If we knew how to live on Mars, we'd know how to reduce our footprint on
Earth. Space colonization is the Rosetta stone for earthly sustainability because it's entirely about living in the absence of ecosystem services. The
Moon, Mars and the asteroids are a great experimental laboratory that we're ignoring at our own peril...
If you read my Rewilding Canada entry, you might have figured out that I'm saying exactly the same thing here as I did there; I'm just using slightly different language. The ability to colonize other planets is the ability to rewild our ecosystems--to reforest our plains and mountains, and to restock our oceans. A mature vertical farming technology is precisely the technology needed to do agriculture on Mars, for instance. Grey-water and black-water recycling are necessary in exactly the same ways. Ditto for energy production and conservation.
In a recent essay on WorldChanging.com, Karl Schroeder argues that living on Earth like it is a martian colony may be a positive way to reframe the challenge of sustainable living. Even better, the lessons, technologies, experience and ethos of a closed loop space colony could be just the thing to help the home planet.
