An astronaut I agree with in principle, but who is hurting sustainability, I fear

A reader sent me a link to this video by an astronaut, Ron Garan. He shares how seeing the earth from space changes astronaut’s views on life and humanity’s relationship with nature. I don’t think it achieves the goal he wants.

People can interpret it differently, but I conclude that he is saying seeing the earth from space offers a special and unique view of life that enables someone who has it to say and do more than others. I see this message hurting sustainability in several ways.

(The Spodek Method avoids all the following problems. It connects us with intrinsic emotions and motivations we all have. Instead of suggesting people need to go to space to see humanity’s fragility and connect us to nature, it evokes those emotions and motivations, then activates them. Instead of promoting activities that pollute and deplete, and leads us to avoid them.)

For one thing, we have to trust him. What if he’s making it up? Even if genuine, what if only he got this view and other astronauts didn’t? Even if others did, what if others got different impressions from the experience? What if someone else who saw earth from space concluded life was disposable?

Why privilege his view anyway? Why should his view of earth from space matter more than the owner of a power plant who values providing power essential to civilization over the problems its pollution and depletion cause? Doesn’t democracy allow each to vote?

It devalues the views of people who haven’t seen earth from space. In my experience, people who live on the cutting edge of technology value life less, not more. He has other videos of him flying around in fighter jets and speaking at places he flies around to. Should we all fly more? Should we all endeavor to fly to space?

I’d suggest pushing the frontier of technology less, including flying, would lead us to value life more and to live more sustainably. People who live sustainably don’t need to fly to learn the value of life and sustainability.

His views on the value of life sound remedial compared to what I understand of cultures that live sustainably, including cultures that predate civilization by tens to hundreds of thousands of years. It seems to me we should listen to them before him. Their views sound like practical wisdom based on experience. His sounds like an untested, fleeting glimpse. Even if they conclude similarly on the value of life, they know how to live sustainably. He doesn’t. He seems to pollute and deplete more than nearly anyone ever.

I had an experience like Garan’s without flying, as I wrote in We’ve made thrills boring. We can do the opposite five years ago, on seeing the painting “General View of Paris from a Hot-Air Balloon” by Victor Navlet:

Some details from the painting:

In that post I wrote:

Once balloons were exciting. Then biplanes made them boring. Eventually jets made propeller planes boring. Now we’re bored by flying. We just want to be there already. Or we want to get online or watch a movie.

Once people loved pong. Now we tire in a week of video games companies paid a quarter of a billion dollars to create.

Once a cassette tape’s portability, meaning we could bring a couple dozen songs with us and listen to them about once before the battery died, was beyond incredible. Now we can access nearly every song ever recorded at a moment’s notice and it’s ho-hum.

Has any technology existed that we didn’t come to see as ordinary or get bored of?

Do we doubt that the thrill of space flight will go the way of hot air balloons?

Can a new technology’s thrill compare with losing yourself in your lover’s eyes or the squeal of your child at play?

If someone once felt thrilled by a technology, then we can too, even if it’s now obsolete. If anything ever thrilled a human, we can get that thrill too—no technology necessary.

We can make our worlds as thrilling or rewarding in whatever way we want. We can see them as boring, which many people seem to, but why not find the thrill or emotion we want?

What I wrote in that post about thrills applies to appreciation of nature and sustainability. I don’t know Garan’s experience, so I can’t speak for him, but as someone living unsustainably who would like to restore humanity to sustainability so presumably in his audience, I would suggest a more humble message. Maybe I’d apologize for polluting and depleting so much and to take so long to realize what he could have learned without going to space. I’d suggest stopping polluting and depleting and practice it myself.

It’s tempting to suggest he’s more effective by polluting and depleting to promote his message. On the contrary, people don’t only listen to his words. His behavior combine with the words he says suggests to everyone who considers their work important to pollute and deplete, which would accelerate our current results.

I suspect he compares augmenting the promotion of his message by activities that pollute and deplete with giving up, or nearly so. If so, I see that dichotomy as false and a sign of a failure of imagination. If he considered all his potential actions, I bet he’d find sustainable ways that work better, not worse, than by augmenting mainstream culture.

If he wants help, I’m happy to help brainstorm.