Editing Terraforming (section)

==Issues==

===Ethical issues===
{{main|Ethics of terraforming}}

There is a philosophical debate within [[biology]] and [[ecology]] as to whether terraforming other worlds is an [[ethics|ethical]] endeavor. From the point of view of a [[cosmocentric ethic]], this involves balancing the need for the preservation of human life against the intrinsic value of existing planetary ecologies.<ref>MacNiven 1995</ref> [[Lucianne Walkowicz]] has even called terraforming a "planetary-scale [[strip mining]] operation".<ref name="Mandelbaum 2018">{{cite web | last=Mandelbaum | first=Ryan F. | title=Decolonizing Mars: Are We Thinking About Space Exploration All Wrong? | website=Gizmodo | date=November 20, 2018 | url=https://gizmodo.com/decolonizing-mars-are-we-thinking-about-space-explorat-1830348568 | access-date=October 31, 2021}}</ref>

On the pro-terraforming side of the argument, there are those like [[Robert Zubrin]], [[Martyn J. Fogg]], Richard L. S. Taylor, and the late [[Carl Sagan]] who believe that it is humanity's moral obligation to make other worlds suitable for human [[life]], as a continuation of the history of life-transforming the environments around it on Earth.<ref name="zoob1">Robert Zubrin, ''[[The Case for Mars|The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must]]'', pp. 248–249, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1996, {{ISBN|0-684-83550-9}}</ref><ref>Fogg 2000</ref> They also point out that [[Future of the Earth|Earth would eventually be destroyed if nature takes its course]], so that humanity faces a very long-term choice between terraforming other worlds or allowing all terrestrial life to become [[extinction|extinct]]. Terraforming totally barren planets, it is asserted, is not morally wrong as it does not affect any other life.

The opposing argument posits that terraforming would be an unethical interference in [[nature]], and that given humanity's past treatment of Earth, other planets may be better off without human interference.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} Still others strike a middle ground, such as [[Christopher McKay]], who argues that terraforming is ethically sound only once it is completely certain that an alien planet does not harbor life of its own; but that if it does, it should not try be reshaped to fit humans' own use, but rather to engineer its environment to artificially nurture the [[Extraterrestrial life|alien life]] and help it thrive and co-evolve, or even co-exist with humans.<ref name="ontomars">Christopher McKay and Robert Zubrin, "Do Indigenous Martian Bacteria have Precedence over Human Exploration?", pp. 177–182, in ''On to Mars: Colonizing a New World'', Apogee Books Space Series, 2002, {{ISBN|1-896522-90-4}}</ref> Even this would be seen as a type of terraforming to the strictest of ecocentrists, who would say that all life has the right, in its home biosphere, to evolve without outside interference.

===Economic issues===
The initial cost of such projects as planetary terraforming would be massive, and the infrastructure of such an enterprise would have to be built from scratch. Such [[technology]] has not yet been developed, let alone financially feasible at the moment. John Hickman has pointed out that almost none of the current schemes for terraforming incorporate [[economy|economic strategies]], and most of their models and expectations seem highly optimistic.<ref>{{cite journal| url=http://www.jetpress.org/volume4/space.htm |title=The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects |first=John |last=Hickman |access-date=2006-04-28 |journal=Journal of Evolution and Technology |volume=4 |pages=1–14|date=November 1999}}</ref>