I work far too many hours to make a massive response to this as I originally planned.
Simply put, this is a very...very...very... small piece of our lore with nearly nihl impact on what occurs in the individual rounds. While accuracy to 'real' scientific information and theories is a very awesome thing, it also is capable of smothering creativity like no other. I can see your points 100% (for the most part) but ultimately, changing these things would do little but satisfy your desire for 'correctness' and waste time that our lore-team could be using for other, more productive things. Like getting the wiki up.
Also, Earth is NOT abandoned in our lore. It's not depopulated by people leaving. It's still -somewhat- inhabitable and is the administrative center of the Union of Sol
If Erik wants to discuss the lore on Skype with me (stellarsilence1) I'm open for that and I'll attempt to address his concerns in an appropriate way.