I agree that it's a fantasy. For one, I think Mars is just a power play by the likes of people like Musk and Bezos. It doesn't even make sense to view Mars as a backup for Earth because, at least currently, Earth is still alive and Mars is already completely dead. It's like saying "we're going to kill off the only planet that can sustain us to get to a planet that cannot sustain us". It's mind boggling that we can get people excited about electric cars and Mars but cannot get those same people to realize the reality that Earth is the only planet known to mankind that can sustain us.
As far as I can tell, humans can't survive for extended periods of time in gravity as low as it is on Mars.
There's also the problem of surface radiation. Given that we can't figure out how to build subterranean cities at scale on earth, I'm not sure what the plan is for dealing with that.
Honestly, a self sustaining space station seems easier to achieve than a self sustaining Mars base:
You can spin the space station up to 1 G, park it behind a celestial body that acts as a radiation shield and power it with nuclear, or beamed solar power.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious about the relative difficulty of the two problems.
My general sentiment is that it seems much, much easier to just keep Earth sustainable rather than trying to make an unsustainable planet sustainable. It's sort of a paradox. If we can't keep a sustainable planet sustainable, how can we possibly make an unsustainable planet sustainable and keep it that way?
Because keeping the Earth sustainable means reaching consensus among 200 states and 8 billion people? That is a political/legal problem, and I am not sure why it should be "much, much easier" than first settlers terraforming an otherwise empty planet.
It seems wrong even to compare those two tasks. They are so different that they don't seem to have a common metric. An analogy: is is easier to stop two spouses from quarreling or to write a SHA-256 implementation from scratch? How would that even be measured?
At least writing a SHA-256 implementation from scratch is theoretically possible. The point is, it is possible to keep Earth habitable, were just not doing that. But there is no plan B. In other words, we're fucked.
> As far as I can tell, humans can't survive for extended periods of time in gravity as low as it is on Mars.
Our only datapoints for long-term human activity are "Earth gravity" and "complete freefall". This is one of the things I hope we can answer in the near-term with manned lunar missions.
> Given that we can't figure out how to build subterranean cities at scale on earth
We know perfectly well how to build subterranean cities at scale on Earth. We don't, because it's expensive and because people tend to like having windows for natural light and fresh air. It'd be cheaper on a smaller planet like Mars (less gravity to fight against), and it ain't like there'd be a possibility of natural light or fresh air anyway given the radiation and unbreathable atmosphere.
> Honestly, a self sustaining space station seems easier to achieve than a self sustaining Mars base
You'd have the same radiation problem if not worse (and no "underground" to shield you from it; "park it behind a celestial body" doesn't really work, either, when you have cosmic rays coming from all directions - said cosmic rays being the dominant form of space radiation), but other than that, yes, space stations are more practical - and you can build 'em anywhere, not just Mars.
You could also build such a spinning structure on an airless body like the Moon or Ceres. Ceres is in fact pretty close to ideal as far as human colonization goes: low gravity (so it's easy to build there and easy to leave for other destinations), close proximity to the rest of the asteroid belt (so lots of opportunities for space mining), and it's pretty much a giant ball of water ice and hydrocarbons so we'd have everything we need (at least on a fundamental chemical level) for air, food, and water alike.
Look I get it, dismissing part of my comment on technicalities makes it seem less likely to play out. But the fact remains that we are clearly headed for disaster and rich people are clearly hoarding as much money as they can to prepare. To hyper focus on tearing apart just one outlandish way in which the elites might or might not seek safety is its on form of denial.
I wouldn't get so annoyed by it. Nerds will nerd and pick apart trivialities. I get your point that the rich are planning for this. Whether they do it by building underground bunkers, space stations, or communities are mars is moot. I'll add though that I don't think it's worth concerning ourselves what the super rich are up to.
The rich killed Rome too and they still ended up with no society.
Bezos' space corporation, Blue Origin, hasn't yet reached the orbit - after 22 years of continuous work. So it seems safe to say that Bezos does not place much value on space colonization.
Musk, on the other hand, seems to be obsessed by the Mars project.
As long as the elites believe they have a plan B, whether it be New Zealand or Mars, they will not make the sacrifices necessary to avert disaster.
The author writes on his experience with a group of elites who were seeking ways to protect their positions in the face of collapse (societal / ecological / etc.). Salvation will not come from the top.
Nobody is making it off earth. And it's not just elites, we're all shitting in the drinking water to some degree, and we're all stuck here. I don't know anybody (personally) who actually makes significant lifestyle sacrifices that curb their impact on climate change. My wife and I are vegetarian, have no kids, don't own a car, and haven't been on a plane for years. I don't know any other person in the "first world" who lives the way we do. I'm not saying this because I think I'm better than other people or because I'm some type of activists. Far from it. Our lifestyle choice is comfortable physically and is the only one that makes me comfortable psychologically. I rarely mention this stuff online, and I never bring it up with friends of family. But every person I know in my age group lives a "typical Western life". Cars. Kids. Meat-rich diet. Several flights a year. Plastic bullshit on their lawn at Halloween and Christmas. And yet they also demand to know what the elites and politicians are doing to save the planet. Because they sure as shit don't think it's their job.
I'm not saying "this is your fault". But I think that these elites you want to blame are as clueless and selfish as every other person you know.
> And yet they also demand to know what the elites and politicians are doing to save the planet.
Because none of what they do as individuals has any significant bearing on the current trajectory of Earth's biosphere. None of it. These are systemic problems, and trying to pin the blame for systemic problems on individual participants in that system - as you're doing right now - is not just ineffective, but is deliberately ineffective: a narrative crafted by those very same elites (and the corporations they own) to deflect blame from the system they themselves architected and continue to enforce.
> I think that these elites you want to blame are as clueless and selfish as every other person you know.
Well yeah, obviously. But that brings into question why they're elites in the first place, and the answer is that they shouldn't be elites in the first place, not that they're somehow of equal blame (let alone less) as their subjects.
Vegan. Grow much of my own food (mill my own flour, etc.). I lived without electricity or running water for most of a decade '00s (and only added a small DC only solar system for electric lighting for the rest of that decade). I continue to maintain a small footprint, but electric lighting, refrigeration, heat in the winter and hot and cold running water are pretty great (hot and cold running water is fucking amazing!), and I don't want to give those up again. But, none of that matters as much as my being a US citizen. The US military has CO2 emissions larger than 140 countries combined. My share of those US military emissions made my carbon footprint very high throughout the 00's in spite of near zero personal emissions. Presently, the US pushing for sanctions on Russia, led to much higher carbon footprint LNG being shipped to Europe to replace Russian pipeline gas (US oligarchs are making a killing selling LNG, though). Etc.
If everyone, in the developed world, made similar personal choices, to the two of us, things would be better, but it would still be insignificant compared to US policy decisions like the massive US military perpetually deployed across the world. And, if the entire world's population was able to share in hot and cold running water, heat in the winter, electric lighting, refrigeration, etc., much of those gains from personal choices of westerners would be negated.
I don't know the answer. Yes, a lot of people need to reduce their waste, and share with the rest of humanity and non-human life. But, it will not be enough-- somehow we must change governmental and corporate policies.
As things currently stand, the average American has near zero impact on policy decisions[1]. While our rich and powerful elites are driving us off a cliff. The change we need will not be led by them, but in the current climate, a revolution, in the US, is highly unlikely, and if it were to happen would likely result in an extreme far-right authoritarian/theocratic regime even more extreme than the individual enrichment at any cost, "drill baby drill," right to far-right regime that currently rules. And, the US currently controls much of the world (see all western nations observing US illegal sanctions against 1/4-1/3 of the worlds population and also providing support for recent US illegal wars of aggression). Maybe the rise of China will save us, if the US elites do not lash out in desperation to maintain power and e.g., cause a nuclear holocaust. But, pinning hopes of halting environmental destruction on China is a slim hope.
Yes it's a fantasy at this point, but a fantasy that a lot of very smart people and a lot of resources are pursuing. They might succeed. I won't make the call. But plan B clearly is some sort of Fortress Europe and god knows what cyberpunk western is in store for the US. It's plain to me the rich are bracing for disaster and see the rest of us as fodder. At this point the best we can do is pick a place least likely to be overrun in our lifetime. I'm thinking Norway or Switzerland.