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" Earth is a stunningly lovely planet for so many reasons. Among these is the wondrous presence of curious, artful, inventive humanity. "

David Grinspoon

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" Seriously, we should start taxing churches and have tax-exempt places for worship and study of nature and art. Charge ten bucks for Sunday services and make the Botanic Gardens free. "

David Grinspoon

" It will be a long time, if ever, before we get to study Earth-like planets orbiting around other stars, so really, the study of Venus and Mars is the best opportunity that we have, and can imagine having anytime in the future, to understand the evolution of Earth-like planets. "

David Grinspoon

" Mars does not belong to 'America,' nor to Earth, nor to human beings. "

David Grinspoon

" We need to have a vision of the world we want to create so that we can see ourselves as collaborators with future generations in the project of shaping it. "

David Grinspoon

" It's one of the big mysteries about Venus: How did it get so different from Earth when it seems likely to have started so similarly? The question becomes richer when you consider astrobiology, the possibility that Venus and Earth were very similar during the time of the origin of life on Earth. "

David Grinspoon

" It's OK to pursue speculative ideas because we don't want to be too cozy and safe and assume that we know everything about life in the universe. However, we have to be rigorous and careful and honest and logical and scientifically meticulous when we speculate. "

David Grinspoon

" Even as a kid enthralled with science fiction, I wondered about the role of people in the long-term evolution of the Earth, the far future and the fate of humanity. "

David Grinspoon

" We need visions of a future in which we have applied our infinite creativity to the task of living on a finite world, where we have embraced our role, become comfortable and proficient as planet-shapers, and learned to use our technological skills to enhance the survival prospects not just of humanity but of all life on Earth. "

David Grinspoon

" Radiation is one of the important factors in evolution. It causes mutation, and some level of mutation is actually good for evolution. "

David Grinspoon

" I don't see it as coincidence that the great acceleration of the Anthropocene influences on Earth came during the same decades as our first exploration of the other planets. "

David Grinspoon

" I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try. "

David Grinspoon

" It's quite possible that the end of us will not be the end of the Earth. Even if we really screw things up and things go badly for us and our civilization, the Earth is pretty resilient. "

David Grinspoon

" Astrobiology is the science of life in the universe. It's an attempt to scientifically deal with the question of whether or not we're alone in the universe, looking at the past of life, the present of life, and the future of life. It's an interdisciplinary study incorporating astronomy, biology, and the Earth sciences. "

David Grinspoon

" Now, humans have become a dominant force of planetary change and, thus, we may have entered an eon of post-biological evolution in which cognitive systems have gained a powerful influence on the planet. "

David Grinspoon

" What I wonder most about the Anthropocene is not when did it start - but when, and how, will it end? Will it end? Or is it possible that our own growing awareness of our role on Earth can itself play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome toward one that we would desire? "

David Grinspoon

" I was a science fiction geek from an early age, enthralled by the questions of life in the universe. As I got older, I learned that space exploration was real. I wanted to get involved in that. I knew I wanted to be a scientist. "

David Grinspoon

" We have to learn to become a new kind of entity on this world that has the maturity and the awareness to handle being a global species with the power to change our planet and use that power in a way that is conducive to the kind of global society we want to have. "

David Grinspoon

" The planet Mars - crimson and bright, filling our telescopes with vague intimations of almost-familiar landforms - has long formed a celestial tabula rasa on which we have inscribed our planetological theories, utopian fantasies, and fears of alien invasion or ecological ruin. "

David Grinspoon

" It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe. "

David Grinspoon

" There's eco-pragmatism, where you recognize, 'Yeah, we live on a planet that's permanently altered by humanity, and rather than seek to return to or preserve pure wilderness, we recognize that's an illusion, and we proceed under the new knowledge that we live, in fact, in a human-dominated planet.' "

David Grinspoon

" I'm a strong advocate of new missions to Venus. "

David Grinspoon

" There is a history of thinking about space science from an environmental ethics perspective. And part of what I want to do is turn that back and use that experience to see if it reflects how we think about the Earth. "

David Grinspoon

" A lot of the science fiction that I grew up reading was written when we still thought that Venus might be an oceanic planet. "

David Grinspoon

" It turns out one of my dad's best friends was Carl Sagan when I was little. They were both Harvard professors. "

David Grinspoon

" We definitely don't want to go through another Ice Age or another natural cycle of global warming. Both happen over a long period of time. It would be disastrous for our civilization, and not just for us but many other species. "

David Grinspoon

" In environments that are energy-rich but liquid-poor, like near the surface of Titan, natural selection may favor organisms that use their metabolic heat to melt their own watering holes. "

David Grinspoon

" Astrobiology is a great point of contact for science outreach. The public is naturally interested in extra-terrestrial life. Astrobiology provides an accessible point of access that leads to deeper questions. "

David Grinspoon

" The more we look at the kinds of soils and the nature of the atmosphere and the polar caps, it all adds up to tell us that some liquid, which we very much believe was water, did flow in abundance on Mars in the past. "

David Grinspoon

" Earth is going to lose its oceans in the future, just as Venus did in the past. How long planets retain their oceans is a function of distance from the sun, all other things being equal. "

David Grinspoon

" When you think about alien intelligences making art, you then have to think about what art is and how bound up it is in the nature of consciousness. Why do we make art? And what can we expect to have in common with other creatures in universe? "

David Grinspoon