Why I study Earth sciences

Edoardo Borgomeo

South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London, London, UK

ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, 55, 3, 2012; doi: 10.4401/ag-5635

ABSTRACT

I present here the reasons why I chose to pursue a University degree inEarth sciences. Although this topic might at first seem unrelated togeoethics, it is somehow connected to it. I will show how my decisionto study Earth sciences was influenced by geoethical considerations,even though I did not consider them as such when I made my decision.My choice is explained using four representative words: ‘wonder’,‘environment’, ‘system’ and ‘Anthropocene’. The idea of Anthropoceneis discussed in detail because of its relevance to geoethics.

1. IntroductionThe reasons that led me to choose a University de-

gree in Earth sciences can be briefly explained with fourrepresentative words: ‘wonder’, ‘environment’, ‘system’and ‘Anthropocene’.

The first word is ‘wonder’. This is perhaps the mostcommon motivation among Earth sciences students, and itis linked to the fascination that humans feel for natural phe-nomena, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and otherrepresentations of the natural world, of mountains oroceans. In my personal experience, the Dolomites (Figure1) were the place where this wonder first materialized.

The second word is ‘environment’. This is a vagueword, often used to mean many different things. Initially, Iwas interested in environmental issues in a very generic way,and I read about climate change, air pollution, and naturalhazards. The more I read about the environment, the moreI realized that Earth sciences are the factor common to allenvironmental problems. The word environment was fun-damental in shaping my decision, because it focused my at-tention on the Earth sciences as a way of understandingenvironmental problems.

The third word is ‘system’, and this mainly refers to thegeneral research method of Earth sciences (i.e. from rockto processes). Once I became interested in Earth sciencesand environmental problems, I started to find out moreabout the activities and methods of geoscientists. Above all,the methods fascinated me, because geoscientists alwaystry to group observations together to provide a general,

comprehensive explanation of natural phenomena. I startedto appreciate the skill that geoscientists have: starting fromsimple analytical observations (e.g. looking at a rock spec-imen), they can provide an explanation for the rock for-mation and its geological history, and they can thenintegrate various pieces of evidence to construct a generaltheory to explain the Earth as a system.

The fourth word, ‘Anthropocene’, deserves a slightlylonger explanation.

2. The AnthropoceneThe International Commission on Stratigraphy has

recently created a new working group whose task is tosolve a rather unusual problem: the stratigraphic signifi-cance of the Anthropocene [Zalasiewicz et al. 2008]. Theterm ‘Anthropocene’ was first proposed in 2002 by thechemist Paul Crutzen to describe a new geological epochdenoted and characterized by human activity [Crutzen2002]. The possibility of a geological epoch, or even ofan era dominated by human activities, had already beenhypothesized in the late 19th century by Antonio Stop-pani [1873], an Italian geologist, who defined an ‘Anthro-pozoic Era’, which began when humans entered thehistory of the Earth for the first time. In Stoppani’s timethese ideas were criticized by the geological community[Zalasiewicz et al. 2010], because it appeared nonsensicalto even compare human history to the limitlessness ofgeological time. In recent years, the reality of climatechange and of the major changes that human activitiesare imposing on our Planet has raised new interest in theAnthropocene (Figure 2).

3. Geoethics and the implications of the AnthropoceneThe increasing awareness and interest in the Anthro-

pocene in the geological community is only partly due tothe stratigraphic debate on where to place the Holocene–Anthropocene boundary. Regardless of the terminologyused, the concept of the Anthropocene interests geolo-gists, and the public in general, as a metaphor of global en-

Article historyReceived December 20, 2011; accepted March 3, 2012.Subject classification:Anthropocene, Geoengineering, Student, Environmental change.

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vironmental change. It is a perfect metaphor to representthe present time in which the history of the planet and thehistory of humankind have become intertwined. Naturalprocesses and forces have always influenced human his-tory to an extent, but the reverse had never taken place,until now: human processes can now operate at the samescale as natural processes. As Zalasiewicz et al. [2010] re-marked, the fate of one depends on the fate of the other.

For centuries, geology was a science that was neverconcerned with human activities; however, now, in theAnthropocene, geologists are starting to recognize the im-portance of humankind as a primary geological factor. Itis now known that humans are changing the Earth climatesystem. However, it is not just the climate system that isbeing affected by humanactivities: there are manyother changes induced byhuman activities that arehappening on a global scale.For instance, the changes inthe nitrogen cycle, or theobserved increases in therate of extinction of biolog-ical species. Geology needsto change to a science thatis capable of modeling anddescribing the interactionsbetween natural forces andhuman drivers. The Anthropocene requires a change inperspective, or what Kant would have called a “Coperni-can Revolution”: anthropogenic drivers need to be con-sidered as endogenous to the Earth system.

In the Anthropocene,scientists in general, and ge-ologists in particular, willneed to study and under-stand how the Earth systemfunctions, and also howhuman activities fit into thissystem. In this scenario,geoethics will be an essen-tial tool in the geologist’stoolbox, aiding the inter-pretation of human activi-ties, and also, and perhapsmore importantly, guidingthe geologists in the com-munication of their resultsto the wider public in an ac-cessible, yet scientific, way.

It is the very real exis-tence of the Anthropoceneproblem that makes geoethics

relevant nowadays, because it is during the Anthropocenethat humans have for the first time become able to changegeological environments on a planetary scale. Bioethicalissues really became relevant with the advent of techno-logical advances that made humans capable of consciouslychanging the basic conditions of biology. In the Anthro-pocene the problem appears to be similar: technology hasput humankind in a position where it can consciously de-termine the fate of its environment and its components. Ifit is ‘up to us’, then decisions on, for instance, carbon emis-sions reduction or land use, which can have global effects,need to be weighted up according to geoethical principles;i.e. principles that consider the application of new tech-nologies and policies from a geological point of view.

In the Anthropocenehumankind is ‘in the dri-ver’s seat’, able to intention-ally and consciously changethe Earth climate and envi-ronment. Some have sug-gested taking this evenfurther, by developing anew science, geoengineer-ing (Figure 3), where theoverarching aim would bethe engineering of thecomponents of the Earthsystem to reduce the green-

house effect. This type of science and research cannot over-look ethical considerations. Again, to force the comparisonwith bioethics, it can be said that geoengineering is a cure,a treatment for the sick planet, the Earth. As bioethics is

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Figure 1. Mount Antelao in the Dolomites, as seen from the town of S. Vito di Cadore (from Wikipedia).Bottom left: Figure 2. May 2011 cover of The Economist, showing the increasing attention that the public ispaying to the Anthropocene. The involvement of public opinion provides an important contribution to thedebate, although sometimes it can obscure or twist the scientific evidence. Bottom right: Figure 3. Front coverof the 2009 Royal Society Report on ‘Geoengineering the Climate’.

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concerned with the morality of the technological innova-tions applied to medical treatments, so geoethics is con-cerned with the morality of technologies, and more ingeneral, of human activities that have a planetary impact.

4. ConclusionsMy decision to study Earth sciences was influenced

by geoethics, although I did not consider my motivationsas geoethical at the time. These geoethical considerationsdid not come from any ‘environmentalist’ ‘save-the-World’commitment, but rather from a more realistic and selfishview of the world, that takes the management and protec-tion of the Earth as a commitment to protect and perpetu-ate humanity. For any Earth scientists who want to thinkabout the ethical implications of Earth sciences, it is perhapsa useful and interesting exercise to go back to their earlyyears and reflect on the reasons that led them to choosethis area of science. By doing so, many Earth scientists willperhaps find that part of their motivation was indeedgeoethical. Indeed, the discussion on geoethics needs to startfrom the personal experience of each geologist.

ReferencesCrutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind, Nature, 415, 23.Stoppani, A. (1873). Corso di Geologia, vol. II, G. Bernar-

doni and E.G. Brigola (eds.), Milan.Zalasiewicz, J., M. Williams, A. Smith, T.L. Barry, P.R.

Bown, P. Rawson, P. Brenchley, D. Cantrill, A.E. Coe, A.Gale, P.L. Gibbard, F. J. Gregory, M. Hounslow, A. Kerr,P. Pearson, R. Knox, P. Powell, C. Waters, J. Marshall,M. Oates, P. Rawson and P. Stone (2008). Are we nowliving in the Anthropocene?, GSA Today, 18 (2), 4-8.

Zalasiewicz, J., M. Williams, W. Steffen and P. J. Crutzen(2010). The new world of the Anthropocene, Envi-ronm. Sci. Technol., 44, 2228-2231.

Corresponding author: Edoardo Borgomeo,South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London, London, UK;email: edoardo.borgomeo08@imperial.ac.uk.

© 2012 by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. Allrights reserved.

WHY I STUDY EARTH SCIENCES