Copyright

 Conversations 4 (day 8) 

Mdala: Rockets are a major polluter. The space center destroyed thousands of acres of forest just to be built. Every launch spews the pollution equivalent a day of New York City traffic—and equals it in noise.

Matt: Every new technology brings problems, I'll grant. That's no reason to halt progress. We learn how to control those problems by having them, and often through something we've learned in the process of developing that technology to begin with.

Mdala: God gave us this world in a functioning state. We've completely fouled it up and your argument is to keep fouling up more?

Matt: If you're arguing for a static earth—that God had made something in which everything just worked in perfect balance, you're arguing for something for which there is no evidence, and that means going back before humans entered the scene.

Mdala: Evidence generated by your technology. No. Mine was a metaphor. Take god out of the equation, the point is the Earth needs our help and launching rockets into space isn't helping.

Matt: The environmental movements biggest boost came from the Apollo photo “earth rise over the moon.” That photo galvanized the world into recognizing the tiny place we lived and how important it was to help it. So, actually, space flight did help save the earth and continues to do so. Most of what we know about environmental problems and their scope we monitor by satellite.

Anne and Jeanette in bathing suits and cover-ups return from the beach and sit outside

Anne: It's beautiful here, and not the rush the tourist veneer of the Caribbean.

Jeanette (laughing): Not so many of you, you mean?

Anne (laughing): Exactly. The problem with Americans is we travel to see something else, but most of us don't really like anything else so they build little Americas all around the world we can go visit.

Jeanette: And you? Do you like the other?

Anne: I don't know. I like indoor plumbing and ice, so I'm probably as bad as any of them.

Jeanette: It is probably not so different for other countries, there are just more Americans. But there's a lot of Paris in Cayenne.

Anne: I suppose so. We went to Italy once and in the bay of Naples beside Capri, there's an island called Ischia and it's completely German. Apparently it's “their” Italian vacation spot.

Jeanette: Italy. God, I'd love to go anywhere. You grow up here, where everyone comes, and you can't understand why. I just want to leave.

Anne: Why? I mean I understand wanting to see other things, but you sound like you dislike it here.

Jeanette (sighs): Peut etre. Maybe if I were in Cayenne it would be different. Here everyone knows me. I'm what French men lust after but want nothing to do with—a woman who lives for herself.

Anne: That makes French men different?