That's just not being creative enough. Terraforming other planets to be more Earth-like is the most obvious long-term application, but there are certainly much more near-term applications for advances in energy, heat management, transportation, agriculture, ecology, weather control, etc.
> Unlimited growth and exponential energy usage isn't possible in a closed system.
Absolutely. Thank goodness we're not in a closed system!
If we had access to an unlimited zero-emission power source and as much matter as we wanted, I wager that some people would still say growth is unsustainable. That reveals in their hearts they're about controlling behavior, not fixing a problem.
If you live in a sci-fi book maybe. Colonizing other planets isn't a silver bullet, we can barely maintain a space station for 10 dudes, we're faaaar away from anything remotely close to terraformation. We can't even maintain earth even though it's been terraformed for us during billions of years, what makes you think we'd be able to transform a dead planet into something as good as earth
> Absolutely. Thank goodness we're not in a closed system!
Right, in the meantime 90% of every object you own is made of petrol derivative and we won't find that on Mars. Earth is 100% a closed system and we're not anywhere close to escape from it. After 200 years of industrialization we used most of the easy to get energy sources and fucked up the environment to a point of no return.
> If you live in a sci-fi book maybe… we can barely maintain a space station… We can't even maintain earth
In 100 years, people will be complaining to their representative that the solar shade is causing their petunias to grow sideway, having forgotten that said shade was science fiction back in 2021.
Also it's kind of unfair to say "barely" for the ISS—it's only the 9th space station ever and it's intended to be a giant experiment.
I hope your solar shade will take care of ocean acidification, deforestation, the end of petrol, CO2 levels, decline of soil quality, &c. Once again, you're fixing one of many symptoms and not the root cause. Closing your kitchen door because the stove is on fire will save you a few minutes but if you don't call the firefighters your house will still burn down.
I don't think the "tech will automagically save us in a future I won't live to see" works anymore to be honest, it's just too easy and morally dishonest, especially when the solution is not even remotely close to be technically feasible
Again, we're back to this being less about fixing the problem and more about controlling behavior.
These things only work if we make drastic changes in all aspect of our lives and economy, they're necessary but not sufficient.
This is where the problem gets even more complex than a pure energy/resources/pollution equation, now you have a world wide humanitarian issue. Add climate change and environmental refugees to the mix and you're in for a very bad time.
It's a diversion. They're all stopgap measures with no real long term application. You can paint all the road white and add artificial clouds, if you continue to live like resources are unlimited and pollution isn't an issue you'll sooner or later hit another problem.
If we don't take care of the root cause we're bound to fail. Unlimited growth and exponential energy usage isn't possible in a closed system. All these new "green" economy, "green" growth, &c. are perpetuating the idea that we're going down the right path and simply have to tweak a few variables to go from "catastrophic failure" to "idyllic paradise"
I don't think people truly understand how fucked we are and how deep the problem runs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s254IPHXgVA