Well, I love science puzzles, and I love the way you work through this one, but I"m not persuaded that funding geology study justifies enabling fossil fuel extraction. Please don't help the oil industry solve this problem. We really do have to move beyond the immediate and look to the long-term. We need another paradigm, where we don't foul the planet through mineral extraction and then foul it again by energy consumption.
This is a great blog, one a science tourist such as myself can follow easily. Thanks for that. Dolomites, I'll never look at them the same again.
The oil companies are interested in it insofar as it will help them extract oil- that leaves large areas of the problem dismissed.
The relationship between the oil industry and geology is a problematic and complicated one. On the one hand, well, they couldn't extract oil without us. On the other, geologists are some of the primary folks involved with climate change research- only climatologists themselves do more work on the issue, and not by that overwhelming of a number.
Science requires a certain ethical commitment- doing science without it leads to catastrophe and abuse. I don't think that refusing to explore certain avenues of research is an effective ethical strategy much of the time, however. In this case? Certainly not. There's really not much research in sedimentary geology that doesn't impinge upon the oil industry in one way or another, and abandoning sedimentary geology would be absurd. (Paleontology, for example, is of immense practical use in oil exploration. Should we stop studying paleontology? Of course not.) Instead, in these situations, scientists must act politically- changing public opinion, lobbying for policy changes, and seeking to change the ways in which we as a civilization interact with nature.
Thank you for that reply. I thought I might make you angry and shouldn't leave the comment. I do understand--ignorance doesn't ever lead to a good outcome. Study and work for change. All of us.