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The Dr. Steve Best Narratives: 

Part 7: A world without moral boundaries: Earth Systems Theory and planetary justice    

Thus far, with global, environmental, climate, intergenerational, and animal justice concepts, we have seen significant expansions of moral and legal discourse. But the most inclusive and expansive vision of justice yet stems from the scientific world, building on both climate and animal justice concepts while applying them to the earth itself, to the physical and “non sentient” world comprised of dynamic, interrelating, and sensitive ecological systems. From an emerging paradigm shift in the sciences involving earth systems/governance theory and advanced by collectives such as the Earth System Governance Project, the Earth Commission Global Commons Alliance, and Future Earth, comes the new concepts of “planetary justice.”

These theories stem from concerns that humans are pushing key ecosystems to tipping points and collapse, as they have already crossed at least six of nine key planetary boundaries, including carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, nitrogen, and phosphorus levels in waterways from factory farm runoff, and changes in land use and deforestation. Earth system theorists address the global social and environmental crises of the Anthropocene and strive to find “political solutions and novel, more effective governance systems to cope with global environmental change” (Future Earth). This new discourse is interdisciplinary, combining philosophy, political theory, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and ecology with a fundamental concern with social justice and sustainability. Remarkably, previously positivistic, objectivistic, non-normative, and apolitical scientific disciplines now explicitly engage issues of ethics and justice on various levels, while incorporating normative and political concerns into their theories and policies.

As well, theories of the Anthropocene and their implications for politics are central concerns for Earth system scientists. Many view the dual crises of mass extinction and global heating to be rooted in the growth-oriented social systems and anthropocentric worldviews of the Holocene, creating crises solvable only through new post-Holocene forms of thought and politics. Within the Anthropocene, “Humans now influence all biological and physical systems of the planet. Almost no species, no land area, no part of the oceans has remained unaffected by the expansion of the human species …[there is] evidence today that the entire system now operates ‘well outside the normal state exhibited over the past 500,000  years,’ and that ‘human activity is generating change that extends well beyond natural variability—in some cases, alarmingly so—and at rates that continue to accelerate’” (Biermann et al., 2009). Consequently, the “Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity” and scientists stress “an ‘urgent need’ to develop ‘strategies for Earth System management.’” 

The goal of reaching a sustainable future, based on living within “earth system boundaries,” thereby demands “system justice” that can “challenge inequality to ensure a safe and just future for people, other species and the planet” (Gupta et al., 2023, my emphasis). Within this comprehensive approach, “The novel character of earth system transformation and of the new governance solutions that are being developed, puts questions of allocation and access, debated for millennia, in a new light. It might require new answers to old questions” (Biermann et al., 2009). As the Earth System Governance Project states, “the integration of a planetary perspective with a normative critique of widespread injustices is a central part of [their research]” (Ibid.). Transgressing staid academic boundaries, they stress that “earth system governance is, as is any political activity, about the distribution of material and immaterial values … [and] … a conflict about the access to goods and about their allocation − it is about justice, fairness, and equity” (Ibid.).

Thus, the earth systems approach sees a direct connection between fair global redistribution of resources and planetary stability and sustainability. The minimal starting point for planetary justice is to move from Rawlsian state-based theories of distributive justice to broader theories of global justice and transnational interdependencies. From there, they recognize the imbrication of humans and the natural world and embrace environmental justice. Similar to Donoso’s concept of interspecies justice discussed in Narrative #5, earth system notions of justice involve “an integrated framework that reduces the risks of global environmental change (safe) while ensuring well-being (just) with an equitable sharing of nature’s benefits, risks and related responsibilities among all people in the world, within safe and just Earth system boundaries to provide universal life support” (Biermann et al., 2020).

But earth system concepts of planetary justice move beyond the human realm to formulate still more comprehensive views of justice. In the Anthropocene, where social and ecological systems have become intertwined, “obligations are owed to nonhuman entities as well. Planetary society-nature integration and non-binary system thinking stands behind our idea of a justice framework; and it is hence planetary justice, as a term, that we are using as key concept for this framework” (Biermann and Kalfagianni, 2020, my emphasis). Thus, this approach rejects the traditional dualism between human/animals, criticizes speciesism, incorporates new theories of “interspecies” or “multispecies” justice, and thereby advances far beyond the parochial humanism and anthropocentric biases of the climate justice movement.

As Hockey and Robeyns (2020) note, “It is perhaps no surprise that the human-rights approach, while it can generate significant implications about issues of planetary justice like climate change, is not immediately equipped to deal with issues of non-human or non-sentient rights” (my emphasis). Similarly, in their introduction a special issue of the Earth System Governance journal, researchers write, “The term planetary justice… encompasses traditional concerns of environmental justice but foregrounds that the entire human and non-human world is now at stake, not merely a locality … [it] is concerned with justice among humans as well as between humans and the natural world… Planetary justice scholarship goes further than global justice to call for radical or profound changes to justice understandings in the Anthropocene, critiques anthropocentricism and calls for greater engagement with the non-human world” (Gupta et al., 2023, my emphasis).

The view that “Justice is also important in the relation between humans and nature” is still too parochial until it recognizes that “The more-than-human world should be included in decision-making” (Gupta et al., 2023). The deeper holistic view of “interspecies justice” includes “justice that promotes Earth system stability to prevent the collapse of conditions of life for all species” (Ibid.); it folds “intercommunity, interstate and inter-individual justice into a broad category of intragenerational justice”; and, inspired by the climate justice movement, it incorporates alliance politics,—the “concern for intersectional justice” among diverse social movements fighting interlocking systems oppression, but without neglecting the plight and importance of “the more-than-human world” (Ibid.).

Thus, from this perspective, science, ethics, and politics mutually inform one another, and narrow and self-defeating humanist views open to comprehensive holistic policies embracing humans, animals, and environments in one system of governance: “The Earth Commission approach operationalizes interspecies justice and Earth system stability by looking at each biophysical domain to determine how to enable stability, uphold resilience and ensure that ecological functions, and thereby the Earth system state remains conducive for all life” (Gupta et al., 2023). Earth system science seeks to “identify a natural ecosystem area measure (maintaining and restoring natural ecosystems on land)” and thereby, like Donoso, it “promotes interspecies justice by making ‘space’ for other species to survive and thrive, and halts extinction of species and loss of intact biomes” (Ibid.). Earth system justice thus seeks to identify key planetary boundaries, to learn how to live within them, and how to share ecological spaces with animals.

Selected References

Future Earth, “ESG—Earth System Governance”(https://futureearth.org/networks/global-research-networks/esg-earth-system-governance/)

Biermann, F. et. al. (2020) “Planetary justice as a challenge for earth system governance” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589811620300446?via%3Dihub) 

Gupta, J. et. al. (2023) “Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01064-1) 

Biermann, F. and Kalfagianni, A. (2020) “Exploring planetary justice”(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589811620300082?via%3Dihub) 

Hockey, C. and Robeyns, I. (2020) “Planetary justice: What can we learn from ethics and political philosophy?” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589811620300045?via%3Dihub)