I don’t think we’d be at Star Trek levels, but I do think it’s OK if we went slower. The breakneck pace of development since the Industrial Revolution hasn’t been done in a way that’s healthy for the planet or for people.
As things are, we might have a Mars colony by the end of the century, but with a ruined Earth behind it. If we pushed that Mars colony out another century and focused on improving the planet we have, that would be OK. These goals aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive–a Mars colony would likely take a tiny fraction of Earth’s combined economic output over the next 80 years–but there’s a lot of things we would do to make things more sustainable that will be more expensive in terms of label price. We aren’t fully incorporating the true cost of things on the current label price, so of course those will go up when they properly reflect reality.
Crop rotation isn’t that, though. It’s a good idea for efficient use of agricultural land over the long term.
I don’t think we’d be at Star Trek levels, but I do think it’s OK if we went slower. The breakneck pace of development since the Industrial Revolution hasn’t been done in a way that’s healthy for the planet or for people.
As things are, we might have a Mars colony by the end of the century, but with a ruined Earth behind it. If we pushed that Mars colony out another century and focused on improving the planet we have, that would be OK. These goals aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive–a Mars colony would likely take a tiny fraction of Earth’s combined economic output over the next 80 years–but there’s a lot of things we would do to make things more sustainable that will be more expensive in terms of label price. We aren’t fully incorporating the true cost of things on the current label price, so of course those will go up when they properly reflect reality.
Crop rotation isn’t that, though. It’s a good idea for efficient use of agricultural land over the long term.