I sometimes look at news headlines when I open up my web browser to do sweepstakes entries. One of the headlines was from People magazine and in the article is an interview with Prince William the Duke of Cambridge where he slams the company Blue Origins for their space flights because in his opinion, I am paraphrasing here, we should be working on this planet and who knows what kind of carbon footprint is tied to the launches. I am going to put my opinion on all this in an open letter below. This is in no way an aggressive or hostile attack on the man just a facepalm reaction put in writing. The letter is addressed to him but I know what he is also just voicing what a lot of other people are also saying even if they aren’t well informed and I would say the same to them.
Duke of Cambridge,
If you had bothered to do any in depth research you would know that one of the biggest issues with pollution and such IS the amount of humans on the planet. If we were to send large colonies out into the stars. Ones full of farmers, laborers, as well as guards and scientists we would be lowering the population at home as we could send more people to those colonies as they became stable enough to support the numbers. Those colonies could use the science we currently have to keep their growth balanced as they go. This would lower the burden on Earth, lower the need for the extremes we have to take for food cultivation as well as industry. It would lower the need for new homes to be built and help with the various housing crises that pop up globally from time to time. It would lower the carbon emissions over time by lowering how many people are traveling daily on the planet AND it would help with the lowering of resources needed for items that are made because the colonies should be looking for alternatives to be self sustaining since we wouldn’t be able to guarantee resources to them long term!
To verbally attack something that over time could help ultimately save the planet and humanity by allowing us to spread out into the stars is ignorant to a shameful degree. It proves that you would rather be popular with the trends of society rather than actually do good for it. Research has shown that even if every first world country that was willing were to go down to zero emissions that we would still have a problem because of newly industrialized countries and places like China. That the path to getting to zero is going to cause a lot of human suffering and loss of life because the technology we currently have is insufficient to sustain the amounts of energy and such that are needed to power households let alone industry as well. Also, the materials needed to make long lasting batteries isn’t in large supply on this planet so strip mining is used to get every last ounce that they can, the batteries aren’t recyclable and they don’t break down in the landfill. So going all electric is a pipe dream sold by snake oil salesmen and the public is eating it up without doing the research. I do think that we can augment our current systems to help with efficiency but we are very far from being able to support the current population on just clean energy and the places that could do it without batteries aren’t currently willing to put in the money to build what we would need which in my opinion is ocean based hydro electric/desalination plants. The water coming in would power the hydro electric part before moving on to being processed. Then the clean water could be used for open air needs so that the evaporation would put it back into the cycle of the planet instead of keeping it out of it. The salt and other elements that are taken from the water could be used in a lot of ways from trade to home and industrial applications. We have enough technology now to keep the ocean wildlife safe from the hydro intakes so I don’t see why this technology that we have had for decades isn’t in wider use instead of focusing on Solar and Wind so much. Wind breaks down easily, has unpredictable efficacy due to the nature of wind itself and is a danger to wildlife as the large windmills have proven over time. Solar meanwhile can be efficient if the panels are kept clean, the system is made to take advantage of every angle of sun for the whole day, and you have enough batteries to help at night or on cloudy days. However, as I have stated earlier in this open letter the batteries are horrible, only last ten to fifteen years max if they are used correctly with no manufacturing flaws, and then add to the pollution issue because they can’t be recycled. They are also a finite resource due to the materials required for their manufacturing. This isn’t taking into account of course for Solar or Wind the materials used to make panels, wiring, circuit boards, chips, etc. that make them a horrible long term plan since there haven’t been any alternatives brought up in any research that I have seen or heard of on the materials used for any of those things. We will eventually run out of silver, gold, copper, lithium, etc. which means that once the systems break down with no replacement parts that we will have to go back to older methods to heat and power everyone.
In closing, I wish you well as a fellow flawed human on this planet. I just hope that over time you will learn the wisdom to keep your mouth shut until you are as well informed as you can be. There is nothing wrong with saying that you would rather not answer a question until you have done more research on the subject. It isn’t a political answer and actually shows more thought and care than you would think. Especially if you back it up by actually doing the research and telling your sources in a future interview or other media.
Sincerely,
A Commoner Yankee
Derek's Mindscape 