Tom Royer - How do the earth and space exist in a continuum of sustainability (or unsustainability)?

This month we were delighted to be joined by Tom Royer who is a Visiting Researcher at the Arctic Centre and a Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law at University of Lapland. Tom’s work revolves around commercial space ports in the arctic from a more-than-human perspective. This work combines critical legal studies, multispecies justice, and extractivism. These space ports are hubs where commercial spacecraft are stored, worked on, launched, and re-entered (sometimes whole, sometimes not). The Arctic is not a new venue for commercial space activities, with some ports having a more than 50-year history. This is partially because satellites orbiting the poles can circle the globe in a single day. Tom opens a whole world to us in relation to commercial space ports and gives us a lot of food for thought in terms of impacts of these operations. Tom would like to make sure listeners are aware that everything he says during the episode is his own critical interpretations rather than simple factual statements. While his arguments map onto existing critical literature, they are still his own interpretation of his and, therefore, stand as supported analytical claims. Want to learn more about Tom’s work? Check out his university profile https://research.ulapland.fi/en/persons/tom-royer/ Check out High North News https://www.highnorthnews.com/en Check out Barents Observer https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/ Check out Keeptrack.space https://keeptrack.space/