Astronomer royal calls for 'Plan B' to prevent runaway climate change

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. It took hundreds of millions of years for cyanobacteria to build up enough oxygen in the atmosphere

that plants could evolve and survive. Yes, it would be a lovely hobby to see if we could watch extremophiles or cyanobacteria colonise a planet over millions of years. And it would have nothing to do with solving the Earth's environmental problems.

It would take far more effort, on Earth, just to collect the returning rockets containing the goods you want to manufacture off-planet, refuel them, and return them to wherever you have built your factories, than to just make the stuff here. And that's without having to manufacture the rockets to set up colonies to do the manufacturing. This isn't like offshoring production to another country. No-one can survive off earth without a huge effort on earth to keep them alive. Plus, of course, who'd want to spend their life working in a factory in a place where only extreme technology is keeping you alive?

I really don't think you have considered, for a moment, how hard it is to establish a new civilisation on a deadly planet. Fixing all our current problems would be a piece of cake in comparison.