Is Elon endangering the night sky?

The night sky is disappearing fast. Is it worth the internet access we're getting from it? 🌑

View this email in your browser Verb Energy bars are your daily energy essential. The bars are infused with organic green tea, giving you the same amount of caffeine as an espresso without the jitters. They're gluten free, dairy free and vegan. Get 4 Verb bars for free before your next workout! You just cover shipping for $0.95. Reflect: cloudy with no chance of stars Estimated reading time: 3 minutes August Topic: Space Trash (thanks Alicia for the suggestion) This week's module: 1. READ | 2. LISTEN | 3. ACT | 4. REFLECT Welcome back to Changeletter by Soapbox Project. I'm the author, Nivi Achanta, and I make it easy for you to fight climate change in 3 minutes every week.   What's up this week OOoo god. I'm spooked.   Whether it's numbness or a more healthy coping mechanism, I've been fairly immune to eco-anxiety. It's not that I DON'T get anxious about climate change; it's that I know we only have two choices: fight together or perish. And if you're reading this, we've chosen the fight.   But a minor snag in my inspirational words: today's REFLECT module on space trash has really freaked me out. It's giving me bad chills to see the stronghold corporations have, not just on our lives, but on THE NIGHT SKY!    Anyway, imagine finding a quiet spot away from the city, and the glittering silver stars you made wishes upon as a child are just... messy gray blobs now?! Without further ado, I present to you our REFLECT module that asks: who will save the night sky?   P.S. I'll be on vacation for most of September (DC, NY, Boston + France -- lmk if you're there and want to meet) and all our content will be scheduled. If you want to get in touch with me before then, reply to this email and tell me what gives you the most hope about our changing world! Not making as much income or impact as you'd like? Here's how to change that.   Arlan Hamilton, Founder of Backstage Capital, is blessing us with a free new masterclass to 10x our income and impact. She's giving us an exclusive look at the 7 income streams that helped her go from homeless to earning millions of $ while bridging the economic opportunity gap by investing in 180 underrepresented founder-led companies.   From the Soapbox   8/26, 9am PST | Fireside chat with Natalie Lavery from Climate People. Natalie will walk you through a framework on how to get a job fighting climate change on our biweekly fireside chat series. This is a members-only event.   9/1, 10am PST | Fireside chat with Ridwell co-founder Aliya Marder. Ridwell, if you don't know it, is basically the coolest Seattle-based company ever. They're helping divert household waste from landfills, and Aliya will talk about how to work towards a less wasteful future. Sign up here.   9/15 5pm PST | Sustainable finance workshop + action hour. Join the founders of Carbon Collective, Mighty Deposits, and SustainFi to take action on your finances. We'll talk about what it means to divest from fossil fuels, why transparency in banking is important, and quick ways to get started for long-term impact. Learn more and sign up here.   Join our community to get all our weekly events for free, make new friends, find sustainable product recs, look for jobs, and more.   Your bite-sized actions   Today's article (thanks Franklin!) is about how the corporate world's endless reach for "innovation" and control is endangering the night sky. Basically, as Brian Resnick writes in this Vox piece, astronomers are very frustrated with Elon Musk's satellites.   I personally went down a deep rabbit hole (or black hole, haha) with this topic and highly recommend that you check out the article, but here's what you need to know if you only have a minute:   No more night sky. We're quickly losing every unimpeded view of the night sky — even the darkest places on Earth are vanishingly rare.   Too many satellites. Elon Musk's SpaceX had launched 240 small satellites into space as part of its Starlink internet service; now it has around 1,300, and dreams of launching a total of 30,000. These satellites will orbit close to Earth so they can provide us with internet. Don't know how to feel about this.   Why it's a problem: satellites block the view of telescopes. To recap, companies like SpaceX want to bring internet to remote parts of the world through their satellites. Perhaps to help, but also to unlock new profit areas. These satellites will ruin telescope images and even ruin photographers' pictures of the night sky!   Can we do something about this? It's complicated because the UN is slow AF. Also, there are no real regulations — we have an "outer space treaty", but nothing enforceable.   Can satellites fall on us from space? According to the Vox article, "when a satellite breaks down in space, it just stays up there as junk until gravity pulls it back down to Earth. Already, a Starlink satellite and one from OneWeb had a near collision." Yiiiiikes. We can't treat space as the Wild West. It's not a frontier to be conquered by the rich. The only way to avoid this starless, nightless future is to organize, here on Earth, and reclaim our power — but we have to step up. Especially if we're over-resourced (hint: if we work at corporations making upper 5 or 6 figure salaries). One thing you can do right now is to urge big tech to spend their lobbying dollars to fight climate change. With that, I'm out — reply to this email with what gives you hope about the future! I'll be gone most of September but I promise to reply to each and every response when I get back. Upcoming   September's topic will be sustainable finance! I'll be on vacation and the emails will be scheduled, so if you have questions, please send them in.   Lmk if you're in my vacation geography and want to meet - I'd love to hang. Copyright © 2021 Soapbox Project, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up for our free action plans via social media, Tech Ethics Coalition, a meeting with Nivi, or our website! Our mailing address is: Soapbox Project 415 Mission St. San Francisco, California 94105 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.