IlostMySpoon wrote:I am stuck because I can`t decide where to stand on the issue. On one hand, I think we should use planet XYZ to help out humanity and give earth a break, but on the other hand I dont think its right to exploit and pollute another planet that has so much potential.
Any thoughts/ideas/opinions? It would be very very appreciated!!
Something to consider:
I think the whole scenario seems to be based on the notion that the earth can't adequately handle the amount of pollution that is being produced on earth.
I believe this is a false notion, which makes it pretty clear that it would be morally wrong (as well as economically silly) for Canada to export it's pollution to another planet.
It also would seem to imply that XYZ will probably be able to deal with the pollution being exported to it as easily as Earth could--unless it is significantly smaller.
On the other hand, if we assume that the Earth really can't support the amount of pollution being created on it, then there are two possibilities.
1) we can satisfactorily reduce the amount of pollution we are producing without significantly and adversely affecting our quality of life, or
2) we are unable to satisfactorily reduce the amount of pollution we are producing without significantly and adversely affecting our quality of life.
I believe (2) to be false as well, which again implies that it would be economically silly to export pollution.
But, if we accept (2) as our premise, then the debate really becomes: should we significantly lower our own standard of living in order to preserve the standard of living for lower life-forms on another planet.
Assuming that pollution will alter the ecological system of XYZ, it is reasonable to assume that new life-forms are also likely to evolve to take their place. So while polluting may lead to the extinction of some species, it may also lead to the creation of other, new species. And we will be preserving our own standards of living at the same time.
Whether we should limit our own standard of living here to preserve life-forms elsewhere depend on how significant these inconveniences really are for us. If we have to go back to a pre-industrial standard of living, then that is a pretty significant inconvenienced--and it will ultimately result in the deaths of billions of people. (Just as the banning of DDT, lead to the deaths of many millions of people from Malaria--because nothing else is as effective at riding an area of mosquitos as DDT--and evidence now shows that DDT is nowhere near as harmful to other ecosystems as it was originally feared.)
If it is wrong to kill lower-life forms, is it not also wrong to intentionally be the cause of the death of millions of higher life-forms?
Similarly, if we assume CO2 is a pollutant (which it clearly isn't) then cows (and other bovines) are by far the largest producers of pollution. So reducing the amount of CO2 would necessarily involve reducing the amount of meat that was produced for consumption--This means becoming vegetarians (which would mean more tractors plowing fields) or the forced reduction of the number of humans living on the planet.
Ironically, however, CO2 is essentially plant food. So, if we exported it, (and we assume that such infinitesimally small quantities as what we were able to transport was actually enough to change the ecology on a whole planet) then we would actually be increasing the livability factor for the plants on XYZ. And because there are more plants, there would be more food for the animals that eat plants and thus more food for the animals that eat animals. SO... the argument also depends on what the pollutant is.
The other possibility is that we could maintain our standard of living while employing new technologies that are not as polluting. No other source of energy is as reliable and efficient as petroleum based products. Thus, using these other resources necessarily adds significant costs to the production of the things we currently use. These increased costs mean that we can afford fewer things--and (until we can find a cheap, reliable alternative) this will invariably reduce our standard of living and may lead to more deaths. For example, regulations in some African countries have forced hospitals to use only a limited amount of fuel to run their electric generators. The rest of the time they use energy from solar panels--unfortunately, the sun energy isn't enough to run the hospitals long enough to avoid using up all the fuel for the generators. This leaves live saving equipment without energy.
These sorts of problems are happening NOW, in a world where it is generally recognized that pollution is not a serious problem--i.e. pollution levels are much lower now than they were even a decade ago. How much worse will similar problems become in a world where pollution is even more rigidly controlled.
The facts, however, are that pollution is a much less serious problem now than it has been in the past few decades. It is also a fact that there are many effective low-polluting ways of producing energy right now that are not being utilized. For example, U.S. get only a very small amount of it's electrical power from Nuclear plants. Such plants are very clean, and if they weren't opposed by green groups, we could get a very large portion of our energy from them. So there are common-sense ways that we can (right now) reduce pollution levels--and if these rather minimal changes are enough to satisfy the pollution reduction necessary to preserve the planet...lol... then there are commonsense things we can do right now to reduce pollution.
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