Geoethics: Proposal of a geosciences-oriented formal definition and future planetary perspectives

Geoethics has gained importance in recent decades in the context of geosciences and their interdisciplinary links. Despite the term being used with various meanings, Geoethics was born in 1991 at the junction of Ethics and Geology. Dr. Vaclav Nemec (since 2004 Vicepresident for Europe of the Association of Geoscientists for International Development AGID 1 , Head of the AGID Working Group for Geoethics) is considered the father of this discipline. Geoethics has been accepted by both Earth and Social Sciences because the necessity of an appropriate ethical attitude to the whole geosphere and of a critical analysis of geoethical dilemmas and finding ways how to solve them (Nemec dixit) 2 . A geosciencesoriented formal definition of Geoethics is proposed here.