Accounting for Violent Conflict Risk in Planetary Defense Decisions

Post Date September 09, 2020
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Category asteroids, publications, risk analysis

View the paper “Accounting For Violent Conflict Risk In Planetary Defense Decisions”

Planetary defense is the defense of planet Earth against collisions with near-Earth objects (NEOs), which include asteroids, comets and meteoroids. A central objective of planetary defense is to reduce risks to Earth and its inhabitants. Whereas planetary defense is mainly focused on risks from NEO, this paper argues that planetary defense decisions should also account for other risks, especially risks from violent conflict. The paper is based on a talk I gave at the 2019 Planetary …

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The Ethics of Outer Space: A Consequentialist Perspective

Post Date July 29, 2016
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View the paper “The Ethics of Outer Space: A Consequentialist Perspective”

Outer space is of major interest to consequentialist ethics for two basic reasons. First, the vast expanses of outer space offer opportunities for achieving vastly more good or bad consequences than can be achieved on Earth alone. If consequences are valued equally regardless of where they occur then achieving good consequences in space is of paramount importance. For human civilization, this can mean the building of space colonies or even the macroengineering of structures like Dyson …

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Integrating the Planetary Boundaries and Global Catastrophic Risk Paradigms

Post Date August 24, 2014
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View the paper “Integrating the Planetary Boundaries and Global Catastrophic Risk Paradigms”

Planetary boundaries (PBs) and global catastrophic risk (GCR) are two paradigms that have emerged in recent years to study major global threats to humanity and nature. PBs focuses on threats that can push the global Earth system into fundamentally different states, with unacceptable consequences for humanity. GCR focuses on threats that can cause the permanent collapse of global human civilization or even human extinction, including environmental threats and other threats. PBs and GCR come …

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The Benefits and Harm of Transmitting Into Space

Post Date February 12, 2013
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Deliberate and unintended radio transmissions from Earth propagate into space. Deliberate transmissions, such as the Arecibo message pictured above, are intended as attempts to send messages to potential extraterrestrial watchers (METI). Unintended radio leakage includes television and radio broadcasts, cell phone networks, and high-power military and astronomical radars. This radiation gives evidence of our technological civilization to any extraterrestrial watchers. This paper asks: do radio transmissions pose a risk and should they continue? The value …

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