Billionaires Don’t Belong in Space

They’ve already trashed one planet.

Photo by Cash Macanaya on Unsplash

Was it a giant leap for mankind?

Not exactly…

That didn’t stop Richard Branson from trying to make his space vacation sound like a milestone for humanity. Here’s a highlight from the little speech he gave while floating around in zero gravity, while the rest of the world struggles with drought, famine, and disease. “To all you kids out there, I was once a child with a dream… Now I’m an adult in a spaceship. If we can do this, just imagine what you can do.”

Like what, exactly?

Like cleaning up the huge environmental mess that’s going to be the space tourism industry? I guess that’s our job now, too.

Thanks, Dick.

The absolute last thing we needed was another expensive, resource-consuming distraction from saving the planet. You’ve probably noticed, it’s on fire again. Our fish are literally cooking in rivers. They’re developing meth addictions, and I wish I were joking about that. Huge amounts of America’s water supply are evaporating under heat domes.

Meanwhile, billionaires like Bezos and Branson tout the carbon-neutral footprint of their rocket ships, but they leave out the all the grisly details. They tell stories about colonizing the galaxy. If…