The writer is a science commentator
It was a well-intentioned comment, highlighting the need for humanity to be mindful as it continues expanding into the final frontier. “We need a Greta for space,” declared a British official at a New York summit for sustainability in space this summer, in reference to Greta Thunberg, the activist who inspired climate change protests all over the world. “If somebody out there wants to be Greta, please stand up.”
But this plea from Rebecca Evernden, director of space at the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, only emphasises how poorly governments have stewarded the space assets on which so much of modern life, such as global communications, depend. More than six decades of launches have encircled the Earth with a halo of litter that threatens essential satellites and degrades the extraterrestrial environment.