By Tait Tavolacci, September 8, 2025
In his recent partnership with EARTHDAY.ORG, legendary actor William Shatner, famous for his seminal role as Captain James T. Kirk, addressed President Emmanuel Macron asking him to intervene to save two orcas, Wikie and her son Keijo, the last two captive whales in France. You can join this campaign and back Shatner up here. His heartfelt plea reflects a long-standing tradition in Star Trek of tackling environmental issues.
From 1966, when it first premiered, through to the present day, Star Trek and its various series spin-offs and films have been a powerful voice for environmental advocacy, exploring complex themes such as species exploitation, pollution, and resource depletion. Let’s take a look at some of this forward-thinking franchise’s most significant episodes that shed light on these important issues.
Exploiting Non-Human Species
One of the clearest early examples of Star Trek addressing species exploitation is “The Devil in the Dark,” an episode from the original series (1966-1969). The crew of the Enterprise receives a distress call from a human mining colony, where a creature called the Horta has been sabotaging machinery and attacking miners.
Although the mining team is ready to kill the Horta, Commander Spock urges understanding, and learns that the Horta is merely defending her eggs from the destructive mining operations. Rather than eliminating the creature, the miners agree to work with it, setting aside their desire for dominance in favor of mutual respect. This episode stresses the importance of understanding non-human life, urging us to consider the broader consequences of our actions. All animals are interconnected, including humans, and we need to share space in order to survive and thrive.
“The Cloud,” an episode from Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001), similarly explores the exploitation of a non-humanoid lifeform. The Voyager crew, stranded in the Delta Quadrant, far away from the rest of the Federation, discovers that an energy-rich nebula they’re exploring is actually a living organism defending itself from intrusion.
Despite their pressing need for energy, as their resources are depleting in their isolation, Captain Janeway orders the crew to leave, choosing the well-being of the life form over their own immediate needs. Even in the direst of circumstances, the Voyager crew demonstrates that compassion should override personal gain.
This episode is a moving example of the concept of deep ecology, as Voyager’s crew demonstrates the key principle that all living things have value simply because they exist, not because they are useful. In this episode, although Captain Janeway originally explores the nebula as an energy source, once she discovers that it is a lifeform, her respect for its right to exist rises above any thoughts of what use ‘it’ could be to her and her crew.
In Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2024), the series’ first season is set during a fierce war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. The USS Discovery is revealed to be a crucial element in winning this conflict, as its science officers are pioneering a new form of transportation known as the spore drive.
Unlike warp drive, which enables ships to travel at light speed, the spore drive gives Discovery the ability to essentially teleport instantly from one place to another. However, the moral quandary introduced in the episode “Choose Your Pain” surrounds the use of a living creature, a tardigrade, to power this incredible technology, which has become crucial to the war effort.
Specialist Burnham discovers that the creature suffers immense pain from this process, yet the crew prioritizes the war effort. In the end, Burnham’s refusal to disregard the creature’s suffering leads to a solution where the tardigrade is released, and the crew adapts to a new method of using just DNA to power the spore drive. This episode underscores the idea that no innocent life should be sacrificed for convenience or expediency, even in times of war.
These episodes collectively stress that all life, whether humanoid or non-humanoid, sentient or non-sentient, has inherent value, regardless of its usefulness. In this way Star Trek promotes empathy and urges us to reflect on how we treat all creatures. If Trek characters can find compassion in their hearts for a creature that takes the form of a nebula, we can certainly show more care to all the beautiful animals that populate our planet. Wikie and Keijo, two real, sentient creatures in need through no fault of their own, deserve the same respect.
Pollution in the Stars
Star Trek also offers a sharp critique of pollution, exploring how harmful environmental practices lead to societal collapse. In “The Cloud Minders,” an episode from the original series, the crew encounters a planet divided into two classes: the elite who live in a floating city called Stratos, and the Troglytes, who are forced to mine on the planet’s surface in harmful conditions.
The Troglytes are attempting to form an uprising to protest their unfair treatment, but they struggle to unify their movement because of how the mines affect their health. They are suffering from the toxic effects of gas emitted during their mining activities, which dulls their cognitive abilities. Once the Enterprise crew reveals the truth, the Stratos citizens agree to improve working conditions, symbolizing the necessity of addressing pollution to prevent health decline and societal decay.
Another example of this anti-pollution stance comes from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), in the episode “Force of Nature,” where scientists reveal that warp drive technology is damaging space itself, causing irreparable harm to a region of space known as the Hekaras sector.
Initially skeptical, the crew is eventually forced to take action after a scientist sacrifices her life to prove the danger. In the aftermath, Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge reflects on his limited perspective, lamenting how resistant he’d been to the idea that warp drives could do such damage. Since he works so closely with the technology, he felt he should defend it, and could not accept that it was actually causing serious harm until it was too late. The episode highlights the difficulty of accepting the consequences of technological advancement, and our reluctance to change once we know the truth, even when faced with catastrophic evidence that all is not right.
Voyager also tackles pollution in the episode “Night,” where the Voyager crew encounters the Malon, an alien species dumping toxic waste into vast empty space. They discover that this area, previously thought to be devoid of life, is actually inhabited by a species that can survive without the atmosphere of a planet, and that they are being poisoned by the toxic waste.
Captain Janeway confronts the Malon commander, who justifies his actions as a “cost-effective” way to dispose of waste. Using this void gives him a leg up above the rest of the Malon in the waste export business, enabling him to do the same amount of work at half the price and therefore maximize his profits. Sound familiar?
He does not care that his activities are harming another species, and Voyager must use force to stop him. This episode critiques corporate greed and the moral indifference of those who exploit the environment for profit, even at the expense of other lifeforms.
Star Trek exposes the dangers of pollution, emphasizing how environmental harm impacts both our world and our health. These episodes critique both the consequences and the resistance to addressing pollution, calling for a collective effort to protect our planet.
The Consequences of Resource Depletion
The depletion of resources and its consequences are a recurring theme in many Star Trek series, and Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) encapsulates this in its episode entitled, “Progress.”
The show is set in a space station, posted near the planet Bajor, in order to aid its people in their transition out of Cardassian occupation. In this episode, the Bajoran government has decided to convert one of its moons into a power plant, which will wipe out arable land and its agricultural resources, making it completely uninhabitable.
Most of its population has evacuated, but one elderly farmer is refusing to leave. Major Kira, the first officer of the station and a Bajoran herself, must convince the farmer to relocate, but she finds herself conflicted between her loyalty to her people and her empathy for the farmer’s attachment to his land. Ultimately, the episode illustrates how the exploitation of natural resources often comes at the expense of those who are least able to fight back. This parallels real-life circumstances in which indigenous peoples are displaced as their homelands are destroyed, highlighting the tragedy of such a situation.
In Voyager’s “Thirty Days,” Lieutenant Tom Paris defies Starfleet orders to stop a damaging environmental practice on a water-covered planet. The Moneans, the planet’s inhabitants, have been extracting oxygen in a way that is slowly destroying their ecosystem.
However, most of them are unwilling to make the necessary changes to save their planet, save for a select few. They ask for Voyager’s help, but since the Monean government objects, Starfleet protocol bars them from intervening.
Determined to help, Paris takes matters into his own hands, disabling an oxygen refinery to force the Moneans to reconsider their methods. This act of rebellion earns him a demotion and thirty days in the ship’s brig, a sentence reluctantly delivered by Captain Janeway, who agreed with his point of view but not his actions. This episode very poignantly highlights the frustration of being the only person passionate enough about the environment to take action. But despite the fact that his passion costs him his rank, Paris is proud of his actions, just as we, too, should not let any discouragements dampen our drive to save the planet.
The resource depletion theme continues in Star Trek: Discovery with the episode, “That Hope Is You, Part 1” which is set centuries in the future. The episode sees Burnham, now a commander, finding herself in a future reeling from the aftermath of a catastrophe known as the Burn. This disaster was caused by a galaxy-wide phenomenon that led to a mass explosion of dilithium, which powers the warp drives used in most Federation ships. As a result, the entire Federation collapsed, leaving Burnham and her crew as the one of the only remaining Starfleet vessels. This ecological collapse serves as an allegory for our own reliance on fossil fuels, showing how the depletion of one crucial resource could lead to societal collapse if alternative sources are not found. Renewable energy will never run out, as it is powered by the sun, the wind and the tides.
The Star Trek message is clear: without sustainable practices, we risk disaster.
What Has Trek Taught Us?
Star Trek has always chosen to boldly go where many shows fear to tread—into the heart of our planet’s biggest challenges. It’s been sharing timeless lessons with us about respecting non-human life forms, fighting off pollution, and not letting our energy appetites go full warp speed into disaster. It was never really about exploring strange new worlds, but instead about finding our moral compass.
If reading about these episodes has inspired you, consider taking action. Check out our theme for 2025: Our Power, Our Planet, a commitment to harnessing the power of renewable energy. Support our work by joining our mailing list, or help us plant trees with our Canopy Project. Plus, don’t forget to support Wikie and her son Keijo, the last two captive whales in France, by backing up William Shatner’s advocacy campaign HERE. It only takes two minutes to add your details and hit send.
Whatever you do, remember that planet Earth and all its life forms need whatever help you can contribute, so that we can all live long and prosper.
(Sources: Earthday.org)
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