Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)

"Get off the Earth."
- Sam Loyd

A lot of people seem to be upset about the Earth again. It's like every decade or so the zeitgeist suddenly becomes concerned with the state of the environment. In the 70s it was called "Conservation." Cartoon heroes did battle with polluters. Dr. Seuss wrote The Lorax. Then in the early 90s it was called "Ecological." People started celebrating Earth Day again. Captain Planet aired on TV. Now, it's called "Green" and was seemingly kickstarted by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Everyone out of the blue is suddenly worried about the environment.

Everyone but me.

Don't get me wrong. I take the whole environment thing very seriously. It's terrible the mess we are making of the eco-system. It's awful all the species we have driven to extinction through our short-sighted pursuit of profits. It's terrifying to think of all the destruction that will be loosed as the Earth tries to regain some kind of balance. Between melting ice-caps and mega-tsunamis the Earth is going to swiftly become an unhospitable place for us to live.

And that's why I'm not worried.

If you speak to me on the real you'll recognize that this is a drum I've been beating for years now: we need to get off the Earth. Seriously, there is like an entire universe out there, y'savvy? It is crucial to our development that we leave the home planet behind. If the Earth is the mother, after all, then this entire time we have as a a species still been living in our mom's house. (Take it from me -- I've lived my whole life in my mom's house.) In these terms, the past is prologue (as are the present and the foreseeable future) for a history that has not even begun yet.

And why not? It's not like we don't have the technology. What we lack is the desire. In the 50s space was exciting. Then we went up to the moon, sent a few probes a little further, and decided the whole thing was dead and worthless. My pal Attila says it best: "Why would I want to go into space? The Earth has everything I need!" It is exactly this mentality that is keeping us here. That's why I do not fear the damage we are doing to our home-world; why rather then bemoan it I almost embrace it. Only when the Earth is so fucked that we can't live here anymore will we have the drive necessary to leave it.

And it's not like we're ever going to leave for good. The Amish, for instance, will always be on Earth. But with the bulk of us gone? The Earth will heal itself. Christ, the bio-sphere survived a massive asteroid collision and a fierce nuclear winter. I'm sure it can survive some non-biodegradable landfills and a pinch of smog. When we are no longer tied to the surface of a planet for our development -- when industry is off-world; when a ever-growing population now has an infinite space to fill -- the bio-sphere will not only recover from our damage, it will probably continue to thrive and grow.

The first polluters, remember, were anaerobic single-celled organisms who forever destroyed their own eco-system and permanently altered the Earth with their main waste product, an extremely toxic and reactive chemical. What was it called?

Oxygen.