I am a long time lover of space. I am old enough to have watched Apollo 8, I was born while Sputnik was in orbit. I was delighted by the moon landing and expected a very great deal more of these wonders in the very near future. The Space Shuttle was indeed amassing, but from the outset I worried about the solid rocket strap on motors and the incredibly fragile shuttle tiles. The ISS is incredible still to this day but none of what we have is more than a shadow of what was expected back then.

Back then the environmental damage caused by the western form of everyday life and business was just beginning to become noticed. It has taken fifty years to be taken seriously, but I knew how incredibly important it was from the early 1990s. I first stood as a British Green Party candidate in 1992. I stood no chance, I stood against the longest standing MP in British history - the then Health Minister, or was he the Secretary of Defence by then, anyway it was Kenneth Clarke who I shared the Hustings podium with. 

It took me many months to recover from the stress of that defeat, not that it was in anyway a shock that I lost, but the simple pressure of being, even for a moment, considered to be on a par with such a political icon drained me deeply. He thanked me for ‘supporting democracy’ I asked him if he could consider the chance that he may be wrong about his political convictions.

I saw him again in 2005 when I next stood. He remembered me, or at least claimed to - which was nice. It was surreal to have a pre hustings drink with him, but far less scary this time. Had I the chance to say words that were not answers to specific questions, I would have said that our only hope of continuing to live on this planet - what with the idea that Growth as the only answer to everything - would be to go in to space. There we could find all the resources we could ever need. There we could do what we liked and not mess anything up. But, I did not get the chance.

I am standing for a third time at the next general election, over thirty years later. This time I shall not let my natural voice just answer the questions. I shall push for all I am worth towards space. I can clearly see that it is impossible, even with the best will in the world, to get the people of the world to give up any aspect of what is seen to be ‘the good life’ no matter what happens. 

I don’t want people to have to face the disasters, the apocalyptic nature of the flooding of Libya, the devastation caused by wild fires, the tornado that took the tiles off the roof of our house in London which only just missed hitting me, to say nothing of the human caused but not human made Covid issues. It looks as if it would take even more than what has already happened to make people tell their governments that they see the problem. There should be no need to wait for the end of everything civilised on this planet to make people change the way we do things. 

Forget politics, forget parties, we must act together.

I have worked as hard as I can to bring about consensus between whatever argumentative groups I found, but I have not got very far in these three decades. However, my first great hope for the future is at long last looking as if it will be able to save us all.

Industry is coming to the rescue. The very mechanisms that have driven the planet to the very brink are now realising that ‘growth’ at least on Earth is counter productive, destructive, bottom line - expensive. Going Green, going in to space, is now seen as the least expansive and vastly more profitable route to take.

I applaud this new way of thinking, even though it is fifty years late  - after all, they knew first that this would happen. Lets hope they have their plans well laid. We need them all.