Well it's moving human life outside the environment, so that even if something catastrophic happens to this one's there's backup humans.

If you have ever lived next to the incarnation of this philosophy, you might be able to see through its holes. It's the plot of any number of bad scifi movies. Evil aliens travel from solar system to solar system, using up a planet, then moving on. They've now reached Earth.

There are plenty of industrial/mining sites that argue they need to be able to create huge hazard dumps for the sake of the future of the human race. It tends to be a very poor argument for those left holding the bag when the owners have taken their money and skipped town.

If the danger is so great that we have to get off this planet in the next five years or we all die, well, then we might justify more urgency. If we've got 10 or 20 years to do it, let's take the time to protect the environment while we do it.

If you want to argue that none of this bureaucracy is protecting the environment, that's a different argument.

To be honest, I can't tell you what kind of future innovation is going to result from cheaper spaceflight. But there is serious scientific and engineering potential to be unlocked. What SpaceX is doing seems environmentally unfriendly, and I know no-one wants to hear "but xyz is worse". But we really do need to keep such things in mind, because SpaceX's footprint here is completely dwarfed by domestic carbon creation. The Apollo Project lead to all sorts of spinoff technologies that we use today. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect some of the future technological advancements to reduce pollution or carbon emissions.

By making it cheaper to do things in space instead of in the atmosphere we breathe.

Off site backup might not save your machine if it burns in a house fire, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have it