Stephen Hawking spent his entire life devoted to physics and is rewarded with the respect of the scientific community but spends much of his day thinking about women. Hugh Hefner spent his life dedicated to getting laid and still gets laid to this day. So kiddies, what does this teach you about your career choices?

Well I agree that there are a lot of common assumptions out there and a lot of them are wrong your figures don't sound right, or at least taken out of context. Here are a couple of real fact for you. http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-nuclear-energy?gclid=CI32v6vI5a0CFSgEQAod2UzMbg (and if Wikipedia has taught us anything its that citations makes everything real) In 2008, nuclear power replaced an estimated 690 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants generate nearly three-fourths of America's clean-air energy. Nuclear power plants produce about 20 percent of America's power.

Actually this is a more immediate problem then you might think. I agree that we need start worrying about other problems (climate change, epidemic, ourselves) but there is still a definite risk of NEO's hitting Earth. NASA knows of plenty of risks and has them laid out in a chart here http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/. If my memory serves me right (this is based on information my roommate told me who worked for NASA at the time) there is an object that will pass by Earth late 2012 and when it does scientist will be able to get a very good picture of when they think it will hit Earth (I think the range of potential hit fates starts in 2020 and continues on from there but the likelihood is very very small any given year but still present). So yeah, a nice off world site would be nice but we really don't have the time/technology to do it right now (or potentially ever).