Soccer Dad

Green thinking from the red planet

Lead editorial in the Ma'adim Vallis Voice:

It's not often that Terrans speak with clarity and seriousness of David Ignatius who wrote in today's Washington Post Climate Change Precipe:

The scientific debate about whether there is a global warming problem is pretty much over. A leading international group of climate scientists reported last month that the evidence for global warming is "unequivocal" and that the likelihood it is caused by humans is more than 90 percent. Skeptical researchers will continue to question the data, but this isn't a "call both sides for comment" issue anymore. For mainstream science, it's settled.

This is good news for Martians, as we contemplate our own problem with global warming. It is clear that Terran arrogance has only exacerbated a problem.

We have the case of a prominent terran - who used to be the second most powerful man on the planet and is now an honored film maker - who has been contributing over 20 times the amount of carbon to the solar system as the average Terran. (Us Martians use much less, we're more, um, Spartan in our lifestyles.)

Worse he is not just contributing to the growing system warming problem, he is actually profiting from such harmful excess.

But Terran arrogance is componded when it appears that there's an ulterior behind their contributions to system warming. Their expansionist aims are becoming ever clearer.

Moreover, the moon base is not pointless. The shuttles were on an endless trip to the nowhere of low Earth orbit. The moon is a destination. The idea this time is not to go plant a flag, take a golf shot and leave, but to stay and form a real self-sustaining, extraterrestrial human colony.

Sure, Mars would be better. It holds open the possibility of life and might even have water on its surface today. But the best should not be the enemy of the good. Mars is simply too far, too dangerous, too difficult, too expensive. We won't go there for a hundred years.

Nor is it true that there is nothing of use or even of interest on the moon. There are all kinds of materials to be exploited, observations of the cosmos to be made, and knowledge to be gained on how best to live off the land away from Earth.

"Mars would be better" "Exploit" these words demonstrate typical Terran belligerence. First the Terrans will heat up our beloved planet to make it difficult for us to stay. When we clear out to another world or to shelters to escape the ravages of our ever warming planet, they will come and exploit our world for themselves.

If Terran arrogance and threats do not cease, it will be 1938 all over again. And no one wants it to come to that.

Blogdigger tags: Mars, Climate Change, Satire.