[crpatino]

Precisely!!!

More over Humanity-the-Species is most likely not at risk anyways. Our ancestors went through multiple, radical and relatively rapid climate shifts during the Ice Ages, so a plausible argument can be made that some remnant of our species will get through the current round no matter what.

If this is the case, deep space travel is at this time a pretty escapist fantasy. During times of economic expansion it is harmless enough, but right now it is a dangerous diversion of limited resources. We should be focusing in two things: Mitigating the worst effects of Climate Weirding in the short term (specially with an eye towards humanitarian crisis), and Arresting the long term climate disruption through bioremediation/geoengineering. I am not even sure which one of those has the most priority.

What is very clear is that building escape probes for the rich and well-connected to escape all consequences of their own actions ranks pretty low on the list.

[CalRobert]

For what it's worth I think we're largely having an agreement. Ensuring our planet remains reasonably habitable should be the highest priority. That part of me which desires to see humanity survive even if we fail in this endeavor would like to see a backup planet (presumably Mars) at the species' disposal.

[crpatino]

Given that Mars would be orders of magnitude harder to terraform than, well... Terra. Why do we even have to consider it?

There's no plan B. Each of us is part of The Red Thin Line (href = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_%28Battle_of_... ), whether we like it or not. The only question worth asking is: Am I going to hold my ground or not?