Václav NĚMEC

Prague, Czech Republic

NEW INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGES FOR GEOETHICS

Mineral Resources as Ethical Category

Deposits of mineral resources (raw materials) are usually defined as economically significant accumulations of raw materials (elements, chemical compounds, rocks) that are otherwise dispersed in the Earth crust (geosphere) in inexploitable quantities. Obviously the term "deposit" expresses also the already existing or at least potential exploitability. Therefore the deposits can be classified not only as a natural or technical but also as an economic category.

Relatively recent environmental problems with a rapid decrease of the environment quality caused by exploitation impacts have already brought some new aspects to the previous purely economic calculations of the potential exploitation and use of deposits. The exploitation costs have to cover also payments for the needed environmental protection, for all possible temporary or perennial damages caused by any inappropriate exploitation process, for revitalisation of the landscape in the post-exploitation period etc. In other words: ecology and efforts to achieve an environmental sustainability have started to introduce into the deposit definition a new ethical dimension.

The non-renewability of mineral resources should avoid any exploitation process completely neglecting the problem how to save the needed mineral wealth for future generations. Thus new ethical points of view are to be introduced into the concept of mineral deposits that should be more and more considered as the ethical category.

The exploitation process - when exclusively oriented only to the most lucrative part and not to the complete deposit - leads to the destruction of deposit. A new economic problem should be solved and incorporated into any decision-making process: how to express economic losses caused by such an unethical process of exploitation. This is just a new field respecting ethical category and a challenge for the further development of geoethics, for appropriate changes in the mining laws and for correct economic calculations concerning the deposits exploitability.

Impact of Globalisation Processes

The actual process of globalization brings also new problems for geoethics. In the highly developed countries the exploitation of mineral resources with serious influences on the environment is minimised or even stopped at the own territory but transferred to and developed abroad in the less developed countries. This tendency to shift mostly environmental problems abroad can be presented as a lack of global solidarity.

Nowadays the necessity to solve actual geoethical problems seems to be far more pressing in the countries of the former "Eastern block" and in other developing countries than in the highly economically developed countries. Therefore it is not surprising that the representatives from these "Eastern" countries are much more interested for the new discipline of geoethics than their colleagues from the traditional "West".

When discussing problems of economic, social and political transformation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe we have to take into mind that the final goal of this transformation - represented (if simplified) by achieving a standard situation in the countries of the European Union - is a continuing stream of (may be slower) changes in the EU standards. Any transformation process anywhere in the world is "on the march". New problems appear and need to be taken into serious consideration as new priorities. The optimal trajectory of any transformation process is to be found only with respect to trajectories of other continually occurring and interrelated transformation processes. A convergence of transformation processes in the present extent of the European Union and in the countries of the "Eastern block" is really needed.

The business ethics as developed in the present EU countries (and elsewhere in highly developed countries) is also influenced by the processes in the countries of the "Eastern block". E.g. some EU (and other) enterprises abandon their good ethical standards (achieved at the original territory of their activities) when starting and developing activities in the countries of the former "Eastern block" and in the Third World. Some new fields of applied ethics may appear at first in the "Eastern" countries and they can be accepted elsewhere in a narrow converging co-operation. Geoethics can serve as an example of this phenomenon.

Usually problems of ecological ethics are taken as priority. But the rights of future generations anywhere in the world for the access to needed mineral resources should be taken into consideration and protected. The limited mineral potential of our planet represents the same danger (perhaps in a far distant time horizon) for the sustainability of life as a possible ecological catastrophe. The actual process of globalization brings new problems for geoethics.

Geoethical Aspects of Recent Floods

Another example of a possible immediate international co-operation of Earth scientists is connected with the recent floods in Central Europe and elsewhere. They have commemorated a great potential danger for both actual and future generations of population. (The heritage of the past generations is involved into the problem as well when considering exposure of numerous cultural monuments to the possible danger of extreme inundation.)

Many natural phenomena in space have a periodical and hierarchical character. The author has been analysing this character since 1970 (V.Němec, 1983, 1988, 1990, 1992). An analogous periodicity as well as an analogous hierarchical character can be supposed also in time. Exact studies can be effectuated for the past and then applied for predictions in the future. Many geological phenomena that occurred in the geological history and that were connected with inundation can be further studied and evaluated in order to make more precise forecasts for such potential high order dangers in the future. In practical life we often admit and take into account exceptional phenomena occurring in 20, 50 or 100 years, very seldom in a longer periodicity. However an immense unpredicted inundation of a large territory of Bohemia (and of other countries in Central Europe) in August 2002 is evaluated as a phenomenon occurring once in 500 years. A more catastrophic scenario should be developed in accordance with the precautionary principle: Are we not coming to a supercatastrophic situation being just at the beginning of a far more significant danger occurring maybe once in 10000 or even 1000000 years?

The damages caused by the described floods in August 2003 were immense. Only in Bohemia altogether 99 villages with 263000 inhabitants submerged in the floods completely and other 347 towns and villages with 1600000 inhabitants (including some districts of Prague, Plzeň, České Budějovice) partially. Fortunately a warning system - as refreshed by the inundation in Moravia in 1997 - saved many human lives, the total number of victims did not pass twenty persons (half of them lost their lives because of their own disobedience and inadmissible risky behaviour).

Obviously much higher and to this time inconceivable dangers should be taken into consideration in many territories for the future and a strong respect of them has to become a new priority in various activities.

The geologists - privileged to study the earth crust in space and time - are among those scientists who are able to help in deciphering the time periodicity and algorithms of various catastrophic phenomena. They have to unite their forces for their efforts oriented to forecasting any occurrence of high order catastrophes and to developing respective warning systems. The problem is very serious and it should be considered also as an ethical obligation to use respective know how for a long term benefit of humanity. On the other hand it will be also unavoidable to get the needed financial support for the research (what can be considered as an ethical obligation of those people who are responsible for affording financial means). Even in case of a successful solution in a relatively near future the Earth population will need very very long periods to be thoroughly prepared to survive any high order catastrophe.

Cultivating Responsibility to Future Generations

Specific geoethical aspects are to be incorporated into any decision making when any needs and real possibilities of a sustainable use of mineral resources are to be considered. Decision-making processes at any level should be accompanied by the personal and corporate responsibility for any possible consequence of any decision. A geoethical audit (V. Němec and L. Němcová, 2000) should be developed and incorporated into practice in order to ensure a geoethically appropriate, correct, useful and responsible behaviour of anybody who has to take part in the aforementioned decision making processes.

Future needs of the mankind must be respected anywhere. A high responsibility to future generations is to be cultivated not only among earth scientists and mining engineers when any scientific or technical problem connected with the use of non-renewable resources should be solved. Also managers, politicians and statesmen have to cultivate their own geo- and eco-ethical way of thinking. They are not only responsible for long-term decisions concerning mineral economics and policy but also - as it has been demonstrated - for precautionary arrangements concerning possible measures in case of predicted high order catastrophes. Many new solutions are to be sought and found to make the life in the world more protected.

The presented problems show that the real life and real dangers should involve and converge trajectories of geoethics in various parts of the world to make the life on our planet better not only for us but also for the future generations. New trends of globalization have to be taken into consideration. A broad institutionalization of geoethics and other fields of applied ethics should be strengthened.

Bibliography:

Němec, V. (1983): New ways of estimating mineral reserves and resources. - In: Data for science and technology, CODATA, North-Holland Publ.Co, 49 - 52

Němec, V. (1988): Geomathematical models of ore deposits for exploitation purposes. - Sci. de la Terre, Sér.Inf., Nancy, 27, 121 - 131

Němec, V. (1990): Anticipated patterns in mineral exploration. - In Proceedings ISME-AI'90, Tokyo, 121 - 125

Němec, V. (1992): Possible ways to decipher spatial distribution of mineral resources. - In: Math. Geology, 24, 8, 705 -709

Němec, V. and L. Němcová (2001): Problems of the geoethical audit. - In: The Mining Příbram Symposium 2001, section Geoethics, Příbram, paper GA4

Němec, V. (2003): Mineral deposits as ethical category. - In: Funkcjonowanie i rozwój organizacji w zmiennym otoczeniu III, part 2, pp.16 - 19, WSM Legnica, 2003. - ISBN 83-913465-9-5