Noted environmental scholar RJ Smith has a few words to say about astronaut Eileen Collins' comments on the environmental degradation she sees from space:

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.

A few comments Astronauts are given training in detecting major areas of environmental degradation that can easily be viewed from space. After all, we are approaching a half century of amassing detailed photos of the Earth's surface from space. And they are trained to watch for areas of Amazonia and the Congo tropical forests and compare amounts of deforestation with photos from 10, 20, 30 years ago. Likewise watching for how far out into the oceans the silt plumes from the major rivers extend. Or for expansion of the great Sahelian Desert further south into sub-Saharan Africa.

After all, it was the very first astronauts who looked down and Adalai Stevenson who looked at the photos, who remarked on the view of this tiny little ball of blue and green drifting through the enormity of time and space and remarked that it was our only home and that it appeared fragile and that we should take care of it. Spaceship Earth. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. We should all want to be stewards of our homes and home. But it is more their attitude and what they are looking for. NASA, EPA and the Greens have been trying desperately to turn the Space Program into an Earth Observation program -- the Mission to Planet Earth -- for almost 20 years, to thus justify perpetual funding as part of the nation's and world's environmental protection mission -- and thus not have to constantly justify space walks, manned missions, Moon landings, whatever.

The crap in all this is that everything is evaluated simply in areal extent. Gee the desert is larger -- thus man is evil or development is. They never get at causes or incentives. Why do the tropical forests continue to decline? Does NASA or White House Science Advisor ever suggest any institutional factors? No one owns the forests and people in many of those countries live in dire poverty in nations with no free market economies, no jobs, no food Thus their only choice is felling the forests, raising crops and livestock, and hoping they can sell some of the rare forest woods in the illegal markets -- that the G-8 and Tony Blair were so concerned about. Or that Amazonian states continue to urge the teeming populous of Brazil's coastal cities to move into the border areas and clear the forests and create boom towns. Perhaps enitre regions of Africa would not have to subsist on "bush meat" if their dictators would allow Frank Purdue to start up some chicken farms.

They might actually gather some good data if they took extensive infra-red photos of the US forests to document the extent of all the unhealthy forests -- the millions upon millions of acres of dead and dying trees -- from over-crowding, disease, bark beetle infestations, whatever. All the failed results of environmental policies forced on our National Forests by the Greens. All the things that the Bush Healthy Forest Initiative was supposed to help start repairing. And which much of the nation still doesn't believe is actually happening, preferring to believe the HFI was passed to pay off the Bush administration's Big Timber donors.

More striking I think is Reuters' header: "Environmental damage on Earth seen from shuttle." Like helloo? That is the major issue at this moment? I don't think they are really certain that they can get that puppy home safely. Every time they get another picture they find a missing or cracked tile, insulation padding sticking out between tiles, torn insulation blankets. Questions of whether any falling lift-off debris might have caused microscopic cracks in the carbon wing edges, etc. And Reuters is going on about damage to Earth. How about attention to environmental damage to this shuttle. Talk about Green bias of the media, that that would be the lead story.

And where is Archie Bunker when we need him? Where in the world did they find that total ditz Eileen Collins? Talk about a Ding Bat! She had seen "widespread environmental damage", whatever that may be. "Sometimes you can see how there is erosion." Again, helloo? That is one of the most fundamental and basic processes on the planet. There is uplift and there is erosion. The two biggies. What are wind and rain and freezing and thawing supposed to do? Erode. "And you can see how there is deforestation." Again so what? And why? Yes, but why do you suppose the trees get replanted in the vast clear-cuts of the giant timber companies, but not in mankind's common tropical forests?

"We would like to see...people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used." Like refill copper mines with more copper or start pumping crude oil into depleted reservoirs?

"We don't have much air." Like people are using it all up by breathing. How did she possibly qualify to command the mission? That crap wouldn't even be accepted for the Children's Page of the Washington Post.

Ms Collins might just start spending a little time worrying about how she's going to get her rearend safely back to Terra Firma -- even if it is so badly polluted. Home, sweet home; be it ever so humble.