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" Even cynical, selfish people will realize, one way or the other, that it's not in their self-interest to act in self-destructive ways. "

David Grinspoon

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" Venus and Mars are our next of kin: they are the two most Earth-like planets that we know about. They're the only two other very Earth-like planets in our solar system, meaning they orbit close to the sun; they have rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres. "

David Grinspoon

" As Earth's climate changes, we can expect more destructive hurricanes. As sea level and surface temperatures rise, more solar energy is trapped in the atmosphere, revving up the hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation and sometimes manifesting in terrifying storms. "

David Grinspoon

" Certainly for me, as an astrobiologist, science fiction has played an important role. One of the quandaries of our field is that we are trying to study and search for something - life - that we can't define in a rigorous way. We only have one example of a biosphere, so we can't really give a good definition. "

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

" The mature Anthropocene begins when we acquire the ability to live sustainably and become a lasting presence on this world. "

David Grinspoon

" I think that an advanced planetary civilization will modify their own planets to be more stable, to prevent asteroid impacts and dangerous climate fluctuations. "

David Grinspoon

" Literally, my earliest memory, my earliest vivid memory, is the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Yeah, I was in fourth grade, and I was just so captivated. And I think you'll find a lot of space scientists of my generation will say the same thing. Apollo was a big event for them. "

David Grinspoon

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

David Grinspoon

" I'd been politically active ever since my parents wheeled me in a stroller in a 'ban the bomb' march in Boston in 1963. "

David Grinspoon

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

David Grinspoon

" Why should we consider defining intelligence as something global and as something that hasn't actually yet appeared on Earth? It may be useful for envisioning the future of our own civilization and any others that may be out there among the stars. It might give us something to strive for. "

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

" Even as our unwitting alterations to Earth's carbon and hydrological cycles slowly make storms more damaging, our ability to monitor our planet from space and make reliable short-term forecasts have equipped us enormously to withstand them. "

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

" Time and time again, our species has escaped existential threats by reinventing ourselves, finding new skills not coded in our genes to survive new challenges not previously encountered. "

David Grinspoon

" Humanity has at least a dim, and growing, cognisance of the effects of its presence on this planet. The possibility that we might integrate that awareness into how we interface with the Earth system is one that should give us hope. "

David Grinspoon

" Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward. "

David Grinspoon

" When I first went to college, I went into physics, and my goal was to help perfect nuclear fusion so I could solve the energy crisis and global warming. I probably would have done it, too, if I'd stuck to it. "

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

" Humans are possessed, to some degree, with the power of foresight. Yet we so often learn things the hard way, through disaster. "

David Grinspoon

" If we gutted NASA Earth Science, it wouldn't be NOAA or some other agency that would take the lead. It would be the Chinese and the Europeans and the Japanese. "

David Grinspoon

" Ever since the environmental movement was sparked by photos of the whole Earth taken by astronauts onboard Apollo Lunar Modules, I've seen planetary exploration as an extension of a reverence and care for Earth. "

David Grinspoon

" As long as we can imagine a better path, of course we are obligated to seek it. This is why unwarranted pessimism about our future is actually irresponsible. "

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

" Among the radio astronomers of SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - it's only sort-of a joke that the true hallmark of intelligent life is the creation of radio astronomy. "

David Grinspoon

" The story of our species is one of overcoming existential risk through new forms of cooperation and innovation. "

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

" I'd like to jump a couple hundred years into the future and work with the scientists who are getting back the first information from our probes to planets orbiting nearby stars. "

David Grinspoon

" I'm an astrobiologist, and I come from a planetary science background, so in a very broad sense, I study the evolution of planetary environments. "

David Grinspoon

" What if life is not carbon-based? Can life exist as a gas or a plasma? Could planets or stars in some sense be alive? What about an interstellar cloud? Could life exist on such a small or large scale, or move so fast or so slowly that we wouldn't recognize it? Could you have an intelligent virus? "

David Grinspoon