In the early 1950s, the conventional opinion of the proto-denier class was that the various "western" Frontiers (Alaska, the Canadian and American Wests, Australia, South Africa, Argentina et al) would always have lots of mineral wealth but that their natives/aboriginals were on the inevitable path to total extinction.
Sixty years on, at the cusp of the disappointing Rio+20 Conference, let us pause in our lamenting to celebrate a small victory over the forces of greed and hubris.
The best, most profitable, mineral deposits in these various "Wild Wests" are gone and now we're expensively shifting millions of tons of overlay to get at mere tonnes of metals.
By contrast the natives are not dead and gone - in fact they are well and truly out-breeding the Angry White Guys (AWGs) who predicted (and plotted) their rapid extermination.
In response, the cut'n'runner AWGs are falling back on Planet "B" --- the latest 'western" Frontier is the Asteroid Belt and Mars & Venus where they claim there is immense mineral wealth (but without providing us any firm ROI figures, of course - these are bull-shit-prone deniers after all.)
One of the biggest advantages of this latest in a long line of "Big Sky Countries" is the fact that none of these places seem to have any pesky natives - or government taxes and regulations, or school marms and settlers.
Don't believe the deniers are planning to leave the 99% behind?
One only has to regularly read Google News to see all over the world private companies talking up their space ventures.
Soon they will abandon us earthling ground-pounders stuck down in 'the lower 48' at the bottom of Earth's deep gravity well.
They'll be heading to the utimate in the High Frontier, higher even than Alaska, where one can live a live of libertarian bliss, in a time and space devoid of government regulations but awash in indirect government subsidies.
Paid for by the tax-dollars of space-struck environmentalists down here at Base Zero.
I'd like to say that one can't believe in both Mars Colonies and Environmental efforts to save the Earth but that is not true - billions of people hold both positions - mixing oil and water with chalk and cheese.
But I will say a true green environmentalist group will purge its membership of all those who hold these views.
One must decide whether one favours Peter Ward's theory of a possibly unique , truly "RARE EARTH" and thus focus all of your energies on saving the only lifeboat we have got.
Or you give a little energy to saving the earth but hedge your bets by believing (and funding) Frank Drake's "MANY EARTHS" theory (that there are probably billions of Earths out there we can always move to if and when we deplete this particular Earth of everything profitable).
This blog is definitely in the first camp, the Earthling camp.
And it holds that anyone in the second camp is both a proto-denier and a Skygod : because what deniers really deny is not climate change but rather : any limits on the ability of humanity to spoil natural habitats and then move on, care-free, to new natural habitats to spoil.....
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