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
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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.
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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.
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