New trend or trope I would KILL to see in sci-fi novels:
Rich industrialists fund space travel and gain the means to leave the planet and colonize Mars to leave a ‘dying/depleted’ Earth behind. Only the 1% have the means to afford a ticket on board the ships and ‘start fresh’ on the red planet in domed cities or whatever.
And then with the people most responsible for destroying the planet and depleting its resources gone, the remaining 99% of people ‘left behind’ on Earth construct new socialist societies, implement clean energy and redistribute the existing resources while of restoring the planet’s renewable resources and healing the damage done by pollution and irresponsible waste management.
Cut to a few hundred years later where Earth has a thriving population on a thriving planet that is not at all the doomed and dying and ‘used up’ place the Mars colonists thought it was when they left for the planet they’re still attempting to terraform so they can step out of their scattered little bubble cities that don’t allow for any real growth, innovation or exploration.
Earthborn character to a Martian: “Guess the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, huh? Oh wait, you guys still don’t have grass over there yet, do you? Whoops, my bad.”
assuming Mars society hasn’t collapsed in on itself when a bunch of billionaire entrepreneurs discover they don’t have the skills to plump a toilet
