Remark_1: science is not only about publishing papers dealing with problems that are acceptable (well seeing) by the "normal" academic canon or, on the other hand, with problems that are, relatively speaking, much easier to solve or, at least, it is not highly complicated to try to "solve".
Remark_2: scientists from the developing world, regardless the discipline, might start thinking farther on what does the "hard" Sustainable Development (SD) version mean for their countries, and how bad is to replicate (to support) discourses that comes from communities (whether interested stakeholders, nations, international organizations, think-tanks...) that want to keep the high rates of economic growth regardless any physical, ecological, and climate-based constraints. Much to my regret, there is a concerning amount of advocates to such an approach (outer-space mining) in Latin America as a whole... We need to rethink what development is all about and what will be the fate of the Latin American nations under such sustained trend of a lack of governance of the outer space domain.
- Is it really necessary to go far beyond Earth atmosphere to carry out very risky outer-space mining activities...?
- Why specific sectors are pushing for investing in the outer space mining when it is highly visible and measurable (at naked eye) the amount of thrash that it is piling up and surrounding all cities in the world...?
- What about the amount of metal, plastic and other "strategic" material (including wood/timber) that should be recycled at great scale in all continents and regions in the planet...?
- What education policies should transfer the current effort aimed at funding already useless careers and titles to empower the next generation of skilled workers, technicians, and experts in recycling al at levels of the society....? What impede that transformations in the labor force worldwide...?
- To the fans and advocates of the circular economy scheme: (1) have you already thought about the huge amount of energy that would be required for such a large-scale recycling (The thermodynamics laws always will matter despite economics could claim)...? (2) Shouldn't be a maximum number of human population that make circular economy feasible...? (Human population trends) are not in the equations of the hard SD version). (3) Do we (humans) have time for a step-by-step circular economy development (more action and less "floppy" business papers)...?
As I have pointed out in all my questions, the 2030 SDGs agenda is already compromised and no major advancement is being achieved regarding the speeding up overlapping and non-linear climate and Earth's ecology breakdowns, therefore, why humanity should embark in another wishful-thinking reckless economic push within the "New Space Economy"...?
As we keep trying to keep humans outside the equations..., all what be published regarding sustainability (science), governance, and the so-called cutting-edge research on Climate Policies and Action will be just a futile act of absolute incompleteness and despair.
Thus, I call scholars from all the disciplines to carry out their major effort in adding the humans into their equations (schemes, models) and start writing as we are the root of the current problems , but also the solutions to those human-sparked messes... A major shift must be empowered in the way science is made... Science has being under crisis for twenty years or so... We all know by 2000 the problem will be greater and will advance faster than our potential response as a species... All has been an unprecedented large-scale denial...
Willing to interact to write more realistic (with policy implications) papers and for teaming (network-building) in searching for implementing sound "cutting-edge" research proposals whenever funds will be available.
Regards,
Hernan L. Villagran