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" What we should really be thinking about is what it would look like for a truly intelligent technological species to be interacting with their planet's atmosphere. "

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" 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. "

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" I do a lot of work with NASA and am involved in research projects studying planetary evolution, Earth-like planets, and potential conditions for life elsewhere. "

" 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. "

" The basic ability to not wipe oneself out, to endure, to use your technological interaction with the world in such a way that has the possibility of the likelihood of lasting and not being temporary - that seems like a pretty good definition of intelligence. "

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

" We're going to stop looking at Earth from orbit because we don't like what we are seeing and the conclusions that leads us to? That's nonsense. "

" 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? "

" If you were on the surface of Venus, assuming you could see the Sun, which, you know, would be hard because it's so cloudy there, but the Sun would actually rise in the west and set in the east. And, it would do so very, very slowly, because the planet rotates incredibly slowly. "

" Responsible global behaviour is ultimately an act of self-preservation of, by, and for the global beast that modern technological humanity has become. "

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

" 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. "

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

" What I'm interested in is the conversations going on about the Anthropocene and what it means to view ourselves as a part of Earth's geological history. "

" 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.' "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Mars does not have an atmosphere and does not have a magnetic field today, so the planet doesn't have the protection from radiation that our atmosphere and magnetic fields provide us on Earth. "

" It's quite possible there's as much lightning on Venus as on Earth. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Fixing global warming is more important than astronomy. "

" As a young planet, Venus was losing hydrogen rapidly to space. The oceans boiled off, and after some period of time, perhaps 600 million years, there was no surface water. "

" I think a lot of people interested in space exploration tend to hear stories about the great missions, how they work technically, what we learned. But they don't really hear the story of what it takes to get a mission from scratch to the launch pad and into space. "

" You cannot study other planets without referring to Earth and without applying the techniques and the insights of Earth science. And you cannot really do a good job understanding the Earth without the insights from planetary exploration. "

" There are other planets besides the Earth and Mars. I'd like to remind you that studying Venus is vital to understanding life elsewhere. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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