Earth is the birth-planet of man. It has given man so much. It has nurtured man and beast, provided them with life, and death, gave them sights to marvel at.
It's estimated age is 4.5 billion years, which is almost 2.5 billions years short of the half of the age of the universe. It is the only planet in the solar system that can sustain life as we know it. The Earth has provided us with all these things, but what have we given back to it?
It is a question every man should ask himself; what has he given back to mother Earth?
You may have done something for the environment. Maybe you only use solar electricity, plant a tree, drive an electric car, or use only biodegradable shopping bags. Or, maybe you have established a foundation for environment or maybe even a sanctuary.
You have done so much hardwork and not for your personal gain, but for the good of the Earth. Praise is certainly due to you but the question is, does this work even out all the pollution man is giving out?
Actually, no. This is the saddest realization for an individual to have, honestly. I mean, you put in so much work that you know won't earn you a cent, it will only be in the best interests of the environment.
Only for all this hardwork to be disintegrated by the pollution greedy corporations and factories are giving out just because they earn money from it.
What do these companies do with all this money? Will they take it to their graves? Do they not realize that they are destroying the very Earth that one day they themselves will be buried in? Or, have they forgotten death completely?
Let's face it. We are not only plagued by greed, we are plagued by selfishness, stupidity and idiocy. These things have slowly eroded the very fabric that once made us human.
They have taken away empathy from us. We all can sympathize or at least pretend and try to sympathize with others but empathy is something that is very rare in humans today. Trust has vanished.
There are still people today that deny the Holocaust ever happened. People who deny the existence of global warming and climate change. Who still use fossil fuels and don't pay attention to developing new resources for the generation of electricity.
We can only hope for natural selection to play it's role here because it seems like these people are slowly ruining us.
Why do I think that Earth is not a viable option for us?
Well, it's pretty simple. The amount of carbon dioxide that we are releasing into the atmosphere is astounding. The amount of pollutants being added to oceans is astounding. The amount of human activities that are devastating Earth is astounding.
Think about it. Man has progressed so much in the last couple of centuries. We have gone from Steam Trains to Bullet Trains. We are in the digital age for god's sake.
Every other day there's a new technological, scientific or medical breakthrough and corporations flock to that hardware because it's cheaper. They pay good money for it but they forget the cheapest thing there is. Renewable Energy Sources.
Renewable Energy Sources are in my opinion the only things that are truly free. How much sunlight, wind and water is there on Earth? Is it not enough to fulfill our energy requirements? If it is, then why don't we use them? This has always bamboozled me.
Fossil fuels won't last mankind it's lifetime. And the amount of pollutants we are releasing in the atmosphere, I don't think that mankind can last relatively long unless it develops AND uses methods for electricity generation from renewable energy sources.
The only thing that can sustain mankind is multi-planetary colonization. Earth can't last us that long unless we actually did something about it which we clearly aren't.
In movies, people ask for second chances, saying that they didn't knew what they were doing, they didn't knew that it was wrong. That there was no one there to warn them. However in our case, we have had plenty of warnings.
Every other day there's an article proving that climatic change is real, every year the temperature of the earth is increasing. Yet, we brush it off deciding that it is nothing.
If you asked me, if I thought that mankind deserved a second chance, I'd say no. And with good reason too. Why should we have a second chance when we have plenty of warning from others that what we are doing, it is wrong. We continue to do it. Why? Because it's easier. And we make money.
Space colonisation is humanity's last resort as I see it, but as always I could be wrong. It's possible that we may eventually come to our senses and actually utilise renewable energy sources. However, at this time, coming to our senses about this issue seems like a much bigger fantasy than space colonisation.
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