The Common Crisis: An Analysis of Parallel Destruction Of Earth’s Atmosphere and Orbital Space

• Published in: International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research Vol. 7; no. 4
• Main Author: Bharadwaj, Asmita
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 24.08.2025
• ISSN: 2582-2160; 2582-2160
• DOI: 10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i04.54409

The "Tragedy of the Commons," a concept articulating the inevitable depletion of shared resources through individual goals, provides a compelling framework to analyze two of the most significant environmental challenges confronting humankind: climate change and orbital space debris. This paper argues that the Earth's atmosphere and the orbital space environment are global commons experiencing fundamentally identical unsustainable use and pollution processes. This research takes a comparative approach to examine the forces driving this crisis including the absence of property rights, amplified short-term economic incentives, and the governance gap involved in managing resources belonging to no one nation. The atmospheric commons crisis is evidenced by anthropogenic climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions. The orbital commons crisis is evident by increasing space debris that will threaten mankind's long-term viability of space operations through Kessler Syndrome. While the atmosphere currently faces a pollution crisis primarily through gases, orbital space is facing a physical collision crisis through defunct satellites and other pieces of orbiting debris. This paper argues that the solutions for both crises are similarly parallel, requiring planetary and international governance frameworks, and economic instruments to internalize externalities. It ought to be an overall transformation from a frontier mentality to one of sustainable stewardship in order to avoid the tragic deterioration of these essential shared global commons.