A Modest Proposal on How We as a Global Community Can Save the Earth From a Deteriorating Environment, Including Global Warming, Pollution, Deforestation, and Over-Population.

In our society, our declining environment is a problem. Global warming, pollution, deforestation. The list goes on. They become a major detriment to our earth. The arctic ice is going down by 13.2% every decade and sea levels rise 3.2 millimeters every year according to NASA, at this rate future effects include more droughts and heat wave, more dangerous hurricanes, the loss of the Arctic and many more. On the other hand, each year 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are dumped into US water. Pollution affects over 100 million people. Sources even say that 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by pollution every year.

Actions taken to combat environmental decline has included cleanups, awareness campaigns, and clean power, but our environment isn’t getting better.

Despite all our efforts, we appear unable to fix these problems. At this rate, wouldn’t earth become a wasteland of heat and pollution?

And thus, I propose this. We give up. We give up on saving our earth. Instead, we should gather all the countries in the world, it shouldn’t be hard with the technology and communication we have today and have them work together to build a rocket, with contribution from each country. Money shouldn’t be a problem, as this dire situation should be considered above money. As humans, we can work together to construct a rocket, a ship, that will launch part of the population into space.

Firstly, this solution will solve over-population, and by reducing the number of people, we thereby reduce the amount of energy and trash produced on earth. Secondly, people will have more space to farm and the ratio of plant to human will increase, which may lead to the amount of carbon to slowly decrease as well. Thirdly, fewer people means fewer resources needed to sustain them, meaning that earth will be given a chance to recover. Fourthly, for the people on the ship, they can choose to either go into orbit or find a suitable planet, which I wouldn’t put it past the technology to do so, which advances space travel. Fifthly, the ship will have a self-sustaining system, animals, plants, and sunlight. Energy will mainly be provided through solar energy. Other sources include wind, water, and man-made energy. If need be, people on earth can launch additional supplies to the ship. In addition, they may choose to harvest metal from asteroids. Sixthly, thought such a hardship, this action can propel people to work together and bring the population together globally.

Of course, families will not be separated, and each person gets to choose a preference: space or earth, a computer will decide the rest for fairness.

I don’t see much of a downside to this plan. Will this use too much resources? Not really, we have plenty and we’re constantly getting more, and we’ll have fewer people worry about afterward either. Concerns can be raised, like, will it cost too much? But should we really be considering money above the potential death of our planet?

I must admit that I have no personal interest in launching myself or anyone I know into space, I merely propose this for the better health of our Earth. I, by myself, a single person of 7 billion, can’t make solar panels to replace the use of natural gas or force the world to stop littering. I only wish to prevent pollution, global warming, among other disasters that are affecting the Earth.