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that the red planet “could someday be a destination for survival of humankind”
(NASA 2019).
Space colonies as imagined in the Jetsons, centered on a nuclear family with
mother, father, their children and a dog, essentially consist of an expansion of the
kind of false attachment to place associated with cookie-cutter suburban, cardependent communities made up mostly of single family homes. Attachment to
these kinds of places, which the American dream and the social status associated
with home ownership encapsulate, is hard to reconcile with the kind of attachment
to place and the communities of diverse and flourishing life that are associated with
a human-inclusive ecocentric worldview and ecological law. The superficial attachment to place of the American dream ultimately perpetuates a profound detachment
from a truly ecological notion of place.
Remote policymaking is a close cousin of remote ownership. Indeed, remote
ownership and land and resource grabbing can only exist upon a legal and policy
foundation that allows for them. In many legal systems, policymakers and public
officials must assess environmental, social and cultural impacts before approving
policies, programs or decisions that affect faraway people and places. However,
laws requiring analysis and consideration of such impacts are almost invariably
procedural only, leaving the policy and decision makers free to select options that
do not avoid or minimize impacts (Lazarus 2012). Further, cumulative, indirect,
vague and uncertain impacts are often excluded or only marginally incorporated in
impacts assessments, such that a complete and holistic picture of the full range of
impacts is rarely if ever achieved, even when assessments cover broad strategies or
policies (Garver 2013). Typically, moreover, political and economic pressure to proceed with policies or decisions with impacts on remote people and places, despite
whatever impact assessments reveal, is considerable—or else the decision or policy
would not even be under consideration. In short, impact assessment has hardly
reigned in the remote harm policy and decision making often causes.
Geoengineering to address the climate crisis is an extreme extension of the ideology of detachment from place, whether by ownership or policy. Geoengineering
typically involves grand technological projects to completely master and control the
Earth’s climate system, so that all corners of the planet would be subject to centralized decisions made inevitably without anything close to full knowledge of impacts
on local people and ecosystems (Minteer 2012). Moreover, many geo-engineering
proposals require continual management in order to maintain their potential to mitigate global heating (Robock 2008). Obviously, contemporary impact assessment
approaches are incapable of ensuring adequate assessment of the impacts on local
communities and ecosystems globally of geo-engineering proposals such as placing
orbiting mirrors in space to deflect sunlight or seeding the oceans with iron filings
to promote carbon storage in algae (Robock 2008).
Table 1 summarizes ideological underpinnings of anthropocentric contemporary
law that support ongoing detachment of people from place, and how humaninclusive ecocentric ecological law offers counterpoints by which attachment or
re-attachment to place might be realized.
G. Garver
that the red planet “could someday be a destination for survival of humankind”
(NASA 2019).
Space colonies as imagined in the Jetsons, centered on a nuclear family with
mother, father, their children and a dog, essentially consist of an expansion of the
kind of false attachment to place associated with cookie-cutter suburban, cardependent communities made up mostly of single family homes. Attachment to
these kinds of places, which the American dream and the social status associated
with home ownership encapsulate, is hard to reconcile with the kind of attachment
to place and the communities of diverse and flourishing life that are associated with
a human-inclusive ecocentric worldview and ecological law. The superficial attachment to place of the American dream ultimately perpetuates a profound detachment
from a truly ecological notion of place.
Remote policymaking is a close cousin of remote ownership. Indeed, remote
ownership and land and resource grabbing can only exist upon a legal and policy
foundation that allows for them. In many legal systems, policymakers and public
officials must assess environmental, social and cultural impacts before approving
policies, programs or decisions that affect faraway people and places. However,
laws requiring analysis and consideration of such impacts are almost invariably
procedural only, leaving the policy and decision makers free to select options that
do not avoid or minimize impacts (Lazarus 2012). Further, cumulative, indirect,
vague and uncertain impacts are often excluded or only marginally incorporated in
impacts assessments, such that a complete and holistic picture of the full range of
impacts is rarely if ever achieved, even when assessments cover broad strategies or
policies (Garver 2013). Typically, moreover, political and economic pressure to proceed with policies or decisions with impacts on remote people and places, despite
whatever impact assessments reveal, is considerable—or else the decision or policy
would not even be under consideration. In short, impact assessment has hardly
reigned in the remote harm policy and decision making often causes.
Geoengineering to address the climate crisis is an extreme extension of the ideology of detachment from place, whether by ownership or policy. Geoengineering
typically involves grand technological projects to completely master and control the
Earth’s climate system, so that all corners of the planet would be subject to centralized decisions made inevitably without anything close to full knowledge of impacts
on local people and ecosystems (Minteer 2012). Moreover, many geo-engineering
proposals require continual management in order to maintain their potential to mitigate global heating (Robock 2008). Obviously, contemporary impact assessment
approaches are incapable of ensuring adequate assessment of the impacts on local
communities and ecosystems globally of geo-engineering proposals such as placing
orbiting mirrors in space to deflect sunlight or seeding the oceans with iron filings
to promote carbon storage in algae (Robock 2008).
Table 1 summarizes ideological underpinnings of anthropocentric contemporary
law that support ongoing detachment of people from place, and how humaninclusive ecocentric ecological law offers counterpoints by which attachment or
re-attachment to place might be realized.
G. Garver