Humanistic Geosciences and the Planetary Human Niche

Abstract

The societal relevance and purpose of geoscience are discussed from a conceptual perspective in this chapter. It explores how people should live ethically in times of anthropogenic global change and describes the history and current state of 'human niche-building' (or 'engineering', in its broadest sense) at the planetary scale. It outlines how the Earth can be conceived as a single system, 'people included', by considering the geosphere, biosphere and 'noosphere'-a term repurposed here to denote the human agent and its socio-technological means, consisting of physical and mental artefacts. It posits Kohlberg's