PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND PRACTICES - COLUMN 177


Topical Index-Table of Contents to the Professional Ethics and Practices Columns


A topically based Index-Table of Contents, “pe&p index.xls” cov ering columns, articles, and letters to the editor that have been referred to in the PE&P columns in Excel format is on the AIPG web site in the Ethics section. This Index-Table of Contents is updated as each issue of the TPG is published. You can use it to find those items addressing a particular area of concern. Suggestions for improvements should be sent to David Abbott, dmageol@msn.com


Compiled by David M. Abbott, Jr., CPG-04570 5055 Tamarac Street, Denver, CO 80238 303-394-0321, dmageol@msn.com


The role of geoscientists in a changing climate


The “Geological Society of London Scientific Statement: what the geologi- cal record tells us about our present and future climate” was issued on December 28, 2020, and published in the Journal of the Geological Society (https://doi. org/10.1144/jgs2020-239, open source). This 16-author paper provides a com- prehensive review of climate changes over the Earth’s history and the various factors influencing climate change from the longest-term change, the increasing brilliance of the Sun, to the shortest- term change, the Chicxulub impact that caused the extinction of non-bird-like dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The geologic record demonstrates that atmo-


spheric concentration of CO2 drives cli- mate change and provides multiple lines of evidence that human activities are altering the Earth’s climate. “In short,


whilst atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied dramatically during the geological past due to natural processes, and have often been higher than today,


the current rate of CO2 (and therefore temperature) change is unprecedented in almost the entire geological past.” The GSL’s statement ends by describing 8 roles for geoscientists in dealing with the impacts of climate change. These roles are:1


1. Geoscientists study the soil from which we grow crops, the aqui- fers from which we extract water, and the resources from which we obtain energy and minerals. We study the risks associated with living on a dynamic planet.


2. One of the geoscience commu- nity’s most important contri- butions to the decarbonization necessary to deal with the cli- mate emergency will be to discov-


3.


er the mineral resources needed to power post-fossil-fuel energy systems.


Large-scale investment in renewable energy and improved electricity and heat storage will require new resources of critical metals and raw materials from the Earth’s crust.


4. Geoscientists have the vital skills needed to assess the dis- tribution, concentration (grade) and sustainable extractability of the critical natural resources needed for decarbonization.


5. Other sources of energy, from nuclear to deep geothermal, both of which could be critical for the decarbonization, require geosci- entific expertise, which is also indispensable for carbon capture and sequestration.


6. Natural resource extraction and processing itself is a major con- tributor to greenhouse gas emis- sions (IRP 2019). There is a key role for geoscientists in making the discovery and extraction of these resources as efficient as possible in order to mitigate global warming.


7. Although we cannot and should not address these challenges alone, we are well placed to ensure they are framed criti- cally and robustly, recognizing the opportunities and limita- tions afforded by the planet on which we live.


8. Geoscientists will play an increasingly important role in the transition to a low carbon, green economy, which is neces- sary to prevent a worsening of the climate emergency.


It is clear that geoscientists will continue to have important tasks in the future. The geoscience specialties required differ to greater and lesser degrees from current specialties but those of us with two decades plus of expe- rience can assure our younger colleagues that the need to adjust or change one’s geoscience specialty is nothing new. Such specialty changes are a regular part of geoscience professional practice. If you have a solid, thorough geoscience background and willingness to change, you’ll do fine.


James Howard’s, CPG-2536, “The Geosciences in Modern Society” in this TPG addresses this topic from a differ- ent perspective. Howard notes that, ‘The traditional areas of petroleum explora- tion and resource mining have been the target of numerous organizations who view those activities as basically destructive elements that potentially threaten the future of the earth itself.” The International Association for the Promotion of Geoethics (IAPG) reflects this negative attitude toward the extrac- tive industries in the membership of its over 20 associated societies that include internationally known societies as AEG, AGI, AGU, EFG, GSA, and the GSL. Conspicuously absent from this list are AAPG, AusIMM, CIM, IMM, SEconG, SME, SAIMM—the major international extractive professional societies.2 As Bohle and DiCapua note, “The recent development of the concept ‘geoethics’ is a response by geoscientists to shape deeper engagement with their profes- sional responsibilities and the wider societal relevance of geosciences. This introductory chapter outlines the devel- opment of geoethics to date, as a ‘virtue ethics’ focusing primarily on the role of the geoscientist, describes its meaning and function in relation to neighbor- ing fields and explores how to situate geoethics in relation to a wider range


1. The text of these roles has be reformatted and edited slightly from the original; while not an exact quotation, they are close to a quota- tion.


2. “IMM” is an abbreviation for “Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.” The groups are Australasian, Canadian, British, and South African. www.aipg.org Apr.May.Jun 2021 • TPG 35


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