Chapter 15 - Geoscience–society interface: How to improve dialog and build actions for the benefit of human communities

Abstract

The role and opportunity for Geoethics to positively impact our planet and humankind have never been more important. The urgency to address global climate change impacts and its growing calls for intervention and mitigation strategies beyond carbon emission reduction are now stronger than ever, with aggressive research underway for solar radiation management and carbon dioxide reduction technologies to be prepared for potential large-scale deployment consideration. Also, technological advancements around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities are rapidly increasingly—impacting and influencing the way we do science, including the geosciences—but with current limited ethical guidance. At the same time, there is increased societal consciousness and awareness of impacts and past approaches where full communities are directly ignored and harmed by the consequences of the science and technology we practice and implement with minor attention to moral or ethical consequences. The above three examples provide case studies on the need and call for ethical frameworks to address highly important geoscience-related issues with critical human impacts. This chapter will explore the above three areas—Climate Intervention, Machine Learning and AI, and Environmental Justice—from a case-study point of view. Moreover, it provides background, details, and supporting data on actions that are being facilitated cross the geosciences by American Geophysical Union (AGU), to assure ethical frameworks are in place—including challenges, progress, and lessons learned.