New Worlds

Planets, stars, galaxies, nebulas and supernovae are some of the bodies that populate the depths of space and that may harbour worlds unseen and unimagined by us with civilisations equal to or greater than our own. Perhaps we will find out one day and perhaps, more likely, we never will.

The likelihood is that we shall already have destroyed ourselves, if not the planet, with our constant depredations and rapacious exploitation of the Earth, and with sheer overpopulation by the human species and its consequent demands for resources that the planet will no longer be able to provide to the teeming billions of humans.

Perhaps our salvation lies in space travel, which might enable the human race to spread out across space, populating other planets and easing the pressure on the Earth, seeing as we are not doing very well at limiting the proliferation of humans on a naturally finite planet. But to achieve this, it will probably have to be on a galactic level, since we have already seen that no planet in our solar system other than the Earth can sustain human life. We shall have to journey much further afield than our humble corner of the universe, to distant star systems in search of worlds not inimical to human survival like our group of planets that are as hostile as can be to sentient life.

And talking of the Earth, here it is. The Blue Planet, as we have christened it. Our home in the vastness of Space and most likely the only habitable planet for many light-years' distance. Mostly covered in water, which we cannot drink, but teeming with life forms and which supplies us with seemingly limitless food of one kind or another, it is the only thing we have at present, our only habitat for many years to come. And yet we treat it so harshly and so cavalierly, and now it may have begun to repay us in the currency we richly deserve, with natural phenomena that are capable of sweeping away hundreds or thousands of people at a stroke.