Big Sky Theory

While sitting in the backyard of my partner's aunt & uncle's house in a borough outside of Pittsburgh, I happened to see Venus and Mars. For the borough residences, stars in the sky are still amazing but not surprising. For me, living in Philadelphia the night sky is shaded with the glare of city lights and blocked by the density of buildings. So seeing the stars is not only surprising but very refreshing.

What's Really Out There

Remembering which star is which is something that remains difficult for most.  Fortunately that evening I was able to use the Google Sky Map on my Droid and point out that we were not looking at distant suns, but planets in our solar system reflecting our sun.

The stars are utterly amazing. No matter how far you stretch your hands, you will never touch them. Yet they hold our attention and spur our imaginations. Even in this age of instantaneous knowledge, stars still maintain their mystery. Though what I find even more mysterious than the stars themselves, is the space in between the stars. According to astronomers, we don't even see all the stars in the sky from standing on the earth. So you know that between the stars you do see, there are possibly millions more in between them that you don't see.

With that in mind, I think about the what is called the Big Sky Theory. This is the notion that there is no concern for the large number of satellites that orbit our earth. These satellites connect our phone calls, provide weather reports and supply maps to GPS devices. Even though the number of satellites orbiting our earth is increasing, the Big Sky Theory proclaims that the population is balanced by the notion that eventually old satellites will leave the orbit via floating off into space or burning up in our atmosphere.

The problem is that abandoning old satellites does not always work out they way they plan. Old satellites don't leave orbit as quickly as predicted. They remain, deteriorate and pieces fall off and collide with other satellites. As a result, this residue of debris objects (over 10 centimeters in diameter) has increased from 6,500 in 1995 to 15,000 in 2010 (according to the US Space Surveillance Network).

So In Between All The Stars Is Increasingly More Junk.

Frankly this is what really concerns me about this latest recession and its effect on the U.S. workforce.  When our government enacts bills such as Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act and spins it as a jobs bill; because of the mortgage situation people can't sell their property so they can move to where there are jobs; or when I see crap like this want ad that declares no unemployed permitted to apply.  For added measure, let's add in that workplace bullying is on the rise, because less ability to be mobile is fodder for these creeps to act out and not be kept in check.

This is much like the Big Sky Theory. In the workforce, there is no worry for the residue that will be left over.  The assumption that all the grief being handed to the workforce will either float away or just burn up. Much like these old satellites, I see the workforce diligently staying in orbit, but breaking into pieces, creating a chain reaction of even more counter-production by crashing and damaging other people.  So in between the metaphoric workforce stars (the productive, the happy, the successful) is increasingly more metaphoric workforce debris (the lackadaisical, the miserable, the barely breathing).

A Landfill By Any Other Name

I think most people understand that the garbage we create: pizza boxes; cell phones; car tires; etc. need a place for disposal; we recognize the need for better solutions to landfills.  But when you look in the sky it's easy to overlook the notion that the junk in between the stars is growing and becoming a problem that requires a solution to clean it up.

Even though one cannot see a problem does not mean it does not exist. And just because the sky looks like it can handle all the junk that we throw at it, it does not mean that it's true, or that it's predictable, or that it won't come back to bite us in the future.

There are some folks out there doing some great work helping the workforce.  But we have to realize that if we continue to create more junk in between the stars, some of it will float away and some will burn up.  But the more junk created, the greater the chance the debris will fall to earth and cause even greater damage.