Meeting the resource needs of future generations is one of the greatest challenges facing global society – one in which geoscientists and engineers have a vital role to play. Adequate supplies of energy, minerals, safe food and water must be maintained, and health and education assured for all; moreover, developing countries rightly expect to achieve similar growth in their citizens’ standards of living as those experienced by developed economies in the 20th Century. These aspirations, and the industrial development which underpins them, will create unprecedented global demand for energy and natural resources, including clean technologies such as battery powered vehicles, with corresponding impacts on both the environment and the social dynamics of societies. The scientific and technical skills of geoscientists and engineers are essential to address the complex challenges of sustainably meeting our ‘georesource’ needs. Their decisions and activities have significant (geo)ethical, environmental and social implications dealing as they do with reconciling human and economic development with environmental protection, along with safeguarding the social and economic interests of future generations. Geoethics is the research and reflection on the values which underpin appropriate behaviours and practices, wherever human activities interact with the Earth system. Geoethics provides a framework from which to define ethical professional behaviours in both geosciences and engineering, and to determine how these should be put into practice. During the past decades, an impressive body of knowledge in ethics, environment and social responsibility has been developed. This session will address how to incorporate this body of knowledge into the general education of geoscientists and engineers in order to better prepare them to face the issues, and to develop much-needed leadership in this area.
The conveners will invite authors to submit papers on practical and theoretical aspects of geoethics, and environmental and social responsibility, as described above, and on real examples via case studies. Papers will specifically address how these perspectives can be brought to bear on the challenges of sustainably meeting future demand for georesources, including energy, groundwater and mineral commodities.