Life on Mars

Last time I went to the airport I heard a woman saying to her friend “Isn’t it odd that we managed to put people on the moon before figuring out that it would be a good idea to put wheels on suitcases”.

Quite so, I thought. In the 1960s we had the moon-madness; now Elon Musk and his likes busy themselves conquering Mars. What about our own planet? Who puts wheels on mother Earth?

I can see the irresistible draw of space travel to tech nerds – imagine being able to stand up there, wobbling in your spacesuit, looking at Earth in the distance and say that you have taken ‘another giant step for mankind’. And I can just about accept the argument that we will learn a lot from the innovations required to enable life on Mars (that could possibly be useful also for life on earth). But I’m concerned that the current Mars-mania is more about self-aggrandisement than a genuine care for the welfare of humankind.

My plea to those with money burning in their pockets is to invest them on the survival of Earth instead of life on Mars. Who wants to live on Mars anyway? I can’t believe that any sensible person would enjoy life in a stone desert with an atmosphere a hundred times thinner than on earth and a temperature average of -60 degrees Celsius (minus 80 Fahrenheit).

And instead of giant leaps made by the few, I believe in the power of many small but determined steps, taken here and now.

A lot of us already do our best to save energy, use less fossil fuels, sort and recycle our garbage etc, but both as a society and individuals we need to do much more to save the world, and ourselves, from extinction. Most of us have some problems at the thought of having to reduce our current comforts – I certainly do – but if we act now, and act wisely, I am convinced we can achieve a lot with some, but not huge, sacrifices. And the potential gains are immense.

Here are some actions that are high on my list (big and small, in no particular order):

• Walk, cycle or use public transport whenever possible instead of cars. Electric/hybrid cars don’t use fossil fuels, but they add to road congestion, which in turn increases fuel consumption of those vehicles that are not electrical – not to mention the irritation of wasting time in queues. And will battery production be sustainable?  
• Don’t buy!
• Install geothermal heating systems or air pumps instead of fossil fuel and gas boilers and wood burners. Reading UK papers there seems to be some idea that the former don’t work in cold temperatures – I’ve never heard of that problem here in Sweden and we regularly have temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius in the winter. Is this another example of Swedes doing things differently, like the response to Covid? Could be worth investigating.
• Where cooling and heating systems are used, reduce the differential between inside and outside temperatures: in hot climates, around 23-24 degrees Celsius is cool enough; and in a cold climate, 19-20 degrees is warm enough. This should save a lot of energy, and is more comfortable too (at least I think so – having been to so many conferences and stayed in numerous hotels I find it absurd that I’ve so often been too cold inside in hot countries, and too warm in cold countries.)
• Turn half of the current lawn areas into meadows, vegetable gardens and orchards, and equip all roofs of new public buildings/apartment blocks with solar panels, unless they are flat, in which case they could be used as vegetable patches and/or insect hotels. In addition to increased biodiversity and opportunities for small-scale food production, people could enjoy blooming fruit trees in the spring, and the different scents, colours and shapes of a rich variety of plants!
• Line motorways and some urban highways with small wind turbines. This solution would be less intrusive than the huge wind power parks now being planned in many places of natural beauty – the roads are already there, and the additional noise would be less noticeable. As a bonus, each device could double as a streetlight, fitted with a lamp using a small amount of the energy generated before the rest is provided to the national grid.
• Use and maximise the efficiency of all existing small waterpower stations instead of damming up untouched rivers to build huge new hydroelectric plants. Together, thousands of small power stations will contribute a sizable amount of clean, renewable energy.
• Maintain and develop train services as the main mode of transport between cities. And can we get coordinated long-haul routes between countries on the same continent, please. I think it is not only me who would prefer traveling by train, also fairly long-distance journeys, if it can be done without endless changes.
• Use wood waste from forest industry to produce biofuel. (Only applies to places where the forest industry is sustainable!)
• Force all gyms to install exercise machines that capture the energy from the user to supply electricity for lights and heating of the premises (and beyond).
• Spend money on smart energy production and innovations that really benefit humankind, not on weapons. It is just too sad to think that warfare seems to unleash the almost endless creativity so desperately needed to save humans instead of killing them. I recently came over the term ‘Loitering munition’ which sounded almost cheerful, until I realised that so-called kamikaze drones making autonomous attack decisions fall into this category of weapons. The ethical and moral concerns of their deployment far outweigh those of self-driving cars (the dilemmas of which are not insignificant either).

And while thinking about wretched drones and self-driving cars, please save us from car-drones.  Who came up with the idea that we should turn air into one giant motorway? Does anyone think that this would replace all the cars on the road and not just add to the overall traffic burden? On top of that, I can’t stand the horrendous grinding metallic whine these machines produce. I think the damage of noise pollution is sadly underestimated!

Well, that was a bit of an outburst. But I feel better for it.