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Planetary sustainability collection

Global Sustainability, 2020
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Global Sustainability cambridge.org/sus Editorial Cite this article: Losch A (2020). Planetary sustainability collection. Global Sustainability 3, e13, 13. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 Received: 3 March 2020 Revised: 24 March 2020 Accepted: 25 March 2020 Keywords: natural resources (biological and non- biological); policies; politics and governance; social value Author for correspondence: Andreas Losch E-mail: andreas.losch@theol.unibe.ch © The Author(s), 2020. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is used to distribu$ted the re-used or adapted article and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use. Planetary sustainability collection Andreas Losch University of Bern, Faculty of Theology, Länggassstrasse 51, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland This collection on planetary sustainabilityis both about a present need and about a future vision. NASA envisaged a threefold scheme under this title: (1) A world in which all people have access to abundant water, food and energy, as well as protection from severe storms and climate change impacts. (2) Healthy and sustainable worldwide economic growth from renewable products and resources. (3) A multi-planetary society, where the resources of the solar system are available to the people of Earth (NASA, 2014). A pioneering research project at the University of Bern referred to NASAs ideas and started with the analysis of the third point in particular (Losch, 2019a), developing it in the direction of space sustainability. Nevertheless, a more integrative approach including both our space environment and planet Earth is required, as it is important to show the impact of space exploration on Earths society and economy. That is why the term planetary sustainabilityshould be understood here in the broad sense of this more integrative approach, including planet Earth and its space environment, basically as an understanding of sustainability that takes account of the fact that Earth is a planet. This is important in at least two ways. First of all, we have to be aware of the limits that come with living on a planet facing the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Rockström et al., 2018; Steffen et al., 2015a). Planet Earth today is decisively shaped by human civilization. In 2009, humanity had already transgressed at least three planetary boundaries: human interference with the global nitrogen cycle (through the increase in fertilizer use), the biodiversity boundary and the climate boundary (Rockström et al., 2009). To these must be added today the boundary for land-system change (which has been updated with a new control variable: the amount of forest cover remaining; Steffen et al., 2015b). On the other hand, through the implementation of the Montreal Protocol, humanity succeeded in reversing the trend with regard to the stratospheric ozone boundary(Rockström et al., 2009). This shows the significance of these planetary boundaries, which are designed as warning signs, including a buffer before reaching a global threshold or tipping point (Steffen et al., 2015b, p. 2). Humanity thus needs to become an active steward of all planetary boundaries in order to avoid risk of disastrous long-term social and environ- mental disruption.This suggests the need for novel and adaptive governance approaches at global, regional, and local scales(Rockström et al., 2009). The second aspect of our awareness of the planetary shape of Earth points to the fact that our planet has a space environment, which is already being exploited very intensively. While planetary boundariesand the Anthropocene are now quite well-received concepts, awareness of what is happening in our space environment is largely limited to space agencies and space enthusiasts. This collection attempts to raise awareness in this regard. The space environment can be used to help achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (2015). Satellites providing big land data are key in this context, as they can warn against floods, fires or droughts and help in rural and urban development (Di Pippo, 2019). The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) demon- strates the full impact of space for the fulfilment of the 17 SDGs with its SPACE4SDGS pro- gramme (UNOOSA, 2019c). In addition, the idea of a Space2030 agenda, endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/73/91), explores space as a driver for sustainable development, building on space economy, space society, space accessibility and space diplomacy (UNOOSA, 2019b). Satellites, which will be so helpful in achieving the global SDGs, also demonstrate why we need to work on sustainability in space itself. What started with Sputnik in 1957 has led to more than 8600 objects circulating in outer space today (UNOOSA, 2019a). Almost 5000 satellites are still operating for various purposes. Just a few uncontrolled space crashes could generate enough debris to set off a runaway cascade of fragments, rendering near-Earth space unusable (Witze, 2018, p. 25) along with all of the impacts of this on society and the economy. Already there are more incidents involving space debris caused by the breakup of human-made devices than naturalevents with micrometeorites (Bonnal & McKnight, 2017, p. 5). Earths space environment, especially the sought-after orbits, is a limited resource. https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 107.172.57.134, on 10 May 2020 at 16:53:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at
Nevertheless, there are massive plans to increase the number of satellites. At the end of May 2019, SpaceX shot the first 60 Starlink satellites into space, which are planned as part of a mega- constellation of up to 12,000 satellites providing high-speed Internet to every location on Earth (Mosher, 2019). SpaceX is not the only company planning such constellations. In view of the plans for a multitude of mega-constellations, astronomers worry about another problem: as satellites are built to reflect sunlight in order to keep their instruments cool inside, the night sky could become significantly brighter with their presence, and the increase in radio emissions could pose a problem to radio astronomy (International Astronomical Union, 2019). The international platform for discussing space affairs is the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). It adopted a series of non-binding guidelines designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of outer space (LTS Guidelines). While the LTS Guidelines represent a consen- sus approval by the 70 members of the UNCOPUOS, their non- binding soft lawstatus presents challenges for compliance and enforcement(Martinez, 2019). The legal situation is explained in Martinezs article in this collection. Space law becomes even more complicated regarding the idea of space mining: it is still under discussion as to how the use of extra-terrestrial resources in outer space is covered by the Outer Space Treaty (Hofmann & Bergamasco, 2020). Space 4.0, as todays situation is commonly labelled, repre- sents the evolution of the traditionally state-driven space activities into an era of privatization and commercialization of space activ- ities, mirrored by collaboration between governments, the private sector, society and politics(Bohlmann & Petrovici, 2019). As economics plays a growing role in space, sustainability considera- tions are ever more important. While the concept is widely regarded as essential, its normative content would benefit from some elaboration and reflection, as discussed in this collection in the article by Vogt and Weber (2019): Even today, the litera- ture contains basic misunderstandings about this content. So, this article sketches seven such fallacies in the context of global and planetary sustainability.Another more general question relates to economic growth. Blue Origin (and Amazon) CEO Jeff Bezos envisions space as the place to continue economic growth in view of limited resources on Earth (Blue Origin, 2019), similarly to the original NASA idea presented initially. The vision of growth is built into the SDGs, as SDG 8 demands decent work and eco- nomic growth,coupling social well-being with it. One needs to discuss whether this is feasible in view of our planetary boundaries i and how the expansion into space can affect these aims. What is missing within the SDG discourse is an appreciation of our space environment as a somewhat threatened and, most of all, limited domain. This is why the idea has been proposed to establish an 18th space environmentSDG, for facilitating discussions on the topic (Galli & Losch, 2019). It should not only lay out new rules for activities transcending Earth, but also serve as a reminder of the basic human principles that respect and foster life (and all rights connected to it), encourage sub- sidiarity and strive to attain the best possible amount of human freedom and solidarity,as Catholic social teaching would argue (Wallacher et al., 2019). What environmental concerns are valid for our space environ- ment, besides the fact that the area close to Earth is a limited resource? One fundamental question relates to the contamination of other celestial bodies with Earthly microbiological life. The Outer Space Treaty is clear about this, stating that States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the intro- duction of extraterrestrial matter(United Nations, 1966, Art. IX). Included here is not only forward, but also backward contamin- ation, issues dealt with in the guidelines set up by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Already the potential existence of ancient or even current extra-terrestrial life on celes- tial bodies such as Mars or Europa certainly adds a lot of com- plexity to the situation (Persson, 2018). Nevertheless, The current COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy addresses scientific space exploration only and is primarily concerned with the issue of contamination with micro-organisms. Other impacts of human space exploration that may be detrimental to space explor- ation itself are not covered(Galli & Losch, 2019). These are all building blocks of the concept of planetary sus- tainability. Finally, such an approach should take into account that although sustainability is about the needs of future genera- tions, humanity on Earth will not continue indefinitely. A poten- tial huge asteroid impact as happened in the time of the dinosaurs could change Earth forever. Within this framework, the recent idea of planetary defence’– the categorization of aster- oid threats and the first missions to attempt to adjust their trajec- tories therefore makes sense (ESA, 2020). But in any case, Earths time is limited. In some 100 million years, the Sun will have grown too hot and too big to allow life on Earth, as is the Suns fate as a second-generation star. Taking both the asteroid threat and this fact into account, it is quite right to point out that without our expansion of our instruments and people into space, humanity could conceivably perish(Pass et al., 2006, p. 5). To some extent, a truly sustainable concept of sustainability therefore has to be an inter-planetary one, which makes a con- tinuous technological development a necessity(Losch, 2019a, p. 4). Planetary sustainabilityas a term aims to keep this in mind. (For a critical review and discussion of the idea, see Beisbart, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; Losch, 2019b.) Acknowledgements. I thank André Galli and Zoë Lehmann Imfeld for a critical reading of the draft of this editorial and the reviewer for helpful suggestions. Conflict of interest. None. Financial support. The project Ethics of a Planetary Sustainability (www.planetarysustainability.unibe.ch), within which this collection was con- ceived, was funded by the cogito foundation (grants 17-110-R and 18-102-R). Note i. For a first evaluation of the relationship between the SDGs and planetary boundaries, see Randers et al. (2019) in this journal. References Beisbart, C. (2019a). (Trans-)planetary sustainability once more a reply to Losch. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 590591. Beisbart, C. (2019b). Do we need an ethics of planetary sustainability? Global Sustainability, 2, e22. Beisbart, C. (2019c). Is trans-planetary sustainability a good idea? An answer from the perspective from conceptual engineering. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 468476. Blue Origin (2019). Our Mission. Retrieved from https://www.blueorigin.com/ our-mission. 2 Andreas Losch https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 107.172.57.134, on 10 May 2020 at 16:53:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at
Global Sustainability Planetary sustainability collection cambridge.org/sus Andreas Losch University of Bern, Faculty of Theology, Länggassstrasse 51, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland Editorial Cite this article: Losch A (2020). Planetary sustainability collection. Global Sustainability 3, e13, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 Received: 3 March 2020 Revised: 24 March 2020 Accepted: 25 March 2020 Keywords: natural resources (biological and nonbiological); policies; politics and governance; social value Author for correspondence: Andreas Losch E-mail: andreas.losch@theol.unibe.ch © The Author(s), 2020. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is used to distribu$ted the re-used or adapted article and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use. This collection on ‘planetary sustainability’ is both about a present need and about a future vision. NASA envisaged a threefold scheme under this title: (1) A world in which all people have access to abundant water, food and energy, as well as protection from severe storms and climate change impacts. (2) Healthy and sustainable worldwide economic growth from renewable products and resources. (3) A multi-planetary society, where the resources of the solar system are available to the people of Earth (NASA, 2014). A pioneering research project at the University of Bern referred to NASA’s ideas and started with the analysis of the third point in particular (Losch, 2019a), developing it in the direction of space sustainability. Nevertheless, a more integrative approach including both our space environment and planet Earth is required, as it is important to show the impact of space exploration on Earth’s society and economy. That is why the term ‘planetary sustainability’ should be understood here in the broad sense of this more integrative approach, including planet Earth and its space environment, basically as an understanding of sustainability that takes account of the fact that Earth is a planet. This is important in at least two ways. First of all, we have to be aware of the limits that come with living on a planet facing the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Rockström et al., 2018; Steffen et al., 2015a). Planet Earth today is decisively shaped by human civilization. In 2009, humanity had already transgressed at least three planetary boundaries: human interference with the global nitrogen cycle (through the increase in fertilizer use), the biodiversity boundary and the climate boundary (Rockström et al., 2009). To these must be added today the boundary for land-system change (which has been updated with a new control variable: the amount of forest cover remaining; Steffen et al., 2015b). On the other hand, through the implementation of the Montreal Protocol, “humanity succeeded in reversing the trend with regard to the stratospheric ozone boundary” (Rockström et al., 2009). This shows the significance of these planetary boundaries, which are designed as warning signs, including a buffer before reaching a global threshold or tipping point (Steffen et al., 2015b, p. 2). “Humanity thus needs to become an active steward of all planetary boundaries … in order to avoid risk of disastrous long-term social and environmental disruption.” This “suggests the need for novel and adaptive governance approaches at global, regional, and local scales” (Rockström et al., 2009). The second aspect of our awareness of the planetary shape of Earth points to the fact that our planet has a space environment, which is already being exploited very intensively. While ‘planetary boundaries’ and the Anthropocene are now quite well-received concepts, awareness of what is happening in our space environment is largely limited to space agencies and space enthusiasts. This collection attempts to raise awareness in this regard. The space environment can be used to help achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (2015). Satellites providing big land data are key in this context, as they can warn against floods, fires or droughts and help in rural and urban development (Di Pippo, 2019). The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) demonstrates the full impact of space for the fulfilment of the 17 SDGs with its SPACE4SDGS programme (UNOOSA, 2019c). In addition, the idea of a Space2030 agenda, endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/73/91), explores space as a driver for sustainable development, building on space economy, space society, space accessibility and space diplomacy (UNOOSA, 2019b). Satellites, which will be so helpful in achieving the global SDGs, also demonstrate why we need to work on sustainability in space itself. What started with Sputnik in 1957 has led to more than 8600 objects circulating in outer space today (UNOOSA, 2019a). Almost 5000 satellites are still operating for various purposes. “Just a few uncontrolled space crashes could generate enough debris to set off a runaway cascade of fragments, rendering near-Earth space unusable” (Witze, 2018, p. 25) – along with all of the impacts of this on society and the economy. Already there are more incidents involving space debris caused by the breakup of human-made devices than ‘natural’ events with micrometeorites (Bonnal & McKnight, 2017, p. 5). Earth’s space environment, especially the sought-after orbits, is a limited resource. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 107.172.57.134, on 10 May 2020 at 16:53:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 2 Nevertheless, there are massive plans to increase the number of satellites. At the end of May 2019, SpaceX shot the first 60 ‘Starlink’ satellites into space, which are planned as part of a megaconstellation of up to 12,000 satellites providing high-speed Internet to every location on Earth (Mosher, 2019). SpaceX is not the only company planning such constellations. In view of the plans for a multitude of mega-constellations, astronomers worry about another problem: as satellites are built to reflect sunlight in order to keep their instruments cool inside, the night sky could become significantly brighter with their presence, and the increase in radio emissions could pose a problem to radio astronomy (International Astronomical Union, 2019). The international platform for discussing space affairs is the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). It “adopted a series of non-binding guidelines designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of outer space (’LTS Guidelines’). While the LTS Guidelines represent a consensus approval by the 70 members of the UNCOPUOS, their nonbinding ‘soft law’ status presents challenges for compliance and enforcement” (Martinez, 2019). The legal situation is explained in Martinez’s article in this collection. Space law becomes even more complicated regarding the idea of space mining: it is still under discussion as to how the use of extra-terrestrial resources in outer space is covered by the Outer Space Treaty (Hofmann & Bergamasco, 2020). Space 4.0, as today’s situation is commonly labelled, “represents the evolution of the traditionally state-driven space activities into an era of privatization and commercialization of space activities, mirrored by collaboration between governments, the private sector, society and politics” (Bohlmann & Petrovici, 2019). As economics plays a growing role in space, sustainability considerations are ever more important. While the concept is widely regarded as essential, its normative content would benefit from some elaboration and reflection, as discussed in this collection in the article by Vogt and Weber (2019): “Even today, the literature contains basic misunderstandings about this content. So, this article sketches seven such fallacies in the context of global and planetary sustainability.” Another more general question relates to economic growth. Blue Origin (and Amazon) CEO Jeff Bezos envisions space as the place to continue economic growth in view of limited resources on Earth (Blue Origin, 2019), similarly to the original NASA idea presented initially. The vision of growth is built into the SDGs, as SDG 8 demands “decent work and economic growth,” coupling social well-being with it. One needs to discuss whether this is feasible in view of our planetary boundariesi and how the expansion into space can affect these aims. What is missing within the SDG discourse is an appreciation of our space environment as a somewhat threatened and, most of all, limited domain. This is why the idea has been proposed to establish an 18th ‘space environment’ SDG, for facilitating discussions on the topic (Galli & Losch, 2019). It “should not only lay out new rules for activities transcending Earth, but also serve as a reminder of the basic human principles that respect and foster life (and all rights connected to it), encourage subsidiarity and strive to attain the best possible amount of human freedom and solidarity,” as Catholic social teaching would argue (Wallacher et al., 2019). What environmental concerns are valid for our space environment, besides the fact that the area close to Earth is a limited resource? One fundamental question relates to the contamination of other celestial bodies with Earthly microbiological life. The Outer Space Treaty is clear about this, stating that “States Andreas Losch Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter” (United Nations, 1966, Art. IX). Included here is not only forward, but also backward contamination, issues dealt with in the guidelines set up by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Already the potential existence of ancient or even current extra-terrestrial life on celestial bodies such as Mars or Europa certainly adds a lot of complexity to the situation (Persson, 2018). Nevertheless, “The current COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy addresses scientific space exploration only and is primarily concerned with the issue of contamination with micro-organisms. Other impacts of human space exploration that may be detrimental to space exploration itself are not covered” (Galli & Losch, 2019). These are all building blocks of the concept of planetary sustainability. Finally, such an approach should take into account that although sustainability is about the needs of future generations, humanity on Earth will not continue indefinitely. A potential huge asteroid impact – as happened in the time of the dinosaurs – could change Earth forever. Within this framework, the recent idea of ‘planetary defence’ – the categorization of asteroid threats and the first missions to attempt to adjust their trajectories – therefore makes sense (ESA, 2020). But in any case, Earth’s time is limited. In some 100 million years, the Sun will have grown too hot and too big to allow life on Earth, as is the Sun’s fate as a second-generation star. Taking both the asteroid threat and this fact into account, it is quite right to point out that “without our expansion of our instruments and people into space, humanity could conceivably perish” (Pass et al., 2006, p. 5). “To some extent, a truly sustainable concept of sustainability therefore has to be an inter-planetary one, which makes a continuous technological development a necessity” (Losch, 2019a, p. 4). ‘Planetary sustainability’ as a term aims to keep this in mind. (For a critical review and discussion of the idea, see Beisbart, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; Losch, 2019b.) Acknowledgements. I thank André Galli and Zoë Lehmann Imfeld for a critical reading of the draft of this editorial and the reviewer for helpful suggestions. Conflict of interest. None. Financial support. The project ‘Ethics of a Planetary Sustainability’ (www.planetarysustainability.unibe.ch), within which this collection was conceived, was funded by the cogito foundation (grants 17-110-R and 18-102-R). Note i. For a first evaluation of the relationship between the SDGs and planetary boundaries, see Randers et al. (2019) in this journal. References Beisbart, C. (2019a). (Trans-)planetary sustainability once more – a reply to Losch. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 590–591. Beisbart, C. (2019b). Do we need an ethics of planetary sustainability? Global Sustainability, 2, e22. Beisbart, C. (2019c). Is trans-planetary sustainability a good idea? – An answer from the perspective from conceptual engineering. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 468–476. Blue Origin (2019). Our Mission. Retrieved from https://www.blueorigin.com/ our-mission. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 107.172.57.134, on 10 May 2020 at 16:53:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7 Global Sustainability Bohlmann, U. M. & Petrovici, G. (2019). Developing planetary sustainability: legal challenges of Space 4.0. Global Sustainability, 2, e10. Bonnal, C. & McKnight, D. S. (2017). IAA Situation Report on Space Debris – 2016. International Academy of Astronautics. Crutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind. Nature, 415, 23. Di Pippo, S. (2019). The contribution of space for a more sustainable earth: leveraging space to achieve the sustainable development goals. Global Sustainability, 2, e3. ESA (2020). Planetary defence. Retrieved from https://www.esa.int/ Safety_Security/Hera/Planetary_defence. Galli, A. & Losch, A. (2019). Beyond planetary protection: what is planetary sustainability and what are its implications for space research? Life Sciences in Space Research, 23, 3–9. Hofmann, M. & Bergamasco, F. (2020). Space resources activities from the perspective of sustainability: legal aspects. Global Sustainability, 3, e4. International Astronomical Union (2019). IAU Statement on Satellite constellations. Retrieved from https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann19035. Losch, A. (2019a). The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 259–266. Losch, A. (2019b). Planetary sustainability: transitions of an idea. International Journal of Astrobiology, 18, 592–594. Martinez, L. F. (2019). Legal regime sustainability in outer space: theory and practice. Global Sustainability, 2, e26. Mosher, D. (2019). Elon Musk just revealed new details about Starlink, a plan to surround Earth with 12,000 high-speed internet satellites. Here’s how it might work. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/spacexstarlink-satellite-internet-how-it-works-2019-5. NASA (2014). Our Vision for Planetary Sustainability. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/content/planetary-sustainability-our-vision/#.WBgtmi TBZsl. Pass, J., Dudley-Rowley, M. & Gangale, T (2006). The cultural imperative to colonize space: an astrosociological perspective. In Space 2006. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Persson, E. (2018). A philosophical outlook on potential conflicts between planetary protection, astrobiology and commercial use of space. In Z. Lehmann Imfeld & A. Losch (eds), Our Common Cosmos: Exploring the Future of Theology, Human Culture and Space Sciences (pp. 141–160). T&T Clark. 3 Randers, J., Rockström, J., Stoknes, P.-E., Goluke, U., Collste, D., Cornell, S. E. & Donges, J. (2019). Achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals within 9 planetary boundaries. Global Sustainability, 2, e24. Rockström, J., Bai, X. & deVries, B. (2018). Global sustainability: the challenge ahead. Global Sustainability, 1, e6. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., III, Lambin, E., … Foley, J. (2009). Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2), 32. Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O. & Ludwig, C. (2015a). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), 81–98. Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., … Sörlin, S. (2015b). Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223), 1–17. United Nations (1966). Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Retrieved from https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/ gares/ARES_21_2222E.pdf. United Nations (2015). Sustainable Development Goals: 17 goals to transform our world. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ sustainable-development-goals. UNOOSA (2019a). Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space. Retrieved from http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/osoindex/search-ng.jspx?lf_id=. UNOOSA (2019b). The ‘Space2030’ Agenda: space as a driver of sustainable development: Revised Zero draft. Retrieved from www.unoosa.org/res/ oosadoc/data/documents/2019/aac_105c_22019crp/aac_105c_22019crp_ 24_0_html/AC105_C2_2019_CRP24E.pdf. UNOOSA (2019c). Space supporting the Sustainable Development Goals: how space can be used in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/ space4sdgs/index.html. Vogt, M. & Weber, C. (2019). Current challenges to the concept of sustainability. Global Sustainability, 2, e4. Wallacher, J., Einsiedel, S. & Gösele, A. (2019). Sustainable development: in space as on Earth? Global Sustainability, 2, e15. Witze, A. (2018). The quest to conquer Earth’s space junk problem. Nature, 561(7721), 24–26. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 107.172.57.134, on 10 May 2020 at 16:53:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.7