Building the consensus: The moral space of earth measurement Marc A. Saner a,b, ⁎, Michael Bordt a a Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Canada b Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Canada abstract article info Article history: Received 18 January 2016 Received in revised form 15 June 2016 Accepted 20 June 2016 Available online xxxx We chart the moral space of Earth measurement with the aim to develop practical tools to evaluate and improve Earth measurement frameworks (including environmental-economic accounting and ecosystem services). Based on a survey of environmental ethics, we develop four concepts that are fundamentally important to fostering agreement in debates over Earth measurement frameworks among stakeholders with diverging belief systems. The four concepts can thus be used as criteria to evaluate the completeness and defensibility of existing measure- ment frameworks. The first two concepts, the consideration of broad human values and long time frames follow the landmark work by Bryan Norton. We further propose the adoption of the capital approach and precaution as the third and fourth concept, respectively. We conclude with suggestions for how current frameworks could be rendered more complete, defensible and internationally acceptable. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Ecosystem accounting frameworks Environmental services Critical natural capital Systems approach Weak anthropocentrism Strong sustainability Convergence Substitutability Contents 1. Value Import in Earth Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 2. A Brief Survey of Environmental Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3. Moral Space and Convergence Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.1. Broad Human Values and Long Time Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.2. The Capital Approach and “Critical Natural Capital” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 3.3. Precautionary Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 3.4. Four Concepts for Convergence Across the Moral Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4. Application to Earth Measurement Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 1. Value Import in Earth Measurement The Strategic Research Agenda 2014 of Future Earth begins with the question “How has the Earth system, with its ecosystems and societies, changed in the past, and what can this tell us about current responses to en- vironmental change?” (Future Earth, 2014). The research agenda is sup- ported by the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability: The International Council for Science (ICSU), several major UN agencies and other major international players (www.futureearth.org). We se- lected this quote not only to illustrate how well supported a holistic re- search perspective has become, but also to provide us with an example to illustrate how scientific projects are commonly embedded with values. These values matter to the research outcome and, thus, it is meaningful to evaluate the moral space implied by these values. An un- derstanding of the moral space not only helps maximize the reproduc- ibility of the scientific components, it is also important in assessing Ecological Economics 130 (2016) 74–81 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Canada. E-mail address: msaner@uottawa.ca (M.A. Saner). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.06.019 0921-8009/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon