work in the long run.

At base, this comes down to massive overpopulation as well.  Of course, there is a struggle to survive in many African countries.  It's because it is overpopulated and there is also massive corruption.  The overseers of such countries may appear on the media in their tailor-made suits or military uniforms loaded with braid and masses of medals, but no one is actually doing much of anything and that is why they are always having coups, which keep Medecins Sans Frontiers busier than a department store on Christmas Eve.  Coups also just take power from one bunch of corrupt politicians and gives it to another.

Now, getting people to breed less in Africa is a very big ask and I don't really need to spell out why.  China and India really need to get their acts together and address their population issues, by which I mean, they need to make a plan to stabilize their populations.  It will require rigorous education programs, incentives and financial disincentives.   All countries should do the same thing before it gets to the very unpleasant situation of people killing each other for food.

If you don't see that happening in the next thirty to forty years, remember that you are supposedly the species at the top of the evolutionary scale and you have foresight.  I have had people abuse me on Facebook when I have responded to posts regarding population.  I have been moderate and have only suggested people think about where the world population is heading, suggesting couples do not exceed three children.  No one wants a one child only policy, such as the one that failed in China.  I have had women telling me off, saying they can have as many children as they want, it's not my business.  Well, yes, it is my business.  It's everybody's.  They don't live on another planet, and I share this one with them.  The worry is that these people, who do not think of the world they are creating for their offspring, are the ones creating more just like them.

I'm not a dictator, I can only suggest that people think.  It is circumstances that will eventually dictate to us as a species.  Do you think that, if you were invited on one of those rockets taking a very few to a space colony, that there wouldn't be a hierarchy?  It sure won't be Utopia and no one is going to let you breed more than the oxygen supply will support.

I know this is a contentious post but I'm just SO tired of hearing about fossil fuels being the reason for climate change.  The latter is the follow on, the result, of sustaining a population that really can't afford to grow bigger until it finds a more efficient way to produce energy.  Even if we do, do you want to end up living in a high rise such as the one shown on Facebook the other day in Huangzhou, that houses up to twenty-two thousand people?  Do you want the whole world to be as crowded as China and India?

Do you want to crowd the planet so much that other species become extinct? Oh, sorry, that's already happening.  Do you want to beauty of this exceptional planet to be sacrificed for our not very exceptional and transient species?  I'm just grateful I've been able to live here while there is still magnificence left.  If you dream of living in a totally artificial environment to the one that you evolved to fit, go for it, but please leave this Earth intact.

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SPACE EXPLORATION FOR FUN AND PROFIT: OR WHY ARE WE FOULING THE ATMOSPHERE FOR A FEW BILLIONAIRES TO TAKE A JOY RIDE?

 

Polluted Earth by Freepik.com

Okay it's time for me to whinge again and loudly.  I may only amount to one small voice on this planet but I can't hold back solely for that reason.  It's amazing how celebrities are heard and quoted even though some have brains smaller than those of pet guinea pigs.  In fact it's truly quite terrifying as, for instance, when Kanye West decided he was smart and informed enough to run for President of the USA.

Money and fame seem to make your opinion matter.  Well I have neither but I've know that I've had a quite substantial brain since I was around seven, although not an egocentric one because no one bothered to build up my sense of self worth.  In fact it wasn't until my mother was in a nursing home that she said to me, "I think that you're one of the smartest people I've ever known."  That meant a great deal to me even though she had dementia by then.  Nevertheless she was undoubtedly the cleverest person I have ever known and so I took her compliment to my heart.

Enough prattle, here is what I'm a tad bothered about.  Firstly, we're wrecking our planet, we know that. Secondly, it seems that any billionaire who has run out of ways to amuse him(usually)self decides to go into space exploration.  Not just any type of space exploration but the kind designed to generate tourist dollars.  Last week (in March, 2021) SpaceX, Elon Musk's space venture company, sent an unmanned  rocket a certain distance into the atmosphere and then managed to land it successfully.  A few seconds later it exploded but his ground team said the launch had been a success.  They now just had to figure out how to stop it exploding on landing at the next attempt.  Apparently by 2023 Musk wants some wealthy tourists to accompany him on an expedition in space but I'd be damned if I'd put my hand up at this stage.  In fact I wouldn't put my hand up at all for reasons I'll get to later.

Richard Branson of Virgin fame has been working on his own space exploration business even prior to Musk.  It seems it's the must do thing for billionaires who have run out of ways to amuse themselves.  Just over a year ago Branson's last attempt went stunningly awry.  The quote below is from the December 13, 2020 edition of the Washington Post:

"Virgin Galactic aborted its third attempt to reach the edge of space on Saturday after the engine of its space plane ignited for about a second and then went out. The vehicle then glided back safely to the runway, and the pilots were reported to be in good health.

It was the first test from the company’s new home at Spaceport America, a taxpayer-funded, modern mirage of a building in the New Mexico desert from which the company hopes to routinely fly space tourists starting next year.

A successful flight would have brought the company, founded by Richard Branson in an effort to open space to the masses, a step closer to flying Branson himself to the edge of space, followed by the line of people who have paid as much as $250,000 for the chance to fly on a suborbital mission, see the Earth from space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness."

I doubt, frankly, if the $250,000 (US dollars I presume) the potential tourists would pay would be enough to cover the fuel required for these little forays into space for no purpose other than a thrill.

Below is another quote from NASA's Shuttle Trivia online web page:

"At liftoff, the two Solid Rocket Boosters consume 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. That's two million times the rate at which fuel is burned by the average family car. The twin Solid Rocket Boosters generate a combined thrust of 5.3 million pounds."

Musk and Branson's rockets may, or may not, be smaller than their NASA counterparts but note the amount of fuel used in a shuttle launch and then imagine the number of experimental launches the two tourist companies undertake to refine their rockets.

Is the thrill of a joyride in space by a tiny number of well heeled persons enough to justify the extreme amount of fuel, and thus carbon dioxide, belched into our already sick atmosphere?  I don't think so.  I hate telling people how to live and what to or not to say, but in the case of using up this planet's oxygen, I feel justified in suggesting that Musk and Branson's companies should stop their tourist space programs.

We have rockets launching, frequently I'm sure, to maintain communication, weather satellites and the space station.  We did survive without these but they have been useful.  Space tourism, however, is no reason to belch more crap into the atmosphere.

I love those people who are all for colonizing other planets when we can't maintain our own.  When I think of humans in space I just imagine them as slightly evolved apes.  You know, apes in space and, instead of swinging from vines, they're making their way from planet to planet to wreak destruction elsewhere in nifty little, fuel consuming rockets.

I  can also imagine colonies of humans in a hundred years or so with children who long to see mother Earth but simply won't be allowed on it.  Earth will be for the privileged humans who survived and re-greened the planet against all odds.  While I still dream of seeing Italy and Greece, imagine what it would be like to grow up on an arid planet, sustained by artificially produced oxygen, dreaming of a green landscape with beautiful blue waters.

That's what we are destroying.  All the talk of reducing carbon emissions is valid but not enough.  What no one dares to address is the population.  It has to be stabilized before people are delegated to having no more than two children, but does anyone really address this issue?  No, they don't.  I think those people, such as David Attenborough, who are really trying to get the mass of humanity to think about the damage to the planet are afraid they will lose their audience and any chance to influence it if they address the sensitive area of child breeding.

Isn't it better to deal with it now?  No one is suggesting anyone be culled, just that we think for the future about how much arable land and living space there is and how many people the Earth can sustain without us having to give up the conveniences, such as power and communications, that civilization has given us.

I once spoke to a fellow who said, "Who cares how many people are on the planet, scientists will figure out a way to feed us."  I wonder if he thought how much space we would be allotted and if there would be enough plants to recycle the carbon dioxide back into oxygen.  The trouble with a lot of people is that they are just not far sighted and only think of the now.

I am fortunate.  I was born into physically beautiful and natural surroundings and fell in love with this planet from the moment I could perceive.  I feel a need for trees, clean air and enough room to move.  I don't need to pay $250,000 to orbit the earth to look at it, while it's still blue from above.  I live here.  It is my father and my father and I respect it.  I can only pray it survives us intact.  I have a very real fear it will not and it is disgusting to look for an alternative place to inhabit if we can't care for the one we have.

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