Should there be environmental laws for Mars?

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Philosophy Explorer
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Should there be environmental laws for Mars?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

There are no known forms of life on Mars. On Earth, it would appear the motivation for environmental laws is life (i.e. intelligent life). Does environmental laws make sense for Mars?

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hsblackburn
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Re: Should there be environmental laws for Mars?

Post by hsblackburn »

At first, I thought I was going to have a quick one-off reply for you, but I think this might actually be a deeper question than that.


You raise an interesting thought. I think firstly we'd need a system of governance regarding Mars (a legitimate authority, even if it is just recognizing current states on Earth's ability to govern Mars) and humans actually living there on a colony—otherwise, I don't see anyone really having an interest in keeping it pristine.

While I'm all for conservation...Mars is a desolate planet. I think you're completely right that life is the motivation for environmental laws. We're dependent on Earth, so we should do our best to protect her. Aside from some pretty-looking ice caps, I'm not sure what else is dependent on Mars' environment.

Again, if we had people living there I think that'd be a different story. If we were mining then we would want to study seismic events (just throwing out an example) to make sure earthquakes don't level our colonies (does Mars even have earthquakes? I'm typing my thoughts just for fun; that's an easily googled question I imagine, but I think that's the line of thinking we'd need to have to accurately answer this question).

Short answer: Only if we have detected life or have human colonies there.
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