Planetary Unthinking: Is Contemporary Ecological Theory Making Near Space Unsustainable?
Brad Tabas

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The “planetary turn” in contemporary thought risks reinforcing a dangerous indifference to near space environments. Behind injunctions to care for the planet can often be discerned a moralized agnosia—an active and polemical injunction not to learn about the orbits and planetary-science-enabling infrastructures which surround the Earth. Among humanists, this agnosia has generated a growing fascination with interplanetary futures (e.g., Mars colonization) coupled with dangerous neglect of our very real occupation of near-Earth environments. Through a reconstruction of 20th century continental thought, the essay traces how planetary theory has paradoxically contributed to our ignorance of our planet’s environment.

The paper is attached here.

Brad Tabas teaches and researches at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. His philosophical interests range from responsibility in engineering to eco-criticism and space humanities, science fiction and horror.

For further inquiries: Yuxin Su (yuxin.su.16@ucl.ac.uk).