The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
You can make a stack high enough to reach the moon and back, and only then will you have used your 100 billion hamburgers. This is terrifying news to cows.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the absurdity of overconsumption and its impact on the environment.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote uses hyperbolic imagery to emphasize the staggering number of hamburgers consumed and the environmental consequences of such consumption. The reference to a stack high enough to reach the moon conveys not only the sheer volume of hamburgers but also serves as a satirical commentary on human dietary habits and their implications for livestock, particularly cows. It draws attention to the disconnect between human civilization's appetite and the realities faced by the animals that contribute to our food supply.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about sustainability, you might use this quote to punctuate the effects of mass meat consumption on the planet.
More from Neil Degrasse Tyson
All quotes βThe press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
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In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.