Science is useless, climate is the victim – Wel.nl

They only speak noble words, billionaires who shoot themselves into space, but there is more and more criticism. Science is useless, climate is the victim, and besides: Couldn’t you spend billions better?

Yesterday was a historic day: for the first time, a commercial rocket blasted off into space. There was even a Dutchman on the plane. But not everyone is thrilled. For example, Greenpeace announced on Twitter that Bezos released 258 times as much carbon dioxide during his journey as a normal citizen in an entire year. “This is an ego trip!” Environmental organization said.

It might still be possible to handle a single flight out of the atmosphere, but what if – and that is the intention – the wealthy made space travel a hobby. “The more rockets are in the air, the higher the emissions,” says astronomer Lucas Ellerbrück. against NOS. “And that’s at a time when we insist on the importance of driving an electric car and reducing flying.”

Completely useless
Moreover, the excursions do not yield much science. Astronomy professor Vincent Ike: “There’s nothing you do out there that we can’t better research on Earth. For us scientists, it’s sad that the phenomenal successes of science are being misused in this kind of advertising.”

The third argument is that a lot of money is completely lost. Can’t billionaires come up with something better to spend their billions on, for example poverty alleviation or climate research? Icke at the NOS: “What’s going to happen soon is people put in a big bag of money, get thrown into the air for 100 kilometers and then fall again. Instead, they invest that money in things that benefit the Earth.”