I hadn't thought of it before. Only as I spoke, did I realise that I really believed what I was saying.
There are two directions and they appear to be incompatible:
One, stay on earth.
Two, leave.
There is a growing movement within the wealthier nations to be Earth conscious, to look after Earth and conserve her ability to provide our needs, to be increasingly locally self-sufficient.
There is a simultaneous momentum of consumerism and abuse of Earth's resources that really appears to be unstoppable. Even those of us who are aware of these destructive processes have to work very hard to keep our own impact to a relative minimum.
There are people working hard to understand the problems we face as a species and as an organism on this planet and what we need to do to prevent Earth's irreversible decline into a state that will be unable to sustain us.
There are others who are working on what might be called "high-tech" food options - genetically modified organisms and other such technologies, with a stated goal of creating more food, more easily. In fact the goal is almost certainly going to be making more money, more easily, but there may be some positive spin-offs down the track.
Given the increasing population of our species and the seemingly unlikely chance that we will be able to keep The Earth as a viable habitat for us all, there will come a day when people will leave this planet to live elsewhere.
Clearly this will initially be in a space station/ship type environment, but then eventually some form of life-supporting environment, perhaps on a moon of Jupiter or something like it.
Fanciful?
It might be a hundred years away, but go back to 1906 and wonder what you would think if you were told about mobile phones, satellite TV, robotic surgical procedures, nanorobotics.... to name
but a few.
So, the dichotomy I feel in myself between these two directions (Do I get a goat or do I invest in Monsanto?) is in fact a dichotomy in the direction of humanity. No surprise that it feels a bit heavy.
So what to do?
Tonight? Go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.
