Economics Of The Coming Spaceship Earth Essay

In "Natural Capitalism," Paul Hawkins replaces the world's economy to its respectful position within the larger economy of natural resources and ecosystem services that sustain us. This is done simply by giving value to things not normally found on , from human intelligence and cultures to hydrocarbons, minerals, trees, and microscopic fungi.

In Kenneth E. Boulding’s 1966 article The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, Boulding outlines two specific types of economies. The first being an open economy known as the Cowboy economy and the second as a closed economy referred to as the Spaceman economy. Boulding states and elaborates key topics such as materials, environmental limits and energy in relation to how they could ultimately boost economic growth for society.

We have always dreamed about reaching the heavens. From ancient civilizations to the modern day world, our obsession of going into space has grown from studying the stars to actual exploration of space. We have come a long way since primitive charts of constellations. From telescopes to satellites, we as a population have progressed greatly in the world of technology. In a mere forty years, we have had more technological advances than the Industrial Revolution. The Space Race has affected our everyday lives; we use the same technology that the astronauts used during their missions for example digital clocks (Dismukes http://spaceflight.nasa.gov). Many industries have benefited, communication companies, industrial manufacturers, and the

The space race was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union that occurred during the Cold War. They competed for dominance in space technology and spaceflight, which spurred many significant inventions and events. Some of these inventions and events include the first-ever landing on the moon, the first artificial satellite to be launched into the Earth’s orbit, the establishment of NASA, the invention of the microprocessor computer, the invention of satellite communication technology, and other direct and indirect impacts. Each of the different events and inventions that spawned from the space race have had significant impacts on the United States economy.

Within this chapter Bell explains the concept of ‘The Treadmill of Production’, where capitalism 's core impulse to expand production without regard to natural limits of growth set by the biosphere. This impulse makes the process of capital accumulation inherently unsustainable and anti-ecological. According to Bell and the Treadmill of Production model, developments in technology, primarily encouraged by owners of the means of production seeking to increase profits, drive the expansion of production and consumption simultaneously. This process leads to a cycle of production demanding more production, because all sectors of society (the state, organized labour, and private capital) depend on continued economic growth to solve problems, such as unemployment generated by mechanization, which are created by growth itself. As more production is required to keep up with demand so too is the increase and acceleration of ecological demands. The advanced capitalist economies are so unsustainable because production is secured into this capitalist treadmill of never-ending expansion and growth for growth 's sake.

On July 21, 1969, the United States rocket Apollo 11 landed on the moon, marking a monumental and unprecedented feat of mankind. Culminated as the product of breakthrough innovations in engineering and physics and overwhelming government support (which granted NASA over 4% of the federal budget), the moon landing was the crowning moment of NASA’s accomplishments. At that time, a new era of space exploration seemed to be on the verge of occurrence. However, fifty years later, NASA has seemed to have fallen from its old glory, with the United States Federal government spending only 0.5% of the nation’s federal budget on its space endeavors. With increased concerns of NASA’s

The ocean is a very delicate ecosystem in which the slightest change of pH or chemical composition will result in devastating results. Between 25 and 40% of anthropogenic carbon emissions have entered the marine area since the industrial age (Sabine et

G., Cong-Qiang, L., WeiDong, Z., Minella, M., Vione, D., Kunshan, G., & ... Hiroshi, S. (2016). Reviews and Syntheses: Ocean acidification and its potential impacts on marine ecosystems. Biogeosciences, 13(6), 1767. doi:10.5194/bg-13-1767-2016

Daly argues that neoclassical economics, with its emphasis on economic growth as the goal of economic policy, will inevitably fail to meet these challenges unless it recognizes that the economy is but a subsystem within earth 's biosphere.

The author, Gregg Easterbrook (2011), has identified that the NASA resources are not being routed efficiently. "We’re throwing money at the wrong stuff". First, the "International Space Station" seems to be history 's most expensive mission and it is an advance space-telescope project. There are other projects that could be more inspirational such as sending people to Mars. Even though it is technically possible, it is surpassingly expensive at the moment. If there were an affordable way to reach orbit, it might open countless business opportunities in space. The reason Mars and the space business are out of reach is due the high cost of propelling weight into orbit. As an illustration, a mission to Mars could easily reach up to $ 1 trillion. The author argues that not because at the moment it’s not clear that a fundamentally new form of space propulsion can be invented, which represent an important challenge, does not mean NASA shouldn’t endeavor. Since the shuttle program began, excessive effort has been directed to maintain subsidies to contractors and congressional districts in comparison to the emphasis have been placed on seeking new ideas. According to the author, it is possible to restructure NASA’s budget, divert $1 or $2 billion a year from funding for manned space travel to propulsion research, and reducing Astronaut to the minimal level in order to free up the money needed. Alleging that any grand future in space will require a

The purpose of this study was to understand and based on results to support the predictable negative effects of ocean acidification on phytoplankton and projected pH values. However, changes in ocean pH did not negatively impact the productivity of phytoplankton according to the log response ratios, which compared the growth rates at projected years (2000, 2100,

Neil deGrasse Tyson, public educator, author, and honoree of the Public Welfare Medal, believes that human space exploration is the predecessor to an opening in private industry.

Knowing or predicting the future effects of climate change could minimize damage done to the ecology. The current direction towards global warming has the very possible potential to expand OMZs, depleting mass zones of oxygen. Testing the amounts of oxygen numerous oceans lost from 1990 to 2000, an estimated 2.9 trillion moles of oxygen were lost each year. “The calculations suggested that 18 percent of the lost oxygen came from the North Atlantic, 20 percent from the deep Southern Ocean and 61 percent from the rest of the upper ocean. (Levin L, 4)” Future increased oxygen loss is fated to happen as long as human activity drives along global climate

The main factors in this climate change are observed to be the increase in temperatures and the resulting acidification of the oceans. The previously mentioned changes and others in the report are readily observable, such as the uptake of anthropogenic carbon since 1750 that has led to the ocean becoming more acidic, with an average decrease in pH of 0.1 units and in some instances blatantly obvious, even to the average layperson. It is difficult to conclude what the rate of change in the future will be and the effects of observed ocean acidification on the marine biosphere.

In the book, When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten forms his contestation in five subdivisions that multinational corporations are reigning the world. In the first subdivision of his book, Korten utilizes the inference of a “cowboy in a spaceship”. He utilized this explanation from Kenneth Boulding 's essay “The Economics of the Coming to Space Earth” as we “are acting like cowboys on a limitless open frontier when in truth we inhabit a living spaceship with a finely balanced life-support system”(Korten 33). Korten proceeds to the thought of economic growth. The economic growth over the years was by corporations claiming the land, and utilizing the common resources. The cowboys,