An important report was released by the National Science Foundation last week that tackles the question of understanding and anticipating how the Earth will be transformed in the future. The NSF’s Advisory Committee for the Geosciences tackled broad-ranging topics of resource depletion, energy sustainability, environmental degradation and climate change in a report titled, “GEO Vision: Unraveling Earth’s Complexities through Geosciences.”
The report acknowledges that the Earth has undergone dramatic alterations in the past, and asserts a need for more scientific tools and evidence to understand how the Earth will transform in the future. The report asserts that the geosciences are a critical discipline for identifying the influences that might transform our planet, and more geoscience research is needed to gauge their potential impacts.
The report summarizes a number of recommendations, and summarizes the challenges ahead for the geosciences as:
The full report can be downloaded here in PDF form.
