Last month I wrote about life in other places and our prospects for being able to move off the planet. As I said, if we are going to do that, we will need to discover some new and different physics, because right now our understanding of the Universe is that we can't get there from here.

As a scientist, that presents me with the interesting problem of how do we survive here. The evolution of the Sun is such that we have about 4 or 5 billion years more of a stable Sun. However, the Earth is under pressure from limited resources and a continually growing human population. From a very basic view at some point, you just run out of space. There are also the problems of food, energy, etc.

The Paris accord on climate was what I see as the first piece of a puzzle in which the entire world agrees on a strategy to keep the planet habitable. If we are to survive on the planet, we as species need to cooperate on things that will keep the planet habitable. We need to think about the big picture and the long term.

Most of the world has begun to think about this big picture and the long term. I find this encouraging.