Scientist: We Should Grant the Moon Legal Personhood

Scientist: We Should Grant the Moon Legal Personhood

New Neighbor

Many space agencies and private space companies see the Moon as a treasure trove of resources to use for long-term outposts or settlements. That has some scientists worried, because harvesting lunar ice or minerals could damage its environment through contamination or outright destruction.
Conservationists already have a tough enough time protecting landmarks on Earth — so keeping the Moon safe is a whole new challenge. But Flinders University archaeologist and space researcher Alice Gorman has an idea: She argues in an essay on The Conversation that we should make the Moon a person in the eyes of the law.

Stay With Us

Granting the Moon legal personhood is an out-there idea, but it’s not unheard of. The law provides corporations with personhood, as well as many non-human things, Gorman writes. For instance, the Whanganui River in New Zealand is protected through legal personhood, and appointed trustees speak on its behalf.
That same model, Gorman argues, could keep the Moon safe from things like U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order that encouraged lunar mining operations.

What’s Dead

In her essay, Gorman goes through several aspects of personhood to make the Moon’s case. With trustees in place, off-world mining could be regulated to make sure that the Moon isn’t stripped bare in the process.
“We could abandon the idea that our moral obligations only cover living ecologies,” Gorman writes. “We should consider the Moon as an entity beyond the resources it might hold for humans to use.”

MMW

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ Posted by Jamie B.
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This is arguably the most likely of th
Read more

Philosophical Question #14 – Lifestyle Choices

Image
Here is an interesting question in my list of philosophical questions: 1.) Should governments have penalties for those who live unhealthy lifestyles? A list of unhealthy lifestyles would include things like smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, prostitution, and other “vice” type activities. I guess the “government penalties” would be referring to monetary punishments, withholding medical treatments (insurance companies would love that), possibly imposing/regulating very high (exorbitant) prices on things considered unhealthy in order to cut down on their use, and other possibilities. 2.) Or, would you say that living an unhealthy lifestyle, likely resulting in a LOT of eventual personal pain and suffering, should be punishment enough for unhealthy lifestyles? When people make bad choices in life, often in their youth where ignorance and immediate gratification takes them over,  3.) Should a society be obligated to help "fix" them, by way of tax money?   Is that part of
Read more