No one wants to go back to feudal Europe. But we might want to consider what we can learn from the Inuit and First Nations if we are to remain in harmony with this planet, the only place we know where complex life exists in the Universe.

So what has put us out of synch with nature and the planet? The rise of capitalism and individual rights has moved us away from the commons. Today it is these foundational concepts in Western culture that has led us to where we are facing the issues of global warming and other climate change phenomena. We have taken individualism and asserted it over collective environmental responsibility for far too long. And in spreading the values and ideas of capitalism across the globe during colonial expansion we now face a problem that some of us would rather deny exists.

The oil and gas industry remain in that state of denial to this day. The industry sees its worth in its economic an energy contribution across the planet. It considers the environmental challenges an irritant. The result, the industry continues to pollute the commons as necessary to its business model and to the profit of shareholders. And now, in its latest denial effort, is pushing back against governments trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and in particular, methane pollution from extraction and exploration operations.

Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas, up to 30 times more significant in affecting atmospheric warming than carbon dioxide (CO2). CH4 may not last as long in the atmosphere but it from industry and natural sources is currently contributing to warming in its own way.

For the industry, CH4 comes with the territory. When you are drilling a new well, or during fracking operations, or even after a well goes into production, CH4 is a natural byproduct. In the past CH4 was dealt with two ways. It was allowed to escape into the atmosphere, or if in high concentrations, flared off by burning it at the wellhead. Leaks were just part of the business model.

But as the Canadian and Alberta governments attempt to mitigate climate change while giving the oil and gas industry the means to continue to operate, they have proposed regulations requiring producers to seal CH4 leaks and capture the gas at all other times during exploration, production, and extraction. The industry has responded to these regulations by asking for flexibility in the oversight of operations. What the industry has lobbied for is the government to only make compulsory visits to wells at high risk of leakage rather than monitor all sites. The industry also wants the government to relax oversight of CH4 reductions at heavy oil operations, the oil sands. Their rationale is that the technology to reduce CH4 in the latter represents a more significant investment which for the moment it appears they are not prepared to make even in the face of global warming. The latest research on oil sands operations indicates that CH4 emissions are 50% greater at these sites than from other oil and natural gas sources.

Two of the governments in Canada, the federal and the province of Alberta, have agreed to set CH4 reduction targets of 45% by 2025. They want to see CH4 emissions decline by 282 megatons by 2035. They estimate this will put $13.4 billion back into sustainable economic development rather than into adaptation and mitigation projects to deal with the impacts of global warming and other climate change elsewhere.

It is pretty clear that the industry continues to maintain a mindset established right at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The commons, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the ocean, and the land, all just dumping grounds for the dross and waste that comes from enterprise, whether capitalist, communist or from central planning. Whether it’s Europe, Russia, China, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, or the many Developing World nations, this disregard for the health of the commons is prevalent across the planet, a byproduct of the global reach of advanced industrial technologies and short-term thinking.

The industry can argue that regulation and unrealistic deadlines could produce job losses, and therefore, less tax revenue to government. But these statements represent no more than strong-arm tactics to weaken environmental resolve. There is, however, only one prescription to heal the commons. If government won’t prescribe it, and industry won’t prescribe it, then who will? For the sake of those who inherit the legacy of our climate inaction, we owe it to them to start delivering the medicine that will heal the commons for posterity.

Since its arrival on Mars, Curiosity has collected more than 34 million pieces of weather data using REMS (Rover Environmental Monitoring Station). At the REMS website here on Earth you can check out the daily Curiosity weather report. Today on Sol 13338 the maximum air temperature in Celsius is expected to reach -18 (about 0 Fahrenheit).  The overnight low was recorded at -75 Celsius (-103 Fahrenheit). The day will be sunny with Martian sunrise at 5:30 and sunset at 17:22. The REMS shows no wind or relative humidity data in its current measuring.

It is this precise daily accumulation of information that is giving us an accurate picture of just how different Mars is from earth. The long cold seasons on Mars, twice the length of ours here on Earth, have an enormous impact on the planet’s atmosphere. More about that later. And the more elliptical orbit than ours around the Sun puts the Southern Hemisphere in even worse shape than the North with less solar energy reaching the former during a more than 6 Earthly-month winter. Add to this an atmosphere a fraction of what ours is here on Earth and you have little in the way of heat retention.

When Elon Musk talks about Mars as humanity’s second home, a buffer to protect us from a future extinction event, it’s hard to equate with the picture Curiosity and our other Martian observation satellites and rovers have provided. This is a tough place to call a future home. To me it may make far more sense for our species in the future to inhabit space in self-contained closed system environments, or in a hollowed-out asteroid which we then fill with atmosphere and populate. The Mars of the present seems far less amenable.

To illustrate the two Martian years (almost four here on Earth) that Curiosity has resided on Mars, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have produced an infographic that illustrates the seasonal cycles of Martian weather gathered since the rover landed. It is an eye opener to those Mars One volunteers who plan a one-way trip to become the first human colonists.

The chart appearing at the top compares temperatures at Gale Crater with those in Los Angeles, California. The range in temperature change between the two sites is easily seen with the tenuous Martian atmosphere producing enormous deltas between day and night. Not so much in Los Angeles.

The middle chart presents data collected on water vapor levels in the atmosphere. The red band shows even at its peaks that water vapor in the atmosphere is less than 1% of that found here on Earth. The blue band records relative humidity which on Mars is very low because it is so cold. During the day relative humidity approaches zero. At night during the extremes of the Martian winter it can rise higher than 60%.

The bottom chart shows atmospheric pressure variations throughout the year. There is nothing like this on Earth. We don’t get seasonal ups and downs in atmospheric pressure. We get weather systems that change barometric pressure. But on Mars CO2 freezes out of the atmosphere in the winter and gets captured in the polar ice caps creating the blue waveform seen in the chart. Just something else future Martian colonists would have to get used to on a planet far different from Earth.