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Published in Andrew Maynard, Jack Stilgoe, The Ethics of Nanotechnology, Geoengineering and Clean Energy, 2020
Terraforming is “planetary engineering specifically directed at enhancing the capacity of an extraterrestrial planetary environment to support life” (34, p. 9). The topic is relevant to assessment of geoengineering because the terraforming literature is remarkably broad. In addition to technical papers in mainstream scientific publications (35-37), it includes popular fiction and work by environmental philosophers that examines the moral implications of planetary engineering (39). Though fragmentary, this work compliments the geoengineering literature, which is almost exclusively technical. They are linked by commonality of proposed technologies, ethical concerns, and by their ambiguous position between the realms of science fiction and reasoned debate about human use of technology.
Terraforming, Vandalism and Virtue Ethics
Published in Jai Galliott, Commercial Space Exploration, 2016
‘Terraforming’ is hypothetical climatic and geo-physical engineering of other planets on a grand scale, with the aim of turning the so-called ‘barren’ planets in our (or for that matter another) solar system into habitable Earth-like ecosystems. Although terraforming sounds like an idea from science fiction (where it indeed has appeared), it has been seriously proposed as a future project for the human race (Fogg 1995).1 With such a technology we could colonise the solar system and perhaps eventually others, moulding them in an image of our own making. In this chapter I will consider the ethics of terraforming through the lens of an ‘agent-based’ virtue ethics.2 I will argue that advocacy of – and any attempt at – terraforming is likely to demonstrate two significant character flaws in agents: an insensitivity to beauty; and, hubris, an excessive pride or faith in our own abilities in the course of transcending the proper limits of human activities.
Why Human Enhancement is Necessary for Successful Human Deep-space Missions
Published in The New Bioethics, 2019
Konrad Szocik, Martin Braddock
In addition, terraforming Mars, at least with technology available today has been shown to unfeasible. Warming the planet by providing a dense atmosphere of the greenhouse gas CO2 is constrained by the available inventory of the gas in measured deposits on Mars which is insufficient to warm the planet and liquid water, which could appear on the surface as the result of terraforming, will likely be immediately vaporized (Jakosky and Edwards 2018). Other methods of terraforming based on nuclear attack or directed asteroid impact (Impey 2015) are well beyond current human technology. Even if the concept of terraforming includes becomes a feasible reality, an extremely long time scale from between an estimated 100 years for increasing the temperature on Mars to about 100,000 years to produce an oxygen-rich atmosphere (McKay et al. 1991, McKay 2009), makes terraforming Mars an unfeasible alternative today.