Posted by
Edwin Leap on Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:24:59 PM
I saw an interesting show about the prospects for colonizing Mars. It detailed what would have to be done to 'terra-form' the red planet, making it liveable for humans. I was intrigued to see that one of the suggested options to warm the planet was to create special greenhouse gas generating factories, to insulate Mars from escaping heat, thereby promoting plant growth and the liberation of frozen water.
One of the scientists interviewed remarked that it's possible to intentionally heat a planet. I thought about the implications. Humans, exploring space and changing entire worlds to suit their needs. Humans spreading life across the reaches of space from this unique world of life and water where we now live. Humans altering planets, maybe someday stars and the cosmos, by their own intelligence, and for their own reasons, in a kind of universal manifest destiny! It sounds like something God might approve of. It sounds like something we're made for.
Though the same scientist said we have 'warmed earth too much,' the very idea of intentionally warming a cold planet stands in a sort of odd contrast to the worldview of so many scientists engaged in global warming advocacy. Here, on the third rock from the Sun, the message is that we simply don't belong. Our footprint is too large. Our travels too extensive. Our needs too great. Our consumption too conspicuous. Our children too many, and too needy. Our energy use, and hence our technology and freedom, simply too extravagant.
Or is it? Could it be that even on a planetary scale, there is, programmed into it all, a mechanism by which the planet itself responds to the needs of its creatures? And if we find ourselves on worlds that are inhospitable, that it's alright to make them so? Could it be that we are not parasites, but meant to be masters? Perhaps, our world is meant to warm, to keep its most intelligent, most masterful inhabitants comfortable; to grow more food for them; to make available more water. Maybe the polar ice caps, even if they melted, are not inviolable things which must remain, but things which are mutable, depending on the needs of life on the planet.
Could it be that, even if we are warming this great blue globe a smidge, it's OK? That our presence is normal, even expected, both on earth and beyond? And that our impact is part of the design of planetary systems? We should be careful not to pretend that we know more than we do; and especially careful not to imagine that the universe is better off without us.
And we should remember that if even global warming phobic scientists can see us molding creation to our needs, we might just belong here too.