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Short abstract:

This talk addresses a solution to Fermi paradox which suggests that ecological sustainability is the major factor in the possibility of successful detection of intelligent species in the universe, and it proposes to think about astronomy and SETI as an expanded framework for environmental thinking.

Long abstract:

In the most philosophical chapter of his 1961 sci-fi novel "Solaris", Stanislaw Lem lets one of the main characters articulate vision of the unremarkability of human existence in the cosmic context, summed up by the statement: "We are the grass of the universe." The aim of this short talk is to elaborate on this claim as both a description and as a proposition of human situatedness in the more-than-planetary realm, while analysing environmental implications of SETI research. The narrative arc of the talk is organised around solution to Fermi paradox proposed by Jacob Haqq-Misra and Seth Baum in 2009, which suggests that ecological sustainability of the coupling between communities of intelligent species and their planetary environments is the major factor in the possibility of their successful detection by remote observation. In particular, the so-called "Sustainability Solution" posits that "exponential or other faster-growth is not a sustainable development pattern for intelligent civilizations," which significantly constrains viable historical trajectories of any community of intelligent species. The scenario of space-faring civilizations colonizing solar systems or whole galaxies is thus rendered rather unlikely. Instead, this solution implies that maintaining and increasing the habitability of a planet is the most suitable strategy for historical development of intelligent species, and that, metaphorically speaking, a sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable from nature. Through the author's own pseudo-ethnographic engagement with astronomic community, this talk utilizes SETI research as an expanded framework for environmental thinking, thus exemplifying new "gestures of cosmic relation", as first theorized by Lisa Messeri.