Iain Simpson Stewart

In the context of tackling climate change in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, HRH Prince El-Hassan bin Talal has called for an integrated approach to human and natu-ral resources management that takes account of ‘the triangle of geography, geology and geophysics’. The lack of application of geoscientific knowledge to sustainable develop-ment issues is surprising given that advancing human progress lies at the roots of modern geoscience and aligns with the intellectual mindsets and technical skills that geoscientists are trained in. Applying this Earth science toolkit to the challenges of long-term sustaina-bility will require the global geoscience community to repurpose its principles and prac-tices, in particular: (1) better communicating what geoscientists know and do, and how that is socially useful; (2) reaching out to other disciplines more engaged in sustainability issues; and (3) re-designing Earth science education and training programmes to place sustainability and human wellbeing at the heart of a 21st century geoscientist’s profes-sional purpose.