Should people be allowed to live on Mars? As we exist to day, absolutely not. We have to learn how to take care of our own planet. Why should we be given a chance to make a new start on another planet if we are just going to abuse it and destroy it?
For all of history, mankind has pushed to further itself by exploring new places. We have expanded our reach to every continent across the globe. We have also ruined and taken for granted so many beautiful places that our posterity will never get to see. The rain forests are shrinking at an epic rate because of mankind cutting them down. The grasslands of central North America are all but gone. Countless species of animals have been hunted into extinction. The further we have expanded, the more has been lost.
Mankind has not just effected other living creatures, though. We have polluted many areas. Smog is a man-made phenomenon. It was not here before we were, at least not as a regular occurrence. Many people face the prospect of not being able to drink the water where they live. How many stories have you heard of people travelling to a foreign country and getting sick from the tap water? If we contaminate the water on Mars, it will be destroyed forever and dissipate the prospect of future generations ever living there. No clean water means no life.
On the news, we ofter hear about how our natural resources are dwindling. Oil and fuel shortages happen more and more often as our supplies slowly wane. Some day, maybe in the not so distant future, we will run out. There is only a set amount and then that is all. We have to look into more renewable sources of energy before we can even think of living on Mars. If people were living on Mars and ran out of an essential resource, there would be nowhere to go to get more. Without those precious resources, Mars cannot sustain complex life forms such as mankind.
The human race, in general, has a history of showing little respect for the landscape around us. When we are after the few natural resources left on our own planet, we often drastically alter the landscape to get it. Strip mining, blasting, construction of new roads, and deforestation have all plagued this planet and changed the way it would look were mankind not here. If we were to take this same approach on Mars, our future generations would not know the grandeur of its pristine beauty because we had changed into something else.
So until we learn to respect our own planet and care for it as we should, I don’t think that we, as humans, should be allowed to live on Mars. Researching new forms of renewable energy and ways to preserve our own planet should come first. Only then will our race have the respect and responsibility necessary to establish life on another planet.
