Planet B - Bryant McGill

# Planet B ## Definition **Planet B** is the recurrent claim that another world could substitute for Earth if terrestrial conditions deteriorate. The concept is useful chiefly as a test of scale: preserving Earth's habitability is vastly easier than terraforming Mars or transporting a significant human population elsewhere. ## Conceptual relationships [[wiki/Marsification|Marsification]] · [[wiki/Planetary Stewardship|Planetary Stewardship]] · [[wiki/Space Survival|Space Survival]] ## Martin Rees research route [[research/Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future|Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future]] supplies a primary quotation dossier connecting this concept to Rees's work on cosmology, technological risk, machine intelligence, posthuman evolution and deep time. ## Article and collection routes - [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > “I think it’s a dangerous delusion to envisage mass emigration from Earth.” > **— Martin Rees**, *20 Big Questions about the Future of Humanity, Scientific American, 2016* [[reminders/Space Survival/Mass Emigration from Earth Is a Dangerous Delusion by Martin Rees|Mass Emigration from Earth Is a Dangerous Delusion by Martin Rees]] > “It’s a dangerous delusion to think that space offers an escape from Earth’s problems. Coping with the climate crisis is a doddle compared to terraforming Mars. Nowhere in our solar system offers an environment even as clement as the top of Everest. There will be no ‘Planet B’ for most of us.” > **— Martin Rees**, *Nasa’s Webb telescope is a joy. But it’s the private ventures that push at limits, The Guardian, 2022* [[reminders/Space Survival/There Is No Planet B for Most of Humanity by Martin Rees|There Is No Planet B for Most of Humanity by Martin Rees]] > “Climate change is a doddle compared with terraforming Mars. It is a delusion to think we can solve Earth’s problems by relocating to Mars.” > **— Martin Rees**, *Martin Rees: ‘Climate change is a doddle compared with terraforming Mars’, The Guardian, 2019* [[reminders/Space Survival/Mars Cannot Solve Earth's Problems by Martin Rees|Mars Cannot Solve Earth's Problems by Martin Rees]]