Search

Reflecting on the many debates over the years on changing urbanization processes, on the towns and cities of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the main challenge will be listening to lessons of wisdom from the past and adapting these to our future professional work. When Chief Seattle said that the Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth, he called for more humility and respect so as to plan for the needs of today and tomorrow, and not for the greed of a few. The doomsday scenarios of overpopulation only make sense if we continue to exploit our planet the way we do today, as if we have an infinite reservoir of resources. Already back in the 1960s, Barbara Ward, John F. C. Turner, and particularly Kenneth Boulding taught me to rethink our whole perception of Spaceship Earth. I have seen many towns and cities grow as if resources were limitless; I myself have seen and worked on efforts to focus on spatial quality, respecting nature whenever possible for a growing number of people, recognizing resources as being precious and scarce, and yet guaranteeing equitable access to a good quality of urban life. Such objectives are not evident, when models in education, schools of thought, professional planners, and greedy developers are often geared towards the contrary: the higher the skyscrapers, the better; the more egotripping by architects, the more the rich like it; the more people are stimulated to consume, the better the world will be. Such narrow visions will no longer help. At several global urban planning and developments events (1976, 1992, 1996, 2016, etc.), new ideas and agendas have been put forward. Whether the present Covid-19 crisis may induce a more rapid change in vision and practice is still too early to confirm, but luckily, several towns and cities, and a few visionary planners and decision makers are showing some promising examples.

Homo sapiens is the extra-somatic species, or the cultural species par excellence, as well as a highly social species. Naturally, this is no coincidence: our remarkable success as a cultural specie...

The film Silent Running (1972) transforms the popular environmental figuration of Spaceship Earth into a science fiction narrative. The film is set on the Valley Forge, a spaceship that contains wi...

Stiamo viaggiando nell’infinità dell'Universo sul pianeta Terra, un'astronave con 7,8 miliardi di passeggeri che non potrà mai "atterrare" da nessuna parte e neppure fermarsi in qualche luogo per caricare risorse o scaricare rifiuti. Le risorse su cui noi passeggeri possiamo contare sono i materiali che compongono l'astronave e la luce del sole. Qualsiasi danno all’astronave deve essere riparato e qualsiasi problema deve essere risolto da noi passeggeri. Gli scienziati avvertono da molti anni che non stiamo custodendo il pianeta e i sociologi ammoniscono che le enormi disparità economiche e sociali stanno diventando insostenibili. Da alcuni mesi, un virus pericoloso e altamente contagioso, Covid-19, sta circolando sull'astronave Terra. Dovremmo prenderlo come un avvertimento da parte della Natura per avviarci verso la sostenibilità ecologica e sociale.

This paper contrasts two approaches to implementing the notoriously ambiguous ideal of sustainability: one driven by the centralized, managerial metaphor of Spaceship Earth, and the other by a notion of stewardship that foregrounds the values of care and obligation. Both approaches depend on infrastructures to enable them, but these are built on different combinations of the material, the social, and the moral. Viewing Earth as a spaceship amenable to human guidance and control makes sense only if we also accept the power of dominant “centers of calculation” that gather and disseminate standardized knowledge instrumentally to ensure global coordination. Stewardship, by contrast, relies on infrastructures of locally shared values and distributed innovation in human-nature relations rather than on universal scientific knowledge or technology. Stewardship is often propagated by social movements seeking to promote globally sustainable ecological practices. The two approaches have markedly different implictions for designing future infrastructures to promote transformations to sustainability., Historical Social Research Vol. 47, No. 4 (2022): Special Issue: Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities. Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

In the present paper some questions related with energy global governance are dis-cussed. These questions are viewed as a part of the broader problematics of globalization. Due to the very complex nature of this problematics the role of philosophy – in particular analytical and science-based philosophy – is emphasized. We underscore the importance of philosophy for the developing global consciousness and – indirectly – for the development of global society.

This chapter examines the early work of Buckminster Fuller and his explorations of synergetic geometry and spherical subdivision. Fuller popularized the geodesic dome demonstrating both the conceptual value of synergetic geometry and its practical application. In so doing, he spawned an enormous research and development effort in spherical tessellation, space grid structures, and construction techniques. This chapter shows the evolution of spherical design techniques from the earliest experiments to major military and commercial projects. Short historic vignettes describe the first dome experiments at Black Mountain College in the late 1940s, the first successful large-scale prototype called Weatherbreak. Fuller's military success with the Marine Corps and Henry Ford's Rotunda dome are detailed. Geodesic domes brought both recognitions and a long-term income stream for R&D. From 1949 onward, there was a steady progression in spherical treatment, use of new materials and new approaches to construction. Other project reviewed include the Raleigh Lattice dome, Autonomous Dwelling, Fly's Eye, Plydome, Kaiser domes, Union Tank Car and Disney's Epcot Spaceship Earth sphere. The first uses of computers to calculate domes is also described.

Today, more than ever, ‘Spaceship Earth’ is an apt metaphor as we chart the boundaries for a safe planet1. Social scientists both analyse why society courts disaster by approaching or even overstepping these boundaries and try to design suitable policies to avoid these perils. Because the threats of transgressing planetary boundaries are global, long-run, uncertain and interconnected, they must be analysed together to avoid conflicts and take advantage of synergies. To obtain policies that are effective at both international and local levels requires careful analysis of the underlying mechanisms across scientific disciplines and approaches, and must take politics into account. In this Perspective, we examine the complexities of designing policies that can keep Earth within the biophysical limits favourable to human life.

Since Gagarin’s flight on April 12th, 1961, the dream of making human space flight routine and making Homo sapiens a multiplanetary species seemed to have become closer to reality. Nonetheless, on average less than 10 human flights a year have happened along the past 60 years. Unmanned spacecrafts, on the other hand, have changed the way the human race sees itself and the universe it is surrounded by. They have explored all planets in the solar system, as well as comets, asteroids and the Sun. Presently, there are four unmanned spacecrafts on Mars’ surface and eight satellites in its orbit. Since the launching of Sputnik in 1957, more than 11,000 satellites have been sent into Earth’s orbit. Nowadays, it is impossible to imagine life on Earth without the services provided by the space-based infrastructure resulting from the Space Age. They have changed the modus vivendi of the human civilization and become a commodity, like potable water and electricity. The so-called satellite industry generates around US$ 300 billion a year, mostly related to the sale of satellite services and ground equipment. The era of exponential growth and disruption has reached Earth’s orbit, and beyond, through the minds, initiatives and boldness of the NewSpace generation, from which Elon Musk is its exponent. Twenty-five thousand satellites are expected to be launched in the next 10 years to provide, among other applications, worldwide broadband internet access. The scientific community and the military, however, have already expressed their concerns regarding space debris and, as a consequence, space sustainability. For the scientific community, the long-waited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) promises to be the 2021 main event. In a time in which Spaceship Earth faces so many challenges, the dream of making its dwellers a multiplanetary species got a revival trough the minds and actions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. There are those who, through public-private partnerships, intend to establish a 1,000 people community working and living in space by 2045. Cooperation among nations has been usual in space, but they are still shy when compared to the efforts required to colonize the Moon, Mars and other places in the solar system. As the 21st century advances, Spaceship Earth faces its greatest challenge ever. Space-based assets provide all the tools required to monitor Earth’s health, but if the human species intends to survive as the only identified intelligent civilization, it will have to think and act united in a truly cooperative way. Otherwise, the civilizational and technological effort hitherto undertaken may prove to be useless.

Description The photo features the geodesic sphere at Epcot, Disney World in Orlando, FL. Inside the dome, there was an iconic ride called “Spaceship Earth”, which has since been shut down for refurbishment. This photo was taken November 2019, approximately 6 months before it was shut down. Much like how the ride emphasized the progress that human civilization has made in the last several hundred years and hopes to make in years to come, the current pandemic has shown us how far we have come in the medicine and other STEM fields. We hope only to do better and be better for everyone on our little Spaceship Earth.

Many of us have heard the phrases “circular economy” and “linear economy”. The notion of “circular economy” has been around for at least a few decades, starting with the “open economy” versus “closed economy” articulated by Kenneth Boulding in 1966 in his essay “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth” (To download the essay, please go to: http://www.ub.edu/prometheus21/articulos/obsprometheus/BOULDING.pdf.). Since then, the concepts of feedback systems, cradle-to-cradle, closed-loop and many more essentially circular economy equivalent concepts have flourished and further developed into different branches in resource management, environmental policy, sustainable development and other subjects we are familiar with today from many university curriculums. It is, however, only in recent years, that the circular economy concept as an all-encompassing concept of future economic development model, gained global and cross-sector traction.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted education and development priorities. The tragic death toll and high rates of morbidity across many countries are an unprecedented setback and a calamity for those affected physically and mentally. The economic and social effects of lockdowns, loss of production and business confidence, and global recession will cast a long shadow over education systems. Despite the 435 million items that Google already indexes under “COVID-19 education”, many things remain unknown. No one has a clear idea of how the current pandemic will unravel over anything but the short term. The challenge is to strengthen the mechanisms to separate evidence from opinion and to balance popularism with speaking truth to power—especially when political systems can find it difficult to distinguish fact from convenient fiction.This paper advances ten propositions that will shape policy dialogue and whatever iteration of the Sustainable Development Goals is needed to ensure they remain fit for purpose. Testing these propositions over the next year will open the door to an evidence-based approach to reconstruction and sustainable development and juxtapose immediate concerns of the present with aspirations for the future. More than ever the need is to see beyond the exigencies of COVID-19 and act to secure the educational gains of the recent past. UNESCO and other development agencies can play a key role in sharing how to manage revitalised and resilient learning systems that allow the community of practice to stay focussed on development that is economically, socially, medically, and educationally sustainable. Spaceship Earth has to be secured for future generations through the knowledge, skill and attitudes of its crew and passengers. Seriously revisiting SDG4, its targets and indicators, and its relationships with other SDGs, would be a start.

The circular economy is a rapidly emerging concept promoted as transformative approach towards sustainable resource use within Planetary Boundaries. It is gaining traction with policymakers, industry and academia worldwide. It promises to slow, narrow and close socioeconomic material cycles by retaining value as long as possible, thereby minimizing primary resource use, waste and emissions. Herein, we utilize a sociometabolic systems approach to investigate the global economy as embedded into a materially closed “spaceship earth” and to scrutinize the development of circularity during industrialization. We quantify primary material and energy inputs into the economy, as well as all outputs to the environment from 1900-2015. The assessment includes two fundamental cycles: a socioeconomic cycle of secondary materials from end-of-life waste and an ecological cycle in which resulting waste and emissions are assessed against regenerative capacities of biogeochemical systems. In a first approximation, we consider only the carbon-neutral fraction of biomass as renewable. We find that from 1900-2015, socioeconomic and ecological input cycling rates decreased from 43% (41-51%) to 27% (25-30%), while non-circular inputs increased 16-fold and non-circular outputs 10-fold. The contribution of ecological cycling to circularity declined from 91% to 76%. We conclude that realizing the transformative potential of the circular economy necessitates addressing four key challenges by research and policy: tackling the growth of material stocks, defining clear criteria for ecological cycling and eliminating unsustainable biomass production, integrating the decarbonization of the energy system with the circular economy and prioritizing absolute reductions of non-circular flows over maximizing (re)cyclingrates.

Extensive research underscores that we interpret the world through metaphors; moreover, common metaphors are a useful means to enhance the pursuit of personal and collective goals. In the context of planetary health—defined as the interdependent vitality of all natural and anthropogenic ecosystems (social, political and otherwise)—one enduring metaphor can be found in the concept of “Spaceship Earth”. Although not without criticism, the term “Spaceship Earth” has been useful to highlight both resource limitations and the beauty and fragility of delicate ecosystems that sustain life. Rene Dubos, who helped popularize the term, underscored the need for an exposome perspective, one that examines the total accumulated environmental exposures (both detrimental and beneficial) that predict the biological responses of the “total organism to the total environment” over time. In other words, how large-scale environmental changes affect us all personally, albeit in individualized ways. This commentary focuses the ways in which microbes, as an essential part of all ecosystems, provide a vital link between personal and planetary systems, and mediate the biopsychosocial aspects of our individualized experience—and thus health—over our life course journey. A more fine-grained understanding of these dynamics and our power to change them, personally and collectively, lies at the core of restoring “ecosystems balance” for person, place and planet. In particular, restoring human connectedness to the natural world, sense of community and shared purpose must occur in tandem with technological solutions, and will enhance individual empowerment for personal well-being, as well as our collective potential to overcome our grand challenges. Such knowledge can help shape the use of metaphor and re-imagine solutions and novel ways for restoration or rewilding of ecosystems, and the values, behaviors and attitudes to light the path toward exiting the Anthropocene.

Metaeconomics sees non-allocable inputs and goods as the norm. A figure shows a set of self-interest indifference curves overlapping with a set of other-interest indifference curves, with payoffs in the dual interest at every point. Goods are non-allocable across the dual interest: payoffs are joint, interdependent, and inseparable. The same is true in producer supply, with two sets of overlapping Self-interest and Other-interest isoquants. Inputs are nonallocable across the dual interest. The Other-interest (shared with others, but internal to the own-self) represents the connection of the self to the other in both the community and the Spaceship Earth System. Empirical test demonstrates how self-control to bring the shared other-interest in recycling and buying recycle content goods works to temper the Self-interest in not recycling.

What has become of the global environment? A very important factor in the development of people’s awareness of the global environment was the emergence in the later 1960s of the concept of Spaceship Earth.

It is in the shared Other-interest to have a stable food supply. One way to ensure same is to help in paying the crop insurance payments associated with extreme weather events. It is also essential to ensure a sustainable Spaceship Earth System, historically accomplished through paying farmers to help offset the costs of sustaining soil and water resources. It became essential to ascertain what drove adoption of such practices. The research found the key was to not only offer financial incentives but to also induce Empathy conservation, a shared Other-interest. It was about nudging farmers into considering downstream effects of on-farm practices. Safe food is also an essential shared other-interest, leading to sharing in the costs of setting and ensuring food standards.

This paper intends to position the work of Kim Stanley Robinson in a philosophical tradition that combines ecologism and science fiction, specifically in relation to the concepts of “heterotopia” and “hyperobjects”. The first half of this essay retraces the history of this tradition, moving from Foucault and back to the 19th century sources of the concept of heterotopia/heterotopy, through the utopian ecologism of the 1960s and up to the rediscover of the idea of future among the accelerationist and Speculative Realist movements. It also introduces the idea of hyperobject as formulated by Timothy Morton. The second part of the essay focuses on the literary figure of Kim Stanley Robinson, placing his work in the context of the postmodern novel and the contemporary science fiction landscape, outlining the connections between his work and the work of other ecologically engaged authors and its importance in an age of global warming. Finally, it discusses the presence of both heterotopias and hyperobjects in three of Robinson’s major works, the Mars Trilogy, Aurora and New York 2140., Philosophy Kitchen - Rivista di filosofia contemporanea, N. 10 (2019): Filosofia e fantascienza. Spazi, tempi e mondi altri

Should humans seek to colonize outer space? I say no. I have worked in the space community for 35 years with a variety of programs and projects ranging from science to human space flight. My view as a social scientist is that humans are not sufficiently advanced, technologically and socially, to be establishing colonies on Mars, or any other place in space. Except for the threads of Russian cosmism, the ideology of space colonization and exploitation is largely Western, and Christian, as noted above. It appears to be some interpretation of Christian dominion, or dominionist, theology that drives colonization advocates to declare that humans are destined to fill the universe, that humans “must” colonize Mars, that outer space resources are there for the taking.The ideology of space exploration is in need of rejuvenation. The author advocates a visionof a human future in space in which humanity finds its way to a collective peaceful existence on Spaceship Earth, a way to work together to preserve life here and to look for life out there. Perhaps at some point in the distant future, humans might be ready –technologically and socially – to live together peacefully on other planets. But we are not there yet.

This chapter will present the top twelve things that everyone should know regarding the radically changing world of disruptive space technologies. First, a quick recap. We have taken a long look what disruptive innovation is, how it works, who benefits, who loses, and what this has to do with space and particularly the NewSpace or Space 2.0 revolution. We have learned a great deal from previous instances that first came from historical examples and then most recently from the now rapidly changing space sector. We have explored the new and emerging technologies that are changing our world and their potential impacts on the ‘other 3 billion’ people with whom we share our spaceship Earth. We have considered the international legal and policy implications, as well as the downsides of disruptive technologies in the 21st century. So what should you take away from all of this?

In the face of increasing resource insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change, more governments and businesses are now embracing the concept of the circular economy. This chapter presents some historical background to the concept, with particular attention paid to its assumed opposite, the ‘linear’ or growth economy. While the origins of the circular economy concept are to be found in 1960s environmentalism, the chapter draws attention to the influence of the then ‘new’ sciences of ecology and ‘cybernetics’ in shaping the public environmental discourse of the period. It also draws attention to the background of the present linear economy in postwar policies that encouraged reconstruction and a social and economic democratisation across the West, including an expansion of mass-consumption. It emphasises the role of the 1960s counterculture in generating a popular reaction against this expansionary growth-based agenda, and its influence in shaping subsequent environmentalism, including the ‘metabolic’ and ecological economic understanding of the environmental crisis that informs the concept of the circular economy. Reflecting upon this historical preamble, the chapter concludes that more attention should be paid to the economic, cultural and social contexts of consumption, now more clearly the main driver of our global environmental crisis. Without now engaging more directly with the ‘consumption problem’, the chapter argues, it seems unlikely that the goals of the circular economy can be met.

© 2018 RA Revista de Arquitectura. All rights reserved. Planetary-scale artificial intelligence systems are increasingly being promoted by technology companies in the forms of projects such as Microsoft's “AI for Earth” and Google's “Earth Engine”. This article interrogates some of the conceptual dimensions and history of the “dashboard” approach to the management of “spaceship earth” within art, architecture and landscape architecture, and considers the implications of the increasingly entangled “design” work that brings together nature as data, machine learning, robotics and autonomous technologies.

This speech was delivered at the meeting of the International Society for Ecological Economics at Reykjiavik, Iceland on the 13th of August 2014 at the presentation of the 2014 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award. In the speech Peter Victor pays tribute to Kenneth Boulding, one of the pioneers of ecological economics, and then describes his own principal contributions to ecological economics over a period of 45 years. These contributions include environmental applications of input–output analysis, the problematic extension of the concept of capital to nature, the definition and analysis of green growth, and his research on ecological macroeconomics and the challenge to economic growth.

This chapter details Americans' conversion from unabashed enthusiasm for technology to ambivalence and hostility in the 1960s. This change did not occur suddenly, nor can it be traced to a single cause. Some Americans, for example, were concerned about the mortal dangers of the escalating arms race, while others worried about the pollution of the country's skies and waterways or questioned societal values that prized conformity, consumerism, and planned obsolescence. For others, the “plastic fantastic” futures depicted in corporate advertising were not just banal and boring but appeared threatening. Whatever the direct cause, Americans' overall attitudes toward science and technology became more complex and questioning.

Adams, D. 2002 [1979]. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Ballantine Books. Asimov, I. 1986 [1956]. “The Last Question” in Robot Dreams, by I. Asimov, 234–246. New York: Berkley Publishing Group. Bedard, D. G., A. Wade, D. Monin and R. Scott. “Spectrometric Characterization of Geostationary Satellites.” Paper presented to the AMOS (Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies) conference, Hawai’i, 2010. Available online: www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2012/POSTER/BEDARD.pdf Bradbury, R. 1997–2000. Matrioshka Brains. Available online: www.gwern.net/docs/1999-bradburymatrioshkabrains.pdf, accessed August 1, 2013. Clark, N. 2005. “Ex-orbitant Globality.” Theory, Culture and Society 22(5): 165–185. http://dx.doi. org/10.1177/0263276405057198 Davis, M. 1996. “Cosmic Dancers on History’s Stage? The Permanent Revolution in the Earth Sciences.” New Left Review 217: 48–84. Dyson, F. J. 1960. “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation.” Science 131: 1667–1668. Gorman, A. C. 2009. “The Gravity of Archaeology.” Archaeologies: The Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 5(2:) 344–359 Lovbrand, E., J. Stripple and B. Wiman. 2009. “Earth System Governmentality. Reflections on Science in the Anthropocene.” Global Environmental Change 19: 7–13. Milani, A. and A. Nobili. 1992. “An Example of Stable Chaos in the Solar System.” Nature 357: 569– 571. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/357569a0 NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. 2012. Orbital Debris Frequently Asked Questions. Available online: http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/faqs. html#3, accessed August 1, 2013. Odishaw, H. 1958. “International Geophysical Year.” Science 128: 1599–1609. Smolin, L. 1997. The Life of the Cosmos. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Teilhard de Chardin, P. 1959. The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper and Row. Vince, G. 2011. “An Epoch Debate.” Science 334: 32–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.334.6052.32 Ward, B. 1966. Spaceship Earth. New York: Columbia University Press.

This article positions the inventor, visionary, poet, engineer, architect, and scientist R. Buckminster Fuller as an epic storyteller about energy (although he might have preferred the tag “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist”). It draws on energy accounts from a range of Fuller's lectures, workshops, and books, from his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth to his recommendations for the creation of a “global energy grid.” It discusses Fuller's energy perspectives, and those related to his, from the 1940s through the twenty-first century. Fuller's ideas of synergetics and a scenario universe incorporating a “world-around” energy grid have continued to inspire current energy road maps. His energy storytelling was the infrastructure for a “world accounting system based on energy.” The challenges of energy resources, energy security, and energy transition persist today, albeit in revised forms. Current talk of circular economies, planetary boundaries, and system transformations is usually presented without acknowledgement, or perhaps awareness, of the rich and imaginative visual and textual storytelling that have served as their foundations. The article revisits Fuller's energy narratives and asks what kinds of storytelling are possible and productive when thinking about energy in the Anthropocene.