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In a paper published April 16th researchers make the case that we should designate and protect 85% of the solar system as 'protected wilderness'
We make a general argument that, as a matter of fixed policy, development should be limited to one eighth, with the remainder set aside. We argue that adopting a "one-eighth principle" is far less restrictive, overall, than it might seem. One eighth of the iron in the asteroid belt is more than a million times greater than all of the Earth's currently estimated iron ore reserves, and it may well suffice for centuries.
The rational for the limitation is more to do with the nature of human expansion rather than just protecting the environment of the rest of the solar system.
A limit of some sort is necessary because of the problems associated with exponential growth. We note that humans are poor at estimating the pace of such growth and, as a result, the limitations of a resource are hard to recognize before the final three doubling times. These three doublings take utilization successively from an eighth to a quarter, then to a half, and then to the point of exhaustion. Population growth and climate change are instances of unchecked exponential growth. Each places strains upon our available resources, each is a recognized problem that we would like to control, but attempts to do so at this comparatively late stage in their development have not been encouraging.
There are challenges and the authors point out that inaccessible resources, like Jupiter, should be excluded from the calculation and that more research is needed to even determine the amount of resources accessible with accuracy.
Assessing how many tons of potentially extractable resources are awaiting us on those worlds will require a lot more space exploration
Additionally, this is not a limit we are going to hit anytime soon
"Worldwide, the present rate of planetary mission launches is 15 per decade," the authors wrote. "At this rate, even just the nearly 200 worlds of the solar system that gravity has made spherical would take 130 years to visit once."
As an aside, it is not a given that resources in Jupiter are inaccessible with numerous articles on atmospheric mining and extraction approaches and even colonization of Jupiter available.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Saturday May 18 2019, @02:11PM (2 children)
I had most of the same thoughts when I saw the headline...However, the point in the article is not to protect rocks, the environment, space-amoeba, or the view from Kennebunkport.
It is an argument to protect limited (if extensive) resources from uncontrolled late stage expansion leading to exhaustion and the associated undesirable consequences to civilization.
Valid, partially valid, or codswallup, it's a different argument.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday May 18 2019, @02:44PM
It's the old Malthusian fear at work again. Uncontrolled population growth quickly exhausts resources, and then a collapse follows.
Except that, somehow, collapses are a lot less common than they ought to be, and when they do happen, it's because something else skewed things. I think that what Malthusian fear mongers have not appreciated is that life has evolved mechanisms to manage population. Some of these mechanisms predate human and animal life by a few billion years. Makes sense that life would evolve coping strategies for this problem. It can be argued that any organism which does not exercise restraint causes a collapse that hurts itself more than any other. If they don't all starve and die off right then and there, they are left greatly reduced in strength and numbers, ripe for replacement by competitors who were exercising restraint.
I hope that a formal, explicit agreement is not necessary. Enforcement will be rough to do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday May 19 2019, @12:07AM
When you mine and use metal, or any other material, it doesn't get used up. It doesn't vanish or go away. Turn it all into rockets and space hotels; you can always turn it into something else later.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek