M.A. Komarov, G.S. Gold

VIEMS, Moscow, Russia

 

Geoethics and its Development in Time.

Substantial Changes in its Contents

 

In the course of the last ten years the phenomenon of geoethics – the scientific trend, put forward by Dr. Václav Němec (the Czech Republic) – has been generally recognized, widely spread and is gradually acquiring new vectors. In that period the CIS scientists marched from the participation in systematically held sessions in the framework of the "Mining Příbram Symposia" (1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 1999) to the conferences in Kaluga (VIEMS), Moscow (Moscow State Geological Academy – MSGA in 1997, 1999 and 2001) and elsewhere to the active participation in the sessions of the 30-th and 31-st International Geological Congresses (IGC).

 

If at the Beijing IGC (1996) geoethics was presented at the Section on Geoethics and Education, then at the Rio IGC the Section on Geoethics as an independent scientific discipline began its work for the first time in the history of the Congresses. In Rio-de-Janeiro also another benchmark event took place – for the very first time data on geoethics and information on activities of the specialized Section on Geoethics appeared in the official newspaper of the Congress, which is a weighty sign of attention to this new trend of knowledge in earth sciences.

 

It is important to note that at the 31-st IGC the complex of social disciplines connected to more or less degree to geoethics drew much attention. As for the future, 8 out of 17 most important (from the IUGS point of view) trends of prospective development of geosciences were dedicated to the social problems.

 

The extremely wide spectrum of topics of geoethics reports should be noteworthy – from solution of local problems at individual pits to works on the principles of philosophic perception of the world by Ph.D. Gur (the Ukraine). The broad variety of topics of delivered reports has both positive and negative moments. On the one hand, unlimited freedom of choosing topics of reports attracts significant number of professionals from different spheres of geosciences and applied activities. On the other hand, the level of their aspiration towards concentration of efforts to solve the most acute tasks of the Present and Future on the basis of the geoethical approaches is decreasing. These approaches currently can be actively demanded by the society only in case of their specific use in solving or at least developing efficient approaches to solve the most acute and urgent problems of our society - environmental and moral protection, provision of current and future generations with mineral, water and other most important and vital resources.

 

By the way, choosing such trends, their ranging and its verification – all of them are rather complicated questions, which by no means should be broadly discussed. We believe that drawing-out of answers to these questions and conducting of a special symposium to organize their wide discussion is one of the most important and primordial tasks at the current stage of geoethics development.

 

We hope that solving such a task and, furthermore, developing approaches to solve such problems could be a rather important contribution for increasing the feedback for a further research in geoethics.

 

Here are some principal notes concerning the direct participation of the Moscow CIS Committee on Geoethics within the frames of the international section on Geoethics at the Mining Příbram Symposia as well as in other geoethical activities since 1996.

 

Actually the formerly elected Moscow Committee has been working without cessation. In fact, in all these years the Committee members have taken part in 6 specialized symposia or seminars on geoethics as well as in sections of geoethics at the last two IGC sessions, to say the least. The Committee members always took part in organization of the above-mentioned meetings to a certain degree.

 

The participation of Ruslan I. Volkov in the symposia vivified their work significantly and activated the discussion of reports and problems in general. Our Ukrainian colleague Vadim V. Babayev took active part in symposia on geoethics.

 

 

 

The activity of participators at geoethics meetings increased in time. If at the 30-th IGC session the Committee member made only one report on geoethics, then at the 31-st IGC session two reports were made on behalf of the Committee.

 

For the first time in the history of IGC sessions the Committee has conducted the sociological research on revealing the opinions of geologists on geoethics problems. The results of this research have been published.

 

The specific features of information activities in the field of geoethics should also be noteworthy. Abstracts on geoethics in MSGA volumes appear on one page only; in the Mining Příbram proceedings they account for 1-5(6) pages, although such volume is not enough even for initial disclosure of the contents of publications. Accordingly, it is important to go on publishing abstracts and to pass to publications that disclose the contents broader than abstracts. In the light of this, the Committee members G.S. Gold and M.A. Komarov published the generalized problem-raising article called "Geoethics and Current Terms of Subsoil Use" in the Russian "Mineral Resources of Russia" magazine (N6, 1997).

 

Data on geoethics are presented in the monograph "Mineral Raw Material Resources – Social Challenge of Time" written by G.S. Gold (Moscow, "Profsoyuzy i Economica" Publishing House, 2001).

 

Thus, in a number of positions in geoethics development, we have reached the qualitatively new level, which is generalization of obtained data, experimental research, conceptual raise of problems, etc.

 

We may suppose that at the new stage of geoethics development in 2001-2004 on the basis of created developments and new ideas, which will be mutually enriched during international cross-cultural and interdisciplinary comparison, we'll manage to advance contents, instruments and methodology of social, social-and-economic and adjacent disciplines.

 

 

Ahead of us there are the tasks of improvement in sharing of experience and further development of geoethics as a large independent scientific trend. In particular, these tasks include transition from report abstracts to geoethics articles in professional magazines and parts of books on social problems in the mineral raw material sphere, etc. It is the high time to accumulate data for preparation and publication of monographs.

 

We believe that despite indisputable significance of many geoethical problems, the centre of attention in geoethics development should be shifted towards applied works of geoethical character, which are of high public sounding. First of all, we mean the elaboration of resources concepts, programs, laws, projects, scenarios of long-term development of external economic raw material policy, joint production of mineral raw materials, carrying out of resource and complex expert evaluations, etc.

 

In general, it should be noted that terms used in estimation of attitude towards geoethics have been changing from "rather interesting" to "very useful".

 

Finally, we dare suppose that improvement of applied aspects of geoethics with the focus on the largest and socially most important geoethical problems should be advisable. In view of this, the discussion (in the course of the work) and ranging of the top priority trends of geoethics research based on the peculiarities of development of mineral raw material complexes of the appropriate countries should become the most urgent task.