VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 8, SECTION 2
The Claim That We Can Abandon Earth, Held to the Light
The last section made plain that Mars gives none of the seven gifts, that to go there is to leave paradise, not find it. This section takes the claim built on the Mars dream, the claim that we can abandon Earth and start over elsewhere, and holds it to the light. Held there, that claim shows two hard faces. It says the paradise may be ruined and the ruin walked away from. And it says the cost of that ruin may be laid on the billions who cannot go, while a few walk away. Both faces, seen plainly, are grave.
Take the claim in its own words. It says, in effect: Earth is one basket, and a wise people does not keep all its eggs in one basket, so let us build the means to live on another world, that humankind may go on even if Earth is lost. On its face this sounds like foresight, even care for the species. Held to the light, a darker thing shows through. For the claim does not chiefly go, let us guard Earth so it is never lost. It goes, let us build the door out, so that its loss need not be the end. And once the door out is built, the loss of Earth stops being the one unthinkable thing, and becomes a thing that can be borne, walked away from, survived by those who reach the door. The claim, at its root, makes the ruin of the paradise thinkable. That is its first grave face: it turns the one home we have from a thing that must be kept at all costs into a thing that may be spent, since there is, supposedly, somewhere to go.
But hold it further to the light and see who could ever pass through that door. Not the billions. To be carried to Mars and kept alive there, in sealed boxes, at ruinous cost, is a thing that could be had, if at all, by a few, the few with the wealth, the place, the power to secure a seat. The billions who till the fields, tend the shops, raise the children, keep the human world turning, could not go. They would be left on the Earth, on whatever was made of it. So the claim, stripped bare, is not humankind will survive on Mars. It is a few might survive on Mars, and the rest are left behind. The door out is a narrow door, and it opens for the few. This is its second grave face: the cost of the ruin falls on the many, and the escape, such as it is, is kept for the few.
Put the two faces together and the true shape of the claim shows. It says the paradise may be ruined, and it says the ruin may be walked away from by a few while the many are left in it. Reckon what that means for the here and now, before any ship is ever built. It means that the labor and treasure of the age, which could go to guarding and healing the one paradise we have, are drawn off instead toward building the narrow door for the few. It means that the will to keep Earth whole is loosened, because its loss is no longer the end. And it means that the many, whose one and only home this is, whose one and only paradise this is, are asked to bear the wearing-down of that home while a few make ready to leave it. Held to the light, the claim that we can abandon Earth is not foresight for humankind. It is a claim that lets a few treat the one home of the many as a thing that may be used up and left behind.
This is why the plain reckoning of the last section matters so. Because there is no second paradise, the loss of Earth is the loss of everything, for everyone. And because it is the loss of everything, the claim that it may be borne, walked away from, survived by a few, is not a small error of hope. It is a claim that would let the paradise of the many be spent for the escape of the few. Say it plainly and without heat: to hold that Earth may be abandoned is to hold that the one home of billions may be ruined so long as a few can leave. That is the claim, laid bare. It need not be shouted at or made a monster of. It need only be seen for what it is.
And seen for what it is, it is answered not by rage but by the plain truth the whole chapter rests on. There is no way out but to keep the one home we have. The door to Mars is no door, only a sealed box in a wasteland, and even that box, at best, for a few. The billions have Earth, and only Earth. So the whole strength of the age, all its wealth, all its skill, all its power, should go not to building the narrow door but to guarding and healing the paradise that gives all things free to all. To keep Earth whole is the only foresight that guards humankind, because Earth is the only home humankind has. The next section makes the needed telling-apart, so that this answer is not mistaken for a war on the reaching toward the stars itself: the reaching is innocent, even good, and the guilt lies only in the heart that would use it as a license to ruin home.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.