Geosciences at the service of society: The path traced by Antonio Stoppani

Abstract

Sometime ago, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani (1824-1891) highlighted the importance of Earth sciences for education, cultural awareness, development and progress of society. In his introduction of the concept “Anthropozoic Era”, he stressed the importance of human beings as a real “geological agent”, but also emphasized that mankind has the capacity and the responsibility to contribute to an ethical management of georesources. Currently many consider him one of the “fathers of geoethics”, since he introduced some of the geoethical criteria that should guide researchers, scholars, professionals and decision makers in the field of Earth Sciences. Among these ideas, he enhanced the dimensions of beauty and harmony of nature as foundations of Geo-conservation and Geodiversity and the necessity for interdisciplinary collaboration between physical and human sciences, including ethics, to manage the complexity of the ecosystem, for the assessment and mitigation of risk, and for a more integrated growth of human beings while in synergy with the environment.