Fifteen statements in times of pandemics, the Anthropocene [*]

Within geosciences, the label geoethics refers to a school of thought that uses established philosophical concepts to promote responsible professional practices. Initially, geoscientists developed geoethics as an intra-disciplinary field of applied philosophical studies during the last decade. Geoethics reaching beyond the sphere of professional geosciences led to professional, cultural, and philosophical approaches to handle the social-ecological structures of our planet 'wherever human activities interact with the Earth system'; hence, when making the Anthropocene.

1. Although initially designed for professional use, geoethics should support citizens' individual, professional and civic dealings. Nowadays, the technosphere is a vital feature of the contemporary Earth System (or 'human niche'). In these contexts, conceptual benchmarks for geoethical thinking are needed to address i) the operational limits of aspirational stipulations and ii) a stronger socio-political and socio-economic anchorage of geoethical thinking.

2. By delivering analytical insights and resources for affective sense-making, geoethics may enable human agents to mitigate the challenges to sense-making and practices that complex-adaptive social-ecological systems pose for them.

3. Combining insights into complex-adaptive dynamics, social-ecological systems, semiotic-cultural psychology, and geoethics lead to a conceptual perspective of how geoethical practices may evolve into a societal feature.

4. Contemporary humans operate a planetary technosphere to secure their daily living. Nowadays, the technosphere is part of the Earth System. That feature is at the origin of the Anthropocene.

5. Furthermore, citizens need insight into how the Earth System works to make informed decisions. Therefore, the societal responsibility of geoscientists is central because geoscientific expertise is crucial for making anthropogenic change occur.

6. Geoethics can offer citizens cultural baselines (analytical and affective) when facing the human niche's complex-adaptive (wicked) features, such as anthropogenic pressure or participatory governance.

7. Geoethics is not geoscience-specific when promoting to act agent-centric, virtue-ethics-focused, responsibility-focused, and [geoscience] knowledge-based. Therefore, geoethics may shape societal practices beyond geoscience.

8. Geosciences are more than mere techno-scientific disciplines. Geoscience expertise ties geosciences

and people's social lives. Geosciences are relevant for the societies' functioning, namely, to operate a technosphere at local, regional and planetary scales. Therefore, geoscience expertise includes a school of philosophical thinking called geoethics.

9. Geosciences facilitate the understanding of the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Geoethics supports the sense-making of human agents, such as geoscientists acting in a professional capacity.

10. Geoscientific knowledge is a corpus of insights about the functioning of the abiotic systems of planet Earth. It enables contemporary technologies and cultures; hence, it co-shapes the technosphere. Likewise, geoscience knowledge enables people to evaluate anthropogenic changes in societal contexts, even as mere consumers of resources.

11. Geoscientists help achieve anthropogenic change and make the change global. Therefore, they are (like) assistant terra-formers. Subsequently, geoscientists should assume the responsibility that comes with their role as agents of technology-driven change. That is the essence of [geo]ethics and being a citizen.

12. The experiences with the COVID-19 health pandemic provide a lens to situate geosciences/earth-sciences in contemporary societies. The pandemic illustrates the essence of any possible Anthropocene, namely, less a geological epoch than a 'future World'.

13. The 'human niche' is a network of complex-adaptive social-ecological systems, which humans conceive and build to sustain themselves. Human sense-making and practices are intrinsic and non-separable parts of the human niche. The feedback of human sense-making and human practices is iterative. The resulting feedback loop is pivotal for the dynamics of social-ecological systems.

14. The impacts of anthropogenic change do call for strengthening the socio-political and socio-economic anchorage of geoethical thinking. Then geoethics may have societal relevance beyond geosciences.

15. The political philosophies of Bunge, Jonas and Kohlberg about people's social lives (Kohlberg, 'hierarchy of societal coordination (moral adequacy)'; Bunge, 'balance of individual happiness (well-being); Jonas,' 'imperative of responsibility for agents of change') offer foundations for a 'geo-ethical logic', namely act with: agent-centricity, virtue-focus, responsible-focus, reproducible/scientific knowledge, all-agent-inclusiveness, and universal-rights-base.

[*] drawing on: Bohle, M. (2021). A geo-ethical logic for citizens and geoscientists. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 7, 85. doi:10.1007/s40899-021-00557-1; Bohle, M., and Marone, E. (2021). Geoethics, a Branding for Sustainable Practices. Sustainability 13, 895. doi:10.3390/su13020895; Bohle, M., and Marone, E. (2021). Geo-societal Narratives - Contextualsing Geosciences. , eds. M. Bohle and E. Marone Cham: Springer International Publishing doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79028-8; Bohle, M. (2021). ‘Citizen, Geoscientist and Associated Terra-former’, in Global Threats in the Anthropocene: From COVID-19 to the Future, eds. L. Mercantanti and S. Montes (Il Sileno Edizioni), 169–186.; Bohle, M., and Marone, E. (2021). ‘Why Geo-societal Narratives?’, in Geo-societal Narratives (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 1–16. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79028-8_1. ;Nagy, G. M., and Bohle, M. (2021). ‘Geo-scientific Culture and Geoethics’, in Geo-societal Narratives (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 191–199. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79028-8_14.

Managed Retreat - or What?

 

This essay relates features of the Covid-19 health pandemic [1] to impacts of anthropogenic global change, which societies must manage within the next century [2, 3]. As an illustration, the essay discusses the retreat from ocean shorelines because of the global sea-level rise. Mutual learning may be helpful, so the conclusion of this essay.

 Introduction & Context

Industrialised production, global supply chains, and globalised societies require geoscience knowledge to function. 

Applying geosciences involves decision making with high economic, environmental, and social costs, benefits, and risks. Therefore, professional geoscientists often face circumstances like systemic uncertainty, context-dependency, path-dependency, differentials of power, or conflicting values. These features of socio-ecological systems emerge through profound intersections of natural and social realms impacting professional dealings. Therefore, geoscientists have a genuine praxis of responsible practices, although pertinent philosophical reflections within geosciences consolidated only recently.

The philosophical school ‘geoethics’ evolved within geosciences in the last decades, emphasising the importance of the intersection of both natural and social realms wherever humans interact with the Earth System. The Covid-19 health pandemic is an example of such an intersection. Therefore, it can serve as a lesson, example and test case.  

On the other side of the coin, a specific impact of climate change is forced retreat (migration) from ocean shorelines. The underpinning threat, the century-long rise of the global sea level, is scientifically evident, difficult to mitigate operationally, communicated through media, internalised through insight; and societal response requires lasting and massive cooperation.

 Governing the retreat from ocean shorelines because of rising sea levels due to global warming is one of the 21st and 22nd centuries' challenges to make a ‘good’ Anthropocene.

 

Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Any pandemic is a social-ecological system. Such systems exhibit complex-adaptive dynamics, including the emergence of counter-intuitive system behaviour. The profound challenges of the Covid-19 health pandemic arise because the economic and engineering prowess of developed societies combines tightly natural processes and cultural practices. That feature is genuine to any anthropogenic global change (e.g. global warming).

The features of the Covid-19 pandemic embed an experience of uncertainty, which is: (1) systemic, because of the complex-adaptive dynamics of the pandemic; (2) operational because action plans were missing; (3) perceptual, because any individual might fall ill seriously or, more likely, not; and (4) cognitive because many people have neither tangible experience (of the illness) nor understand the counter-intuitive dynamics of the pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic ruptured societal practices. For many in affluent societies, it is a unique collective experience of challenges to the preferred style of daily life and the perceptions of the likely personal future. The pandemic showed the (un)preparedness of contemporary societies to handle emergencies that cascade into their respective jurisdiction. It may be a cultural defect of contemporary (western) societies to expect a (governmental) plan. However, reacting in a context-depending learning-by-doing mode may be more appropriate because complex-adaptive dynamics of social-ecological systems require such heuristic strategies. 

Hence, the following question: what (ethically sound) principles may render heuristic strategies effective and efficient?

 

Sketching geoethics

Topical studies of the professional obligations of geoscientists led to an aspirational ethical concept called ‘geoethics’ [4]. Broadening this discipline-specific example of ‘responsible science’ lead to a philosophical framework of the societal contexts of the geosciences. Initially, geoethics scholars only envisioned professional applications. However, considering global anthropogenic change shows geoethics also is about proper governance. By design, geoethics is an instrument of empowerment to seek context-dependent solutions.

Six tenets describe geoethical practices [1, 5]: 

• agent-centricity, 
• virtue-focus, 
• responsibility-focus, 
• [scientific] knowledge-base, 
• all-actor inclusiveness, and 
• universal-rights base.

These tenets offer a method, so the implicite claim of geoethical thinking, to reach a balanced decision and guide learning and acting when facing, for example, systemic uncertainty, which in turn suggests the search for effective and efficient heuristic strategies when learning-by-doing is the only option. In its current form, geoethics is less normative than the notion geoethics may indicate; instead, it promotes ‘practical wisdom’ (phronesis). Hence, geoethical thinking might be helpful in the Covid-19 health pandemic and, alternatively, lessons from the Covid-19 health pandemic may inform geoethical practices. 

Example: Managed Retreat

Climate change will cause increased flooding of densely populated and highly productive urban and rural coastal zones. Significant regional differences and major local uncertainties will characterise the unfolding of the global phenomenon. Initially, the flooding (and forced migration) will be local.

 

For many, "retreat" will be a media-reported experience before understanding emerges that a coordinated response is required. A stepwise relocation of the population and infrastructures at a regional scale to higher grounds (behind a new line of shore defences) is needed with a hundred-year planning horizon. This process will involve many uncertainties, will be recurrent, and no unique strategy will be available.

Local retreat for example, from the shorelines of the North Sea because of high sea level, which is expected to exceed the threshold for safe shore defences in the early 22nd Century, would be a historical novum. So far, the lasting cultural response has been to rebuild settlements, protect them, and reclaim land from the sea. On the other side of the world, the options are not the same, for example in the Vanuatu archipelago (0.9 metres above sea level). Also, other island countries are at risk of being a vanishing nation, and their citizens risk Climatic Statelessness‘ refugees status [4].

    Conclusions

Retreating instead of reclaiming, hence, doing things differently will be a tremendous cultural, social, and economic challenge. Therefore, to learn from any experience - a health pandemic included -  to support [geo]ethically and scientifically sound endeavours.

1.         Marone E, Bohle M (2020) Geoethics for Nudging Human Practices in Times of Pandemics. Sustainability 12:7271. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187271

2.        Kulp SA, Strauss BH (2019) New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding. Nat Commun 10:4844. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12808-z

3.        Piguet E (2019) Climatic Statelessness: Risk Assessment and Policy Options. Popul Dev Rev 45:865–883. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12295

4.        Bohle M, Preiser R, Di Capua G, et al (2019) Exploring Geoethics - Ethical Implications, Societal Contexts, and Professional Obligations of the Geosciences. Springer International Publishing, Cham

5.        Bohle, M., and Marone, E. (2021). Geoethics, a Branding for Sustainable Practices. Sustainability 13, 895. doi:10.3390/su13020895.

A story of making

“Geo-societal Narratives - contextualising Geosciences.”

The drafting of the book “Geo-societal Narratives - contextualising Geosciences” [1] was a unique experience: The group of authors was assembled in late 2019 by correspondence. The outlay of the book was agreed upon in early 2020 by correspondence. The book was drafted by correspondence. No meetings, not even by video! Although the book's essays relate little to the COVID-19 pandemic, the turmoil of 2020/2021 facilitated the cooperation because it called for cooperation (Marone and Bohle, 2020). This experience recalls what in the past was named ‘Republic of Letters’ (Mokyr, 2016).

What made this book possible?

All co-authors cooperated, although they never met face-to-face, and most did never meet in the past. The co-authors' scientific networks were segregated from each other before the publication project. More than half of their connections went through the editors' weak links on (scientific) social media platforms. A simple analysis of past cooperation indicates less than two bilateral links between authors. The number drops below one when the editors are excluded from the analysis.

Hence, the willingness of all co-authors to cooperate with unknown peers as well as the trust of the publisher’s editors in this untested partnership was paramount for the making of the book.

 

What is the didactic idea of this book?

So far, geoscientists have engaged with the implications of 'responsible science' on their own. However, studying the societal relevance of geosciences requires the interaction of earth-sciences / geosciences and people-sciences, that is, the social sciences, political sciences, and humanities. Therefore, this book gathers scholars from the people-sciences to join geoscientists in studying geosciences' societal contexts. In that sense, this book offers an antithesis to simplistic views of societal geo-dynamics.

 

What is the background to this book?

Contemporary societies use geosciences know-how in business, public undertakings, and cultural activities (Bohle, 2021). In times of anthropogenic global change, geoscience expertise shall enable people to take care of seven-billion-plus fellow humans. Therefore, geoscience expertise needs a comprehensive understanding of the social and political facets of the 'human condition' (Hamilton, 2017), a ‘human planet’ (Lewis and Maslin, 2018).

So far, and like scientists from other disciplines, professional geoscientists have engaged with the concept of 'responsible science' (United Nations, 2013). This book is a cross-disciplinary exchange of narratives of various philosophical, applied, or political subjects to strengthen interdisciplinary inquiry.

 

What is this book about?

This book initiates a direct exchange between scholars in 'Earth sciences'  (geosciences) and 'People sciences'  (Castree, 2017) in the spirit^[2] of the philosopher and physicists Mario Bunge (1919-2020) and his imperative 'Enjoy life and help live'. Mario Bunge is inspiring because he taught the rebellious character of philosophy that it must be linked with the best of up-to-date science, be happy to give society something in exchange for the education getting, be tolerant regarding all authentic philosophies and rational debates among them. This book applies that philosophy is about engineering thinking, hence 'A philosophy without ontology is invertebrate; it is acephalous without epistemology, confused without semantics, and limbless without axiology, praxeology, and ethics. ^[3]'

 

What is the methodology of this book?

The editors created an environment to extract novel ideas. They gathered a diverse group of authors who, so far, did not cooperate. Ideas and opinions are juxtaposed, e.g. how to approach anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene. As sketched in the first chapter (Bohle and Marone, 2021), the emphasis was on breaking new ground in a common quest for ‘societal geosciences’.

 

References:

Bohle, M. (2021). ‘Citizen, Geoscientist and Associated Terra-former’, in Global Threats in the Anthropocene: From COVID-19 to the Future, eds. L. Mercantanti and S. Montes (Il Sileno Edizioni), 169–186.

Bohle, M., and Marone, E. (2021). ‘Why Geo-societal Narratives?’, in Geo-societal Narratives (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 1–16. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79028-8_1.

Castree, N. (2017). Speaking for the ‘people disciplines’: Global change science and its human dimensions. Anthr. Rev. 4, 160–182. doi:10.1177/2053019617734249.

Lewis, S. L., and Maslin, M. A. (2018). The Human Planet - How We Created the Anthropocene. London: Penguin Random House.

Marone, E., and Bohle, M. (2020). Geoethics for Nudging Human Practices in Times of Pandemics. Sustainability 12, 7271. doi:10.3390/su12187271.

Mokyr, J. (2016). Institutions and the Origins of the Great Enrichment. Atl. Econ. J. 44, 243–259. doi:10.1007/s11293-016-9496-4.

United Nations (2013). World Social Science Report 2013. , ed. UNESCO OECD Publishing doi:10.1787/9789264203419-en.

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[1] https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030790271

[2] https://a-g-i-l.de/mario-bunge-the-big-questions-come-in-bundles-not-one-at-time/ (accessed 23rd February 2021).

[3] Bunge, M. (2016) Between Two Worlds: Memoirs of a Philosopher-Scientist. Springer Biographies, Springer, 496 p. (p 406).