[geocar]

I believe we can sustain a huge, rich, self-repairing ecosystem, but I don't think we should want to:

Building the capability to get into space will be hard.

Building the capability to get into space while trying to preserve the self-repairing ecosystem of the Earth that birthed us, may be much harder, and might be impossible.

If a catastrophic event is truly inevitable (and whether it's an asteroid, or too many cows is irrelevant to me), then getting into space is absolutely essential for our species long-term survival, and a conversation about sustaining our ecosystem really needs to be about how long we need this ecosystem to last us: At the current rate of pollution, it's very possible the earth will never become uninhabitable to humans simply because humans aren't yeast.

That being said: A more measured conversation about increasing quality of life by reducing pollution isn't necessarily in conflict with the goals of getting off the planet. It'd just be nice to have that conversation instead of the polarizing one that most people seem to want to have about climate change.