In September, NASA will launch a mission to visit an asteroid and return with a sample of rock. This presages the arrival of space mining. This raises the question: what does the drive to exploit the environment say about human nature? Is mining an insignificant asteroid in deep space driven by the same impulse to that allows us to dump carbon into a seemingly  limitless atmosphere? Should humans learn to tame these responses, or are they the parts of our nature that will save us? Listen in!

The reading list:

• Where no miner has gone before: New Republic
• Asteroid mining: Newsweek
• Proxima B: The Guardian
• A fly-by to Proxima?
• Did climate change begin in the 1830's?
  Auctioning the Gulf: ThinkProgress

Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.

Thanks for listening.

…Ted McIntyre