Elon’s Musk’s Starlink satellites are creating massive sky pollution and ruining stargazing; his commercial interests are creating “space graffiti” in the night sky and obstructing astronomers’ observations. Can we solve this problem in a way that could apply to other scenarios — such as the climate crisis — in which the uber-wealthy and dysfunctional governments work together to destroy nature and threaten our kids’ futures? These incursions into nature interfere with our being free from others’ power, and their subtlety does not make them any less wrong than more obvious forms of oppression. It’s more proof that Musk, who recently doubled down on his assertion that women must have kids in order to support the economy, is not an environmentalist as much as he is a car and space tourism manufacturer.
At the most fundamental level, this process of propping up the world economy involves a population pyramid in which a few people exploit population growth, fueled by poor family planning, as an engine to convert nature and the nonhuman world into their own wealth. One fundamental solution involves simply reversing that stream: We should agree that two correlative human rights — everyone’s right to nature and children’s right to a fair start in life — supersede the property rights of wealthy people like Musk. The solution involves seeing the right to be born into the world as a free and equal person as the first human right. And it requires using that foundational right to rebase our constitutions on people, not property.
As we constantly reconstitute societies through the act of having kids, we have a right and an obligation to recycle the resources at the top, and the raw power over others they represent, to constantly generate nature, equity, and democracy where each voice matters. And there now exist clear policy ideas — like Fair Start baby bonds — to ensure that mankind most effectively uses those resources to empower future generations. The few at the top, who are literally hiding the stars from our view, can’t have power over us if we don’t give it to them.
Take action: Urge Musk to support Fair Start family planning reforms.
