In many respects I agree with you, however recognize there is no "they" and it's all "us"...if we wait for others to save the planet, it clearly isn't going to happen.
Space exploration certainly has value, as it has let us understand just how unique our solar system is, and how lucky we are to have a planet like the one we reside on (thank you, Jupiter!). There is a famous photo of "earth rise" taken from the moon, that is largely credited with kick-starting the environmental movement - I have no idea if this is really true, but certainly it gave it a boost.
Another photo that is very famous is the pale blue dot as Carl Sagan called it...taken from Voyager 1 as it was leaving the solar system, showing the earth from 6 billon kms away...
We are a blip in time on a spec of dust in the vast universe. This is realistically the only home we have, and for sure we need to take better care of it. The world's economy is based on growth that is unsustainable, so this will require a very big change in how we think about things...not hopeful it will happen before it's too late, but in the mean time we all need to do our part.
Cheers, Al
Click to expand...