Recently, entrepreneur and futurist Peter Diamandis described investments in companies such as SpaceX as an opportunity to participate in a future “off-Earth economy” with an almost unlimited market. There is no question that Diamandis and the people pursuing these ambitions are brilliant. Their accomplishments are extraordinary.
What I find difficult to understand is something much simpler.
If we have people intelligent enough to establish settlements on the Moon and someday build cities on Mars, why aren’t we applying that same intelligence, determination, and investment toward protecting the planet that already sustains us?
For more than 60 years, I have observed environmental change firsthand, first as a commercial diver along the California coast and later through three decades of travel around the world. I have watched thriving marine ecosystems decline, glaciers retreat, droughts intensify, coral reefs deteriorate, and weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable.
I support exploration. Human beings have always been explorers. But I worry that our priorities have become dangerously out of balance.
Today, trillions of dollars are flowing toward visions of life beyond Earth while many of the environmental systems that support life on Earth are under increasing stress.
After a lifetime spent traveling the world and exploring beneath the sea, I have come to a simple conclusion: I have yet to find another planet that can compare with the one we are now taking for granted.
