Are we explorers or caretakers?

This was written when I was younger, and both the content and the form of my opinions on this topic have changed since then. Leaving this here for the sake of continuity.

Interstellar is one of those movies that left me wondering about the possibilities of science fiction storytelling. Though the science behind the film is questionable and is visited in The science behind Interstellar, from the breathtaking visuals to the pulsating background score, I’m sure it left us all wanting to be explorers of space.

Though I’ve watched the movie countless times (read part time space obsession), there’s this one scene from the movie that got me asking a hard question. The scene shows a giant circular spaceship floating towards our next home to be as a result of a revelation about gravity from our future selves.

The spaceship is huge and gives the viewers an idea that the entirety of creation is on it. Could it be the Noah’s ark of the future? It houses all of humanity, rich and poor, white and black alike. It is home to at least two of each kind of animal species. If there is more room, maybe even plant species. One would wish for this kind of utopia, but of course it isn’t going to be an all happy ending.

This reality might seem a peek into the distant future but space wars have already begun. The Falcon Heavy launch was a defining moment in the race towards space and will only be followed by more rich and powerful people wanting to leave their mark in space. Maybe one day you’ll even see an amazon logo carved out on the moon, leaving the orbiting Tesla as a mere gimmick.

In the words of reviewer for the Guardian, George Monbiot, “an epigraph of our age” is revealed when Cooper (Mathew McConaughey) says to Donald (John Lithgow) that “It’s like we’ve forgotten who we are. Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers… We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.”

I am a firm believer that technological advancement in general leaves a positive impression on society. Anyone who claims that the yesteryears were happier and more prosperous than current times is only being delusional and falling prey to misplaced sense of nostalgia. Forbes covers this in detail in its article on why the world is getting better?

But there is certainly something different that we see in the trajectory of technological innovation of today when compared to the past. Never before have we had the tools to achieve things that could only be considered science fiction a few decades ago. From CRISPR and LIGO to self driving cars and space exploration, we are poised to take decisions that might effect all our lives in the coming century.

When cooper says “We’re not meant to save the world, we’re meant to leave it.”, it makes sense in the context of the movie, as at that point of time the earth was far beyond repair and exploration was the only option at hand. We are quite certainly far from this realty with lots that can and is being done, however, we cannot afford to be complacent lest we’ll be doomed to the same fate with one key difference, we won’t have a planet to reach to in time.

A recent article on MIT Technology review pointed out how 2017 was the year that climate change began to spin out of control. From the ferocity of high-category hurricanes, devastating forest fires and increasing global emissions, the previous year was a forgettable one as far as climate was concerned. If you have not come across this article before, I highly encourage you to take a look at the realities of climate change and what it holds for us.

A 2009 study by an international group of scientists led by Stockholm Resilience Centre (Rockström, et al., 2009) identified nine critical planetary boundaries that we need to pay attention to if we want to lead a sustainable life on the planet. Three of those boundaries have already been breached.

There have been collective efforts to combat climate change. The United nations sustainable development goals states clearly how important it is for us to acknowledge and work towards this problem. Rapid adaptation of renewables, global effort to reduce emissions and massive afforestation efforts are some of the things that are going to get us there and some countries have already started adopting them. Europe leads in renewable production and is a model for the rest of the world to follow.

However, restricting ourselves to this while following outdated economic systems won’t be a sustainable solution. We need to incentivize circular economy and build our economic models around it. We need to make smart use of our available resources for as long as possible, and then regenerate products at the end of the service life. Our economic systems might not be the our best bets as we move forward into an era of AI and automation. Yanis Varafoukis elaborates this in his Ted talk about how Capitalism will eat Democracy, and gives a possible alternative as we move into the next decade of exponential innovation.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”

I’m sure Charles Dickens couldn’t foresee the choices that we have before us today, but this excerpt from The tale of two cities would be extremely fitting for the situation we are in right now, only it’s not just a tale of two cities anymore, it’s the tale of the world as a whole.

Our current dilemma, the fundamental reason behind our planetary woes, what brings us to the brink of our own destruction, is the fact that we are born from a world of plenty. Never before have we had to learn to survive without abundance. Our environment has never required us to think about preserving the ecological balance, it’s a skill that we have simply not evolved to posses. Setting foot on mars might give rise to an entirely different species that will have to learn to survive without abundance and this will have major effects on how we live on earth as well.

At the outset, it is imperative that we start thinking about the coming decades right now, look for a solution that is inclusive for the entire planet and not just for the elite with their space fantasies. Exploration is the soul of the human spirit and is inevitable. But if we don’t start being caretakers right now, we would have failed generations to come and evolution would have failed the planet.