ASSIGNMENT-3

We are faced with an impending planetary crisis on earth that poses a serious
threat to humanity’s growth and future. The situation is precarious due to
earth’s limited energy and resource supply. The danger, Jeff Bezos says, ‘is not
necessarily extinction, but stasis. We will have to stop growing which is a very
bad future’. Perhaps, we need to become a space-savvy civilization, to secure a
future that’s exciting and better than the past, more so to perhaps survive in the
event of a catastrophe, as pointed by Elon Musk. Perhaps Musk is right when
he says, ‘Earth is the cradle of humanity, but we cannot stay in the cradle
forever’. Offer your thoughts (not necessarily a criticism) on the perspective
shared above.

It's an amazing thing, how quickly human civilization started using such a vast
amount of energy. These charts put together by Our Finite World, tell a well-
known, but fascinating story: they show the fast-accelerating energy
consumption throughout the Industrial Revolution up through the modern era.
Over the last 200 years, energy consumption by humans has increased
drastically. The rise in population is the main cause of this rapid outburst as
population growth continues to climb, so too will energy consumption. These
resources that we so casually use, take millions of years to form and we use it as
it would never get exhausted. When Jeff Bezos said that ‘the danger is not
necessarily extinction, but stasis’, he is trying to insinuate that, the path we are
on, our species won’t go extinct due to climate change or any other
phenomenon but rather due to decreased growth with the earth going into a deep
slumber to replenish the resources we have consumed. What he talks about is
daunting, there will come a day when there won’t be enough resources for the
increasing population, this would lead to food shortages and starvation. As
Raimon Pannikar rightly puts it ‘Rampant growth means cancer, in all orders’.
Excessive growth is like cancer, it will end up killing you unless it’s slowed
down or terminated. Reducing our growth would be a way to go about this
problem but it is impossible to stop the way we are growing.
This is where the concept of ‘Conquest of Space’ comes in. Man has always
looked to the stars and wondered what life would be like on a distant planet.
Growing up as a kid, I hoped one day I would become an astronaut and travel
through space exploring planets and meeting aliens. When Yuri Gagarin
became the first man to travel to space, humans knew that space exploration is
achievable. Space would become a way to save the earth. We could find other
habitable planets and colonise them and then let the earth heal. As Elon Musk
said ‘Earth is a cradle for humanity, but we cannot stay in this cradle forever’.
Our species has outgrown the cradle i.e. the earth and we have started to climb
out and explore the unknown. The Judaeo-Christian scriptures say, Man was
made in the image and likeness of God and bestowed the right over all living
things. According to this, man has been given authority to rule over all beings
and is allowed to explore his limits. In our first ecosophy lecture, Aseem sir had
mentioned that if we are capable of exploring our limits, what’s stopping us
from doing it. Is it then not right to look to the conquest of space as something
desirable and fulfilling which in turn would help our species thrive and let the
earth regain its original composition?
This is where I have another perspective. I began to wonder whether it is right
for us to explore our limits and lay our claim on other planets. Man is now
thriving as a parasite upon the earth and is in the process of conquering to the
limit—and the limit is total destruction. Intelligent parasites make sure they
don't kill their hosts; unintelligent parasites push their greed to the point of
murder and, destroying their food supply, commit suicide. We are the
unintelligent parasites destroying the earth, our host, which would entail our
destruction as well. If we move between planets with intent to colonise them,
we would be causing grave biological disasters. Micro-organisms, to which
living things on earth possess no immunity, may be brought back from other
planets. Similarly, living things on other planets may succumb to the viruses
and bacteria introduced by visitors from Earth. This trivial “conquest of space”
might easily prove to be a sudden and irreparable disaster for two biological
systems, developed through three or four thousand million years of evolution.
Another pressing matter would be, who would be allowed to travel to distant
planets and who would be making laws and governing life there. Would only
the rich, who can afford it be allowed onboard this expedition or would it be the
entire human population. In a world where there are galaxies separated from
our own by a distance of six billion light-years, any talk about “man’s conquest
of space” seems silly.
Reflecting on these perspectives put me in a dilemma, I began to wonder
whether space is a messiah for the earth and our species or should it be left
alone and not interfered with. I decided to not seek an answer or choose sides
but rather reflect on what both perspectives mean and how they differ from each
other. As Aseem sir rightly put it, ‘look not for solutions, but ask the right
questions and reflect’.
Here are two videos that helped me process my thoughts and think calmly:
Starwaves and Nightsky. Hope you like them.