Matt Bowes writes not to give the environmentalists an inch on space tourism, or they will take a mile. I agree. We should consider the environment in our designs, but sensibly, with rational analyses, and not allow the class-warfare luddites to dictate the shape of the industry.

Even as an "environmentalist" and someone who is persuaded that human CO2 emissions are contributing to global warming, the idea that space tourism or Lear jets are a significant component of this is absurd.

Of course not an inch should be given.

But I have yet to see a link to any genuine proposal to limit space tourism (or Lear jets) in this regard. Maybe I've failed to keep up with my reading.

Anyone got a link.

I agree with Bill on the last point. Haven't heard any organized resistance to space tourism specifically yet. But of course, we "need" to "learn" how to "take care" of "Mother Earth" before we can even think of doing anything in space. General resistance to space exploration is still there.

Generalized opposition to space exploration is deeply ingrained among some on the Left. I do agree with Karl's post, above.

I have also made some effort - from time to time - to educate on that point. That said, I have also encountered many strong pro-space advocates at the usual leftie blog sites.

Once Bill Richardson's campaign gets going (whether for POTUS or Veep) I intend to reference his candidacy to advocate pro-space exploration policies at places like Daily Kos. And before anyone heckles, recall that sinners are more in need of churching than saints.

Testify, Brother Bill! Testify!

I agree. Not an inch should be given to these so-called "greens" as they are not really greens.

The green movement has been hijacked by the far left since the late 80's. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that much of the obvious pollution problems that launched the movement in the late 60's, such as the air and water pollution (which was quite obscene at the time) have largely been solved. This resulting in many of the more sincere members moving on to other things. Many of the original greens also got married, had kids, and did many of the other things that such people do and have consequently less time for political activism.

During the same time, many of the anti-industrialist far left from the 70's and 80's got more and more involved with the movement. The movement became a virtual "hate Reagan" club by the mid 80's. This is when I grew tired of it.

I had a very good friend who attended Berkeley in the late 60's who described how the dynamic occurred. It is worth noting that the space colony idea itself was launched, in part, by environmentalists such as Stuart Brand (Whole Earth Catalog, Co-Evolutionary Quarterly) and others in Northern California.

The green movement has degenerated into a generalized opposition movement to any kind of technological or economic innovation at all.

If we plant a few thousand trees a year, we can keep the industry carbon net negative for a couple of decades for next to nothing.

"Space Trees"

We could even use seed that has ridden on the suborbital vehicles and sell the seedlings.

Since I work in a closely related field, mabey I could get into this fairly easily.

" I think a lot of this is due to the fact that much of the obvious pollution problems that launched the movement in the late 60's, such as the air and water pollution (which was quite obscene at the time) have largely been solved. "

This is right, the early movement was a war to regulate what is known as 'point sources'.

This war has been quite well won at least in the US.

Non-point sources are the next logical step but they are diffuse and hard to make a nice cookie cutter issue out of. Plus non-point sources do not lend themselves to traditional permitting and enforcement techniques nearly as well as point sources.

Think WWII fighting a defined enemy (point sources) vs Vietnam, a gurella war (non-point sources) a diffuse enemy. This diffuse enemy is the one that is casuing the dead zone in the gulf of Mexico among other things.

This IMO has forced the radical environmentalists into shakier and shakier causes like Anthropogenic Global Warming. Sediment and nutrient enrichment isn't sexy enough and does not draw enough sucker money to fund their new SUV's. Don't even get me started about the Nature Conservancy using donated land to build huge houses for its upper echelon administrators.

I contend that some of the core environmentalists are nothing but hucksters.

Remember too, that the O'Nielian message is we can save the environment and enrich you lifstyle both.

The enviro-luddites message is we can save the environment by sacrificing your quality of life and making you poorer.

We need to focus our message and sell it.

Which one is Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom going to prefer? which of those two messages will be the easier sell.

Our message has this huge built-in advantage of being a much tastier pill to swallow. If we can't sell it over their bitter snake oil, then shame on us.

Mike, also point out the common sense part too. What's the regions with the worst pollution problems? It's the poor parts of the world not the most developed countries. You can only claim that the US is the worst polluter, for example, if you consider CO2 emssion from human activity (where the US leads substantially) equivalent to an equal mass of heavy metals, air-borne soot and dust, raw sewage, etc.

But if you take into account the relatively harm of various types of pollution, then poor countries and poverty in general is highly polluting. In addition, poor countries have a higher population growth rate than rich countries. So the problem gets worse faster as well. Poorly thought out environmental measures will serve to create poverty and hence create more pollution.

Considering CO2 a pollutant because there *might* be too much is like calling water a pollutant because the river flooded and there is too much.

CO2 and Water are necessary for life in large quantites. All of the carbon in your body was CO2 at one point.

People tend to think of plants growing from the ground when the overwhelming majority of their mass derives from the atmosphere (nano-assembled!).

Still, the space industry will be beyond the rich spectator era and well-entrenched into the common man era befoe we cannot carbon mitigate it by simply planting a moderate amount of trees.

Besides, I like trees. Don't want to hug them, sometimes I burn them but I like trees for scenic reasons.

You are right Karl. Anyone who would care to argue CO2 is worse than poverty, I will make a deal with them.

I will take one lungful of pure CO2 if they will first drink one gallon of raw untreated stream water from some water body of my chosing that drains a large third world slum.

Before you totally pile onto these folks, let me just point out one small but surprising fact: launch operations are not in fact trivial perturbations of the upper atmosphere. That's probably quite surprising, in view of the size of rocket plumes and the atmosphere. But it turns out that the very low density of the upper stratosphere allows for some surprising chemistry, and certain strangely reactive species that would be quickly snuffed at 1 atm can go on doing Bad Things to e.g. ozone for a long, long time. Even a small perturbation can propagate an astonishingly long time.

I'm not saying the risk can't be rationally managed. But I am saying that the upper atmosphere, like the desert, is a peculiar environment and it would be foolish to use instincts formed by experience in the troposphere to intuit what are large and small effects. Furthermore, it's not foolish at all to ask yourself what influence space launch operations might have on the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere does a number of very useful things for us, and it might be very unpleasant if we were to mess it up thoughtlessly.

In short, just because many (or even most) "environmentalists" are prissy Luddite jerks doesn't logically prove that environmetalism per se is stupid.

Most of the lefties who are against space exploration are only against it because it uses government resources that could otherwise be diverted to social programs. I doubt they will have a problem with commercial efforts.

You are right Karl. Anyone who would care to argue CO2 is worse than poverty, I will make a deal with them.

I will take one lungful of pure CO2 if they will first drink one gallon of raw untreated stream water from some water body of my chosing that drains a large third world slum.

I'd take a similar deal, but additionally I'd give them HIV and hepatitis, rotavirus, tuberculosis and malaria. Plus whatever is in most of China's blackened rivers.