Moving Sand by Vincent Felde. Find geoscience images (and upload yours!) at imaggeo.egu.eu.
HIGHLIGHTS
The United Nations has declared 2020 the International Year of Plant Health, which it considers
a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to increase awareness of how protecting
plants can help reduce poverty, eliminate hunger, and safeguard the
environment. This year also marks the close of the U.N.’s landmark Decade on Biodiversity.
Maintaining plant health and preserving Earth’s biodiversity depend in large
part upon safeguarding the health of soils, the most biologically diverse
portion of our living
planet. This significance is something that geoscientists are acutely aware
of. “I chose to study soils because of how useful they are in supporting
ecosystems and our well-being and how interdisciplinary their study is,” says
soil scientist Olga Vindušková in the August Geotalk blog. Vindušková serves as a blog editor and
social media manager for EGU’s Soil System Sciences Division, which we’re highlighting
this month along with the Biogeosciences Division.
Research in both fields is necessarily multi- and interdisciplinary, and the
results often have far-reaching implications. One example is the capacity of
both soils and plants, especially trees, to store vast amounts of carbon to
help counteract the effects of humanity’s increasing fossil fuel consumption,
as a GeoLog blog and a Great Debate at this
year's virtual EGU General Assembly, Sharing Geoscience Online, recently
explored.
To overcome the challenges of climate change, the European Commission has
developed the European
Green Deal, a plan that aims to make the EU’s economy sustainable and
Europe the first climate-neutral continent. Accomplishing these goals, writes
EGU Science Policy Intern Ned Staniland, will require significant scientific
expertise, so he proposes three
ways geoscientists can support this initiative’s Biodiversity Strategy. EGU
is also organising a virtual Integrating
science into the EU Green Deal event on 30 September to discuss with
policymakers how geoscientists can contribute to the plan’s success.
Ultimately, its realisation will require expertise from many disciplines, so
we hope you’ll register
now to join this discussion.
