Project Persephone - an exercise in futility

I was very diverted by a story I read in dePress on Tuesday about the Persephone Project. 

An international group of scientists is working on the development of the bio-technologies necessary to create a self-sustaining space ship which will save some people if (when) the greedheads and their minions manage to make Earth a 'no-go zone for human beings due to...'- wait for it - 'climate change or nuclear or biological warfare'.

The team's sociologist, who made the above breath-taking statement, seems oblivious to the fact that investment in the sort of bio-technologies necessary to create a mini planet is the sort of investment which, multiplied many fold, might just save the big planet we evolved on.  

The idea is that, within a 100 years, Earth will be a uninhabitable for humans - and by logical extension -most other species. In order to preserve the species which brought about this dreadful state of affairs, a few thousand select humans will be launched into space aboard a 'Space Ark' to find another planet to colonise.

Given the sort of people who would be selected for such an Ark - the greedheads' 'flower of humanity' would be my noxious weed - one can surmise they'd pretty soon ruin that planet as well.

The people involved in the project are clearly incapable of comprehending the enormity of the insult inherent in their acceptance of the inevitability of the Earth's demise and the pipe dream of building a self-sustaining 'life raft'.  They can dream about as yet impossible bio-technologies to save a few thousand of the elite but are unable to envisage the comparatively simple reorganisation of the relations of production and reproduction in sustainable and equitable ways so that we can save the planet we all live on. 

One accepts this from the greedheads; such is the narcissistic hubris of the forces which govern us, they would rather destroy the planet and most of what lives on it than admit their miserable life-negating philosophy is wrong.

But, scientists signing up for the bullshit is a reminder that - of all that trickles down from the elite - it's that life negating, narcissistic hubris which is the most prolific and toxic.