Why is James Cameron interested in asteroid mining?

You'd think that if there was a message in his movie, Avatar, that it would be that mining was BAD. But maybe the message was not that, but something else.

So this made me curious when I heard the news that Cameron is one of the investors for this asteroid mining venture.

To tell you the truth, I hated the movie.  This is not generally true with Cameron's movies- I liked the Terminator movies, for example.  I hated the movie because it was too much like the white man's guilt trip over the Indians in North America.  In addition, it was too romantic about nature.  It glorified the "noble savage" over civilization.  It pushed this overly absurd notion that humans must live in total harmony with nature.  As if human existence was in conflict with nature.

By the way, the post I did yesterday had a quote in it by Cameron in which he said that there are too many people on this planet.  This dovetails nicely with this "gem", which I posted recently - the Green Washing of a Young Mind.


But I favor what Cameron is doing here.  I've been for the Mining of the Sky almost since the beginning of this blog.  The book is one of the inspirations for this blog.  It so happens that Lewis, the author of the book, is closely connected to this venture.  Good.  I'm all for what he is doing in this instance.  But why?


The purpose of this post is not to demonize Cameron.  Nor the purpose of this blog is to demonize other people who I disagree with.  The purpose is to communicate the idea that we can solve our problems with each other even if we don't agree.  There are solutions.  I'm very glad to see that Cameron is going to do something constructive to solve a problem which he claims exists- global warming.  How?

Platinum is very useful as a catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells.  But it is very costly.  If the cost came down, one of the barriers for fuel cells will have been overcome.  Should they be adopted, the reliance of fossil fuels can be a thing of the past.  Cameron should be all for this.  For me, it is more important to stop importing so much oil from unfriendly states.  This is a project on which all of us, regardless of political affiliation, could work on and succeed.

Maybe the message of the movie is "don't foul your own nest".  I don't disagree with that at all.