[anvandare]

Earth is a spaceship, unfortunately somehow a bunch of monkeys went rampant and now they're busy tearing up the life support system.

If we can satisfy their (limitless and still growing) hunger for energy and resources by exploiting the rest of the solar system, the monkeys can be kept pacified. That could buy us time to figure out a more permanent, and balanced, solution.

The great thing about the Moon/Mars/asteroid belt is that we can strip mine it. Can't ruin the ecosystem if there isn't one.