Re: Why Mars?

From: Henry Spencer (henry_at_spsystems.net)
Date: 11/18/04 

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 05:32:43 GMT

In article <aranders-1711042246450001@192.168.1.101>,
Alan Anderson <aranders@insightbb.com> wrote:
>No, there's another solution: negate one of your assumptions. Population
>trends aren't pointing toward an ever-growing number of people. The
>option of merely waiting until the population stabilizes is there, and is
>not obviously wrong.

The problem with that option is that in the time between now and Planetary
Zero-growth Day, the countries where most of those people are being added
will want to industrialize. (In fact, they *must* industrialize, if their
population is to stabilize.) So what happens during the waiting period?

Answer: if nothing specific is done, a whole lot of CO2 emissions,
*enormously* more than what we've produced to date, as those countries
industrialize using fossil fuels. Whether or not you agree that today's
warming trend is artificial, there's no question that if we "merely wait",
we're going to get a sharply altered climate. There is good reason to
fear that the alterations will not be to our liking, and that the rapid
transition will be very hard on both the natural world and minor human
pursuits like large-scale agriculture.

Some fraction of that alteration is probably inevitable, but major new
technology for large-scale CO2-neutral power could mitigate it a lot.
Space solar power might actually be a good choice for that; it's new and
untried, but so are essentially all the other options. (The problem is
simply too large for existing approaches -- including politically-mandated
emission reductions -- to make much of a dent in it.) 

-- 
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend."    |   Henry Spencer
                                -- George Herbert       | henry@spsystems.net