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Terrabull

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
         -Ian Malcolm  

"Your philosophers were so preoccupied with whether or not they should, they didn’t even stop to see if they could."
         Nick Pether  

It usually amuses me, but sometimes enrages me, when I find people claiming to uncover ethical issues that science fiction authors have been tackling for decades, or even centuries. Like with this one from MIT Press Reader, which does both:

    The Thorny Ethics of Planetary Engineering  
Whenever someone waxes poetic about terraforming alien worlds, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the ethical implications of the proposal.

To be clear, I find these discussions are valid and valuable. What enrages me is the implicit snubbing of the most important literary genre, science fiction. It's the most important because it does tackle those ethical issues, but in a way that includes things like holodecks or death rays, so it's less boring.

Exploration, habitation, and resource extraction all carry a risk of inflicting environmental damage in space, just as they do here on Earth.

And right away, I run into an issue: when the definition of "environmental" expands to incorporate all of space, and the goal seems to be to stop environmental damage altogether, we're left unable to do anything, even to asteroids. Would it suck to fill a moon crater with a giant factory, or fill in the Valles Marineris? From a sentimental point of view, yes. But it's not like we'd be affecting living creatures or their habitats. Well, probably. Almost certainly in the former case; research still needs to be done for the latter.

From a certain point of view, we've already done irreparable damage to space just by lofting shit-tons of junk into Low Earth Orbit and just leaving it there to whirl around and cause hazards to astrogation. Not to mention the annoyance to Earthbound astronomers trying to see through all the shiny debris.

So it's not "just as they do here on Earth." Here, people understandably protest things like strip-mining, but not necessarily because there was a mountain that's not there anymore, but because of damage to the ecosystem. Having no ecosystem simplifies the ethical debate.

But some futurists and space settlement enthusiasts have proposed an even more drastic alteration of the space environment: the transformation of the surface of a planet or moon into a more Earth-like environment via a process known as terraforming.

"Proposed" is a strong word. I might have chosen "envisioned," because "proposed" carries the implication that we have the technology and the will to do something. At this point, we can't even terraform Earth, let alone other planets.

But, nitpicking aside, okay. The time to discuss ethical issues is now, before we have the ability; not afterwards, when it's already been done. Still, like I said, science fiction authors have tackled this issue for a very long time.

For example, in 1961, Carl Sagan speculated on the possibility of the “microbiological re-engineering” of Venus by introducing blue-green algae into its atmosphere.

Sagan was, technically, a science fiction author, though he's better known for his factual communications. So my point stands. Incidentally, I don't think that particular method would work; we know a hell of a lot more about Venus now than we did in 1961.

Sagan later turned his attention to the potential for “re-engineering” Mars, a planet now considered to be one of our best candidates for successful terraformation.

I don't think any world has received more attention in SF than Mars, except for Earth itself. The idea of terraforming Mars goes way back; one could argue that Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels, published well over 100 years ago, featured a kind of planetary engineering (though instituted by the native Martians, not Terrans; plus, the series was more fantasy than SF).

Terraformation is the ultimate example of long-term planning, as even optimistic estimates predict that it would take centuries of effort and patience before a human could walk unprotected on the surface of Mars.

Which is one reason, apart from technological limitations, that this remains in the realm of science fiction and philosophical debate: humans generally don't think past the next rent due date, fiscal quarter, or election, let alone multiple lifetimes ahead. See also: the SF concept of generational spaceships.

Whenever someone waxes poetic about humankind bending the universe to our will, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the ethical implications of the proposal.

I cannot, however, argue with that.

One major consideration about terraforming is that the process could damage or even wipe out any existing life on the planet being terraformed.

While I agree, it goes further than that: it could destroy evidence that life once existed there (this is especially a concern for Mars right now). On the flip side, though, some major archaeological discoveries here on Earth might never have been made if it hadn't been for land development and construction unearthing them.

If we allow planetary engineering to race ahead of astrobiological research, we could miss our opportunity to make what would be the most important scientific discovery in human history: the discovery of life that evolved beyond our planet.

Again, I agree with the sentiment, but from what I've learned of those fields, there's no race: we don't do planetary engineering, yet. If we did, we wouldn't be arguing about climate change here, but doing something about it. Meanwhile, probes have been working on detecting current or former life, on Mars and within some of the icy moons in the outer solar system.

But suppose we do discover evidence of existing microbial life on a planet like Mars. Should this disqualify Mars as a target for terraforming? Should we avoid settling on Mars at all?

I'm not going to weigh in on that. But it should certainly be discussed. Wait, what's that? Science fiction authors had already started the conversation before philosophers ever thought about it, just like with AI and cloning? You don't say.

It may seem premature to debate the ethics of using a technology that does not yet exist to indirectly destroy an ecosystem that may not exist at all.

Or, for that matter, it may seem premature to debate the ethics of doing something that we might not even be able to do because we failed at terraforming our own planet.

Nevertheless, I find questions like these valuable—with or without definitive answers.