David Grinspoon Quotes
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It's quite possible that the end of us will not be the end of the Earth. Even if we really screw things up and things go badly for us and our civilization, the Earth is pretty resilient.
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We need to have a vision of the world we want to create so that we can see ourselves as collaborators with future generations in the project of shaping it.
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We definitely don't want to go through another Ice Age or another natural cycle of global warming. Both happen over a long period of time. It would be disastrous for our civilization, and not just for us but many other species.
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Even cynical, selfish people will realize, one way or the other, that it's not in their self-interest to act in self-destructive ways.
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When I first went to college, I went into physics, and my goal was to help perfect nuclear fusion so I could solve the energy crisis and global warming. I probably would have done it, too, if I'd stuck to it.
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There is a real danger of unintended consequences, of encouraging people to give up. Pessimism, if it becomes a habit, can reinforce a narrative of unstoppable decline. If there is nothing we can do, that releases us from our obligations.
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When you think about alien intelligences making art, you then have to think about what art is and how bound up it is in the nature of consciousness. Why do we make art? And what can we expect to have in common with other creatures in universe?
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Literally, my earliest memory, my earliest vivid memory, is the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Yeah, I was in fourth grade, and I was just so captivated. And I think you'll find a lot of space scientists of my generation will say the same thing. Apollo was a big event for them.
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I think the best SF writers are very aware of what we, in the scientific community, are doing, thinking, and discovering.
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I was a science fiction geek from an early age, enthralled by the questions of life in the universe. As I got older, I learned that space exploration was real. I wanted to get involved in that. I knew I wanted to be a scientist.
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Mars does not have an atmosphere and does not have a magnetic field today, so the planet doesn't have the protection from radiation that our atmosphere and magnetic fields provide us on Earth.
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As long as we can imagine a better path, of course we are obligated to seek it. This is why unwarranted pessimism about our future is actually irresponsible.
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In order to have a decent chance to be a communicating species, you would have to learn to think and plan and act over time scales of a century or a millennium.
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Earth is going to lose its oceans in the future, just as Venus did in the past. How long planets retain their oceans is a function of distance from the sun, all other things being equal.
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Why should we consider defining intelligence as something global and as something that hasn't actually yet appeared on Earth? It may be useful for envisioning the future of our own civilization and any others that may be out there among the stars. It might give us something to strive for.
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We have all this very clever technology and all these abilities to manipulate the world in all these ways, yet we are faced with the very real question of whether we can be sustainable on this planet - whether or not, in fact, we can endure.
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It will be a long time, if ever, before we get to study Earth-like planets orbiting around other stars, so really, the study of Venus and Mars is the best opportunity that we have, and can imagine having anytime in the future, to understand the evolution of Earth-like planets.
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The basic ability to not wipe oneself out, to endure, to use your technological interaction with the world in such a way that has the possibility of the likelihood of lasting and not being temporary - that seems like a pretty good definition of intelligence.
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One of the weird things about modern physics is that we do find there are apparently these other dimensions that we don't directly experience that explain some aspects of the overall geometry and reality of our universe.
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I think Pluto has to be considered among the places in the solar system that are possible homes for life.
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As Earth's climate changes, we can expect more destructive hurricanes. As sea level and surface temperatures rise, more solar energy is trapped in the atmosphere, revving up the hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation and sometimes manifesting in terrifying storms.
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NASA, and all the other spacefaring nations of the world, have agreed to a set of 'planetary-protection' principles, aimed at preventing the accidental contamination of another habitable world with organisms from Earth.
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Our most valuable resources - creativity, communication, invention, and reinvention - are, in fact, unlimited.
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I'd been politically active ever since my parents wheeled me in a stroller in a 'ban the bomb' march in Boston in 1963.