We as humanity have come a long way from planning the first space travel in April 1961 to landing on Moon in 1969 and now further space explorations to Mars and other planetary fly-bys in recent years. From path breaking inventions like Electricity,
Telecommunications, Internet, Mobiles, Smartphones and Bioscience related innovations from vaccines to medicines to non-invasive laser therapies there is no limit to the growth that humans have chartered in STEM. However, while we have advanced to more sophisticated ways of living and working, the huge collateral damages that we are paying for this cannot be ignored. Not only have we polluted Earth and its environment but also left trails of toxic debris from rotting spaceships in Outer Space due to failed space missions and space impacting warfare.
Also, with increasing professional demands, we have ignored our health with health complications not just seen in elders but also in young adults. Much has been done to address the latter with holistic wellness and advanced healthcare interventions; what about the ardous efforts of clearing water pollution caused by toxic electronic waste – E-waste and the highly toxic and age-old space debris in low earth orbits that have its own health complications caused by adverse environmental changes.
This article is about the Space debris problem and this critical concern of space debris is still very relevant and growing with the advancements in space travel that have resulted in few failed space missions resulting in huge space debris near Earth orbit called orbital debris.
While we as humans have been working on reducing carbon emissions, environment pollution and responsible use and disposal of sustainable resources we are yet to be more active in solving this problem of clearing space debris responsibly and timely and since last few years we are dealing with accumulated impact of 50+ years of outer space pollution.
The least we can do as responsible citizens is limiting and restricting our use of Internet and telecommunications, air travel, GPRS etc so that we are cautious of not burdening ISP and telecom service providers with huge amount of unnecessary data and content that takes more technology and IT resources to store, retrieve and dispose periodically.
This will let IT industries focus on bigger issues like sustaining important satellites and space resources that telecom, air and sea travel, GPS, climate and weather forecasting, space travel and other such industries use extensively. Thee resources will then be less burdened to support billions of people who rely on them daily rather than have IT firms fire fight Big Data management issues that has caught great attention since we entered the digital era couple of decades ago. Also, judicious use of digital and IT resources like Internet, mobile services, telecommunications, entertainment, digital travel logistics and hospitality travel can enable IT professionals to better support technology problems that address larger and more critical challenges like financial service or healthcare system downtimes, expedite recovery from cyber-attacks and data breaches, deploy cutting-edge solutions to secure and streamline IT and Information Security operations. Also, it can free up the load of data on satellites and space systems used for administrative and security reasons thereby giving these deep tech professionals a breather and maybe focus on more important work like removing space debris before it is too late.
While this area has already gained momentum since last decade or so, much work needs to be accomplished and citizens can support governments and administrative institutes and academic universities by being mindful on selecting more non-toxic ways of unwinding like pursuing a hobby, a sport, spending quality time with family, friends or nature or even volunteering or learning a new skill rather than binge watching movies and sitcoms or TV serials or travelling mindlessly burning resources at the cost of polluting earth with more carbon footprint.
Reducing carbon footprint is not just the governments or companies or NGOs responsibility, it is responsibility of every citizen and every human on earth. So, have you calculated your trail of carbon footprint on earth in your lifespan since the digital era started? If not, suggest you prioritise that in your family discussions over dinner or your next friends’ getaway so you can leave back a cleaner, greener and more thriving Earth protecting natural resources for your children. You are literally making your children pay for your legacy debt of polluting environment and depleting natural resources. There are few good applications available on mobile devices for tracking your carbon footprint and ways to shift to cleaner and renewable energy options including digital detox practices that you can follow for holistic health instead of being addicted to your phones, televisions and laptops.
This is a wake-up call to us humans since average life-expectancy of humans is increasing with advancements in healthcare however, environmental conditions on Earth and its surrounding atmosphere including climates are not improving. This is a growing concern and hence, this article is a call for action to all responsible citizens and conscious leaders to join hands to bring a revolution in how digital resources are being used by customers and spread the necessary awareness on secure and safe disposal of digital assets like mobiles, laptops, televisions, healthcare devices etc. Growing E-waste and Space Debris are the next biggest challenges to humans after cyber attacks if not as important as them.