Everyone wants to go to space, but at what cost? Companies that have been hoping to colonise the cosmos are not addressing the potential environmental and atmospheric impacts of that expansion. This phenomenon is known as starwashing, and it is likely only going to become more common.
Starwashing, a spin on greenwashing, is when space companies “sell space exploration narratives by appealing to a desire to expand humankind beyond Earth” while “downplaying or omitting the negative repercussions for Earth and the space environment,” Marissa E. Yingling, an associate professor of social work at the University of Louisville who first popularized the term, said at The Conversation. These companies “appeal to your sense of cosmic wonder” as well as to an “interest in learning about life’s origins, Earth’s place in the universe or the desire for humans to explore places beyond our planet.”
The problem is that starwashing “takes attention away from actually solving the problems that are here on Earth,” Gregers Andersen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern Denmark, said to Grist. For example, Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, “envisions building space habitats that could house billions as a solution to environmental catastrophes on Earth” and “outlined a vision for moving industry off Earth, most immediately to the moon,” said Yingling.
SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk, has expressed interest in creating human settlements on Mars. But “even if having a fraction of the human population live and work in space one day far in the future were possible, it would not fix pressing environmental crises such as wildfires or climate change in the near term.” |
