8 years ago
4
Why don’t we just terraform Earth?
If we're planning to transform Mars’ atmosphere, then why don’t we do the same to combat climate change? NASA scientist and researcher Chris McKay tells us we're actually closer than we'd thought.
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I've been asking this question for years.
Me too! Especially in the context of needing a new planet because of pollution. If carbon in the air is our biggest problem on Earth, going to Mars is really stupid. We could build all the same life support things here that we could on Mars but we wouldn't have to worry about radiation and the affects of low gravity.
The main downside to terraforming Earth is that it's currently our only viable home. If we do something stupid/wrong and break our atmosphere, that's game. If things go wrong on Mars, we get to go back to the drawing board and try again. So in a lot of ways, Mars could serve as sort of a "test case" for most terraforming options.
That's very true, we're pretty bad at terraforming yet..