Designating Wilderness: How Much of the Solar System Should Remain Untouched?
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Chapter 1: The Challenge of Exponential Growth
Humans often struggle to grasp the implications of exponential growth. A classic illustration involves a colony of bacteria in a petri dish that doubles in size daily. When the dish is completely filled on the 100th day, one might be surprised to learn that it was half full just one day prior, on the 99th day. This simple mathematical concept highlights our difficulty in intuitively understanding exponential change, a challenge that carries significant consequences for our environment and resource management.
As the global population has doubled twice in the past century and the economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, experts are increasingly concerned about avoiding a crisis akin to the 99th-day scenario. One proposed remedy is for humanity to extend its reach into the solar system. Celestial bodies like the Moon and Mars are prime candidates for potential colonization, while asteroids present alluring opportunities for resource extraction. This growing interest has sparked a new era in space exploration.
However, the solar system is a finite resource, prompting the crucial question of how much of it should remain untouched. Recent research by Martin Elvis of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Tony Milligan of Kings College London suggests that humanity should only exploit one-eighth of the solar system, designating the remainder as wilderness. They caution that, at current growth rates, this threshold could be reached within 400 years.
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Section 1.1: The Principle of One-Eighth
Elvis and Milligan's argument is straightforward: when a system experiences exponential growth and has consumed one-eighth of its resources, it has three remaining doubling periods before complete resource depletion, a phenomenon they term "super-exploitation." They advocate for a buffer, or "tripwire," of at least three doubling periods, allowing for unexpected growth patterns and measurement errors.
Why opt for three doubling periods? In complex systems, even minor measurement inaccuracies can lead to significant predictive errors. Thus, a stricter limit would be counterproductive. The researchers emphasize that their one-eighth guideline only excludes unchecked or runaway growth, not all development.
Subsection 1.1.1: Assessing Growth Rates
To establish a realistic growth metric, Elvis and Milligan analyze iron extraction since the Industrial Revolution, which has expanded at an average rate of 3.5% annually—doubling every 20 years. They project that a similar growth trajectory in space could reach the one-eighth threshold in 400 years, leaving only 60 years to transition to a sustainable economic model.
Section 1.2: Protecting the Solar System
To safeguard the solar system, Elvis and Milligan propose that planets should be protected by surface area and asteroids by volume. The calculations exclude the Sun and suggest that Jupiter may also be disregarded due to its immense mass. They also consider the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, noting that including these regions slightly extends the timeline for resource depletion but does not alter the fundamental conclusions.
Chapter 2: The Importance of Early Action
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Time is of the essence, as the vast distances between star systems hinder the feasibility of mining beyond our solar system. Currently, travel times to the Oort Cloud are measured in decades, and interstellar journeys could take centuries, making our solar system a closed system for resource extraction.
Despite the technological limitations we face today, Elvis and Milligan argue that a one-eighth limit on exploitation could still yield substantial resources, potentially allowing for the construction of millions of solar-circling structures. However, the ambitious concept of a Dyson sphere—completely encircling a star to capture its energy—remains beyond our reach.
The duo stresses that implementing protective measures for the solar system now is crucial, as it may be easier to establish regulations before conflicting interests arise. Although some areas of the solar system are already protected, efforts on Earth have been limited. For instance, the US Wilderness Act of 1964 safeguards vast areas in the United States, while only 12% of the Earth's land and 6% of its oceans are currently protected.
Elvis and Milligan conclude that to avoid a similar failure in space resource management, proactive measures must be taken now.