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PHOTOS: Northern Lights stun in skies across southern France
Phenomena was seen across almost all of France this weekend
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‘It is my right to work beyond retirement age - but France says no’
Age discrimination in the workplace is real but hidden, says (soon to be forcibly retired) English teacher Nick Inman
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‘Ponds in rural France are beautifully maintained but no longer used’
Columnist Peter Wyeth laments that these large, impressive sites, once the fresh-aired setting for family picnics, barbecues and fun, now fail to attract people
Welcome home, Thomas!
Given that we are in the midst of a resource and pollution crisis down here on Earth, shouldn’t we have better things to do than put men and women on top of vertical fuel tanks and blast them at unimaginable expense into space so they can live for a few months in a high-tech orbiting caravan?
Most of us go gaga about space exploration as if it were somehow necessary (it isn’t: we can live without the non-stick frying pan) or even possible (it is, sort of: we may make it to Mars but forget about leaving the solar system).
However, there is one point of the exercise, as French returnee Thomas Pesquet, reminded us. Most of us really don’t believe that the Earth is lonely, fragile, unique, and worth looking after. Only when you look down from the outside, through the International Space Station’s cupola, do you really understand this.
It may be worth sending people into space just so they come back determined to be better Earthlings.