This blog is written by the editor of Geoscience for the Future, Natasha Dowey. Natasha is a lecturer in Geoscience at Sheffield Hallam University, where she teaches students how the study of rocks, geological hazards, and landscapes can change the world. She researches volcanic hazards, in particular the hot clouds of ash, gas and rock formed during explosive eruptions.
Sometimes it is easy to see only challenges around us. The climate crisis. Inequality. A global pandemic. Plastic pollution. Habitat loss. Wildfires. Our world faces so many threats, many of them caused by human activities, that often it is hard to see hope.
If you care deeply about the future of our planet and want to find a chink of light, some silver lining, what career path can you take? How can you make a difference and join the fight to tackle these issues?
You may be surprised to learn that studying Geoscience* can help to save the planet.
Here’s five reasons why:
1. Understanding Change
Change is a geoscientist’s bread and butter. What was happening 200 million years ago? How did past climate shape past landscapes, and impact what sediments ended up where? How did past environmental change shape the rocks and fossils we see now in the cliffs around us, that lie in the ground beneath our feet?
The ability of Geoscientists to delve into deep time and expose a story of the changes the world has witnessed is an incredible thing. Because just as knowledge of present day processes can help us unlock the past, the past can reveal insights into how our planet may respond to change in the future.
Predicting future change using computer models is a key part of the fight to prepare for (and minimise) the impacts of climate change. Geoscientists, explorers of the past, have now become an unlikely weapon in this battle. They can investigate how vulnerable our climate has been to greenhouse gases in the past and how it has behaved in different carbon dioxide scenarios. They can reveal how our world responded to dramatic temperature changes throughout geological time. This understanding is critical in preparing for what may lie ahead.
2. Carbon storage
The exploitation of fossil fuels once locked up in rocks has been a huge contributing factor to the climate crisis. But now, the same skills and techniques that have allowed us to exploit the gas beneath the ground are helping us find places to put it back in.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) involves taking carbon dioxide and storing it deep underground in rocks. It relies on Geoscientists to find the right ingredients (rock types) for carbon storage to happen safely and economically. The hope is that these storage locations will hold carbon for thousands of years.
Geoscientists can study data from the subsurface to hunt for a rock to hold the gas (the storage rock or ‘reservoir’), a rock to stop the reservoir from leaking (a cap rock, or ‘seal’), and the right conditions to prevent any leakages around the edges (the ‘trap’). This knowledge, long used to find fossil fuels, can now be part of the efforts needed to mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions and tackle global warming.
Carbon Capture and Storage graphic from the Geological Society of London
3. Resources
If it isn’t grown, it must be mined. This is a pretty startling take, but it’s true. Pretty much everything we see around us contains metals and rare elements (see this unnerving video).
Mining, like all extractive industries, has a long and difficult past to reconcile with. It has been a tool for colonialism, and in the present day continues to be associated with modern slavery and irresponsible practices.
But solar panels, electric cars and wind turbines do not grow on trees. We need mining now more than ever, to find the resources needed to fight the climate crisis. There is a growing movement to ensure all mining is carried out sustainably and ethically; Geoscientists will be vital in achieving this.
It is important to remember that the term ‘resources’ does not just cover valuable metals mined from rocks. It also includes the most important resource to our society of all- water. We need to manage our water resources sustainably during the changes brought on by the climate crisis, to make sure there is enough for all. Knowledge of the ground beneath us, and how water is stored and moves within it, is crucial in this effort and is provided by Geoscientists.
Find out more about how Geoscientists help keep the taps flowing.
4. Disaster Risk Reduction
Disasters caused by environmental hazards have a huge impact on society. Loss of life, loss of livelihoods, loss of infrastructure, loss of homes. Many environmental hazards, such as flooding, are becoming both more frequent and more intense due to climate change. Hazards may occur in interconnected scenarios (e.g. an earthquake can cause a landslide which may lead to a flood), with a multiplier effect of impacts. As climate changes and population grows, there is no doubt that our exposure to hazards will increase, with the most vulnerable communities hit hardest.
Large populations can live very close to potential environmental hazards. 841 thousand people live within 25 km of El Misti Volcano, Arequipa (Photo: N. Dowey; Data: Auker et al. 2013)
Geoscientists are an essential part of ‘disaster risk reduction’ (DRR). They study a range of hazard types, including geological (such as earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides) and hydrological (such as flooding), both in the past and present, to better understand how and why they happen. Geoscientists need to work with engineers, urban planners, politicians and local people to ensure that communities are prepared to face hazards, and that plans are in place to mitigate against disaster.
To find out more about Disaster Risk Reduction, check out the awesome Stop Disasters! Game from the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction team- learn about risks, build defences to protect the local population, and play out realistic earthquake, tsunami and wildfire scenarios. To see a great example of where geoscientists have worked to strengthen community resilience to volcanic hazards, check out the STREVA project.
5. Renewable Energy
The world has entered an energy transition, with major economies starting to invest more heavily in renewable energies (see the UK trend below). This shift is vital for a low-carbon future.
Change in UK electricity supply 1990-2019; note the significant increase in use of renewables in the past 30 years (UK Energy in Brief Report, 2020)
When you think of renewable energy, it is easy to picture solar panels brightly glinting on rooftops, or wind turbines in farmland or out at sea. Rarely though do you think of bubbling pools and hot rocks.
Wherever you are in the world, the general rule is the deeper down you go into the Earth, the hotter it gets. In some places, it gets hot very close to the surface. This geothermal energy can be harnessed in a variety of ways (summarised in the image below), and can generate significant, reliable power supply. In New Zealand, more than 17% of electricity comes from geothermal power.
Geoscientists can end up in many areas of renewables, from helping to find the best locations for offshore wind farms, to working on nuclear waste storage sites. But perhaps the most exciting type of renewable energy for a geoscientist to work in is geothermal, where technology is constantly developing. The deepest well ever drilled onshore in the UK has recently led to the first geothermal energy sales in Britain (note- you don’t always need active volcanoes to have hot rocks!)
Check out how studying Geoscience at university can prepare you for a career in geothermal energy.
Geothermal Infographic by the Geological Society of London
I could go on- these are just five of the things! There are so many more ways that Geoscientists can contribute to a more sustainable future on our planet and address the UN’s Sustainable Development goals. Geoscientists can work in environmental protection and remediation; they can use spatial data and satellites to observe our planet; they can track down the trails of plastic pollution; they can be part of new technological advances such as hydrogen storage. Perhaps most importantly, they can take their geoscience knowledge into policy roles, and have a direct impact on the choices our governments make.
So- if you’re searching for a way to help save the planet, why not study it?
*What is Geoscience? Some people think of it as Geology or Earth Science- we like to go even broader and include Physical Geography and Environmental Science in there too. Basically, it is the scientific study of the rocks, landforms and processes on our wonderful, dynamic Planet Earth!
Feature image by La Victorie on Unsplash