44 Beyond Sustainability: The Anthropocene as a Paradigm for Thinking about Earth across Disciplines

Tuesday, 19 March 2019
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Rhode Island Room

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN GEOSCIENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: A SPECULATION FOR REFLECTION

Paper number: 44-4
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 9:00 AM – 9:20 AM

Authors

Abstract

In the first half of the 21st century it is very likely that climate change will continue to be driven by human activities. Global economic and political constraints preclude the quick building out of sufficient renewable energy to provide baseline power for, at least, massive urban cities containing most of the world’s population. In turn, large regional environmental disruptions in the United States likely will be exacerbated and our may have to spend substantive resources to rebuild and develop new infrastructure--but with no clear vision of how much money will be needed or from where it will come.

Under this scenario, it is plausible that the National Science Foundation and other Federal funding arms could move traditional support for curiosity-based science to multiple “Manhattan” style multidisciplinary projects designed to generate, protect, and move large amounts of potable water; buttress and otherwise protect coastal areas from seawater intrusion and flooding, and redesign forestry and agricultural practices to adapt to extreme climate fluctuations.

The mere existence of interesting and even fundamental curiosity-driven problems in the geosciences may no longer guarantee federal research dollars to explore them. Therefore, to obtain federal funding, geoscientists may have to develop publicly compelling arguments why to do the research in light of fiscal pressures to address serious environmental stresses, and increasing demand to obtain domestic sources for rare elements needed for strategic energy and critical electronics.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019NE-325995

© Copyright 2019 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.