In the last thirty years, the earth sciences, and geology in particular as a discipline and a profession, have been challenged by the emergence of issues such as resource depletion and the linking of environmental degradation to the burning of fossil fuels. Following the petroleum crises of the mid- to late 1980s, for example, employment in Canadian resource industries became less predictable. As a consequence, enrolment in many undergraduate geology programs across Canada dropped dramatically. In response, university administrators began to amalgamate geology departments with other disciplines within renamed "Earth Science" or "Geoscience" departments, many of them including disciplinary specializations such as oceanography and atmospheric physics. Partly as an attempt to answer emerging scientific questions, and partly as an attempt to increase enrolments, environmental geoscience courses were included in the new programs.

Furthermore, current university hiring and research funding decisions suggest that environmental geology, as a specialization, may be assuming more importance than a traditional resource-based approach that trains geologists for mining and extraction industries. For example, a report to NSERC by the Solid and Environmental Sciences Steering Committee recommended increasing funding resources for environmental topics (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada 2000). This shift in emphasis has led to some concerns regarding the training of the future workforce for the resource industries, and the ability of professional certification bodies to keep pace with the scientific curriculum changes currently underway.

Concurrently, the degradation of the environment has emerged as a major global concern. Attention has focused on the role of anthropogenic or human factors, such as the burning of fossil fuels, and on global environmental problems such as ozone depletion, toxic emissions, and global warming. In their studies of corporations and their allies, McCright and Dunlap (2000) and Beder (2002) have characterized the response of the fossil-fuel industry to environmental problems that involve human factors, and to environmental protectionism legislation like the Kyoto Accord, as monolithic and uniformly negative. However, this "monolithic" model of the fossil-fuel industry as it relates to global warming and environmental legislation masks the debate currently underway.

For example, Skodvin and Skjærseth (2001) have documented how Royal Dutch Shell and Shell US, based in Houston, differed in their support for the ratification of the Kyoto accord. There has also been controversy within the geological community concerning the role or non-role of human factors in global warming. For example, the earth science profession includes geoscientists who work in the fossil-fuel industries, which are identified as a major source of greenhouse gases, and geoscientists who work in environmental geoscience and focus on the role of greenhouse gases in climate change.

In this article, we report on a Canada-wide survey designed to assess earth scientists’ perspectives on their discipline, the future of the fossil fuel industries, and environmental problems linked to climate change science and global warming. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), approved by the McMaster University Research Ethics Board, and assisted by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG) and the Geological Association of Canada (GAC), the survey represents a "snapshot in time" of the opinions and concerns of Canadian earth scientists. It is intended to help identify future directions for earth science and for the resource industries, based on the perspectives of earth scientists themselves.

This research was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, we conducted exploratory interviews with earth scientists to elicit their views about the issues being studied. We located, recruited and interviewed 71 geologists in 15 Canadian cities from Victoria to St. John’s. Most of these individuals are considered by their peers as opinion leaders in scientific research, in industry, and/or as contributors to social policy debates about earth science issues in Canada. The sample included Canadian geologists working in universities, the fossil-fuel industries, government institutions, and professional organizations. The interviews lasted from one to four hours, were openended, and had no pre-set questions. All interviews but one were taped and transcribed to ensure accuracy in documenting perspectives. Themes emerging from these interviews were used in the second phase of the research to construct a web-based questionnaire.

The web-based questionnaire had five sections, with questions that elicited information on demographics such as education and employment, and earth scientists’ perspectives on their academic discipline, the resource industries, climate-change science, and the role of science and advocacy in social problems. The survey, established on a secure server at McMaster University, was accessible only to members of the CSPG and GAC and was on-line for completion from April to October, 2007. A total of 355 members completed the survey.

The demographics of this sample are provided in Table 1. Most respondents were male, middle-aged, well-educated, and had incomes over $100 000 a year. Notably, the largest proportion of respondents [43%] was employed in industry, with an additional 14% self-employed in industry. Residence and gender distribution of GAC respondents closely reflected those of the national membership (GAC headquarters, pers. comm. 2008); Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists respondents predominantly resided in Alberta.

Although the response rate reported here was only 7% of potential CSPG/GAC membership, it represents the largest sample of earth scientists to be polled on these issues in North America to date. In comparison, only 93 of 31000 members of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) answered a request to comment on the society’s climatechange statement – less than 0.3% (President’s Column, AAPG Explorer, September 2007), and only 2% of members of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) responded to their survey on climate change (PEGG, March 2008). Although we don’t claim to represent the views of all CSPG/GAC members, this report offers insights into the views of those who might be considered most concerned about the issues put forward in the survey, a point we return to later in the article.

In the following sections, we discuss the majority direction of agreement or disagreement with the various statements that make up the survey. We also provide a breakdown of those strongly or somewhat agreeing or disagreeing so that response strength can be considered. As these are preliminary results, they should be interpreted with caution. More detailed data analysis of these and other issues not discussed in this report will be forthcoming in academic papers in preparation.

A decline in enrolments in geology departments in the late 1980s led to the closure or merger of some departments across North America (cf. Canadian Enrolment Report at [http://cccesd.acadiau.ca]). For example, in Canada, geology departments at McMaster University and the University of Alberta were merged with geography departments and have developed strong components in environmental teaching and research. Geology departments at Concordia University and Université de Montréal have actually been closed.

In this survey, there was general agreement [93%] that Canadian Earth Science departments have shifted to an interdisciplinary focus, with a lessening focus on the geology of resource exploration and exploitation [82%] (Table 2). There was also general agreement [73%] that there is a gap between the job requirements of the oil and gas industry, and the training provided in earth science degree programs. In our interviews, many university chairs of departments noted that the need to meet professional registration qualifications required them to continue to offer courses in resourcebased geology despite changes to programs and curricula brought on by mergers or a refocusing on environmental geoscience. Indeed, our interview data suggest that conflicting curricula create pressures within university departments to accommodate increasingly diverse needs in teaching while adjusting, in many cases, to smaller faculty complements. Not surprisingly, therefore, 71% of respondents agreed that Centres of Excellence with degree programs that specifically prepare undergraduates to work in the fossil fuel and mining industries should be established, and 32% strongly agreed.

Given the perception of a general shift to interdisciplinary studies, respondents were asked to evaluate the importance of various specializations in an interdisciplinary earth science department (Table 3). There was clear agreement that core geology [97%], geochemistry [57%] and geophysics [49%] are very important. However, although most respondents felt physical geography [84%] and environmental science [82%] were important to some extent, only 31% and 20% respectively felt they were very important. Although the importance of biogenic activity in geological processes is increasingly recognized, only 10% felt biology was very important and 47% of our respondents considered it not very important or not important at all. Planetary studies were rated as important to some extent [52%], but only 9% rated them as very important.

Oceanography, atmospheric physics and meteorology, all of which have been extremely important components of environmental studies of climate change, were considered important to some extent by 66%, 40% and 35% of our respondents, respectively. However, only 13% felt oceanography was very important to an interdisciplinary earth sciences program; and 60% and 65%, respectively, rated atmospheric physics and meteorology as not very important or not important at all in an earth sciences department. This would suggest a lag between changes in the structure of university earth science departments, identified in our interviews, and the disciplinary identification of relevant academic subjects by academic and professional geologists alike. For example, when the views of earth scientists in academic/government institutions are compared with those employed in industry (Fig. 1), the results are almost the same, with the exception of geochemistry and oceanography. These rankings may also have relevance for the importance of earth sciences in the debate on global climate change, an issue we discuss later in the paper.

In Canada, until recently, the fossil-fuel industries were perceived positively by the general public as generators of energy needed to maintain our standard of living. However, as noted in Table 4, only 34% of our respondents agreed that this perception still holds, whereas 66% disagreed. Furthermore, 93% of respondents agreed, to some extent, that the fossil-fuel industries are perceived negatively today by the general public as a major source of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and 55% strongly agreed with this statement. A further 84% agreed [44% strongly agreed] that these negative perceptions of the fossil-fuel industries could be tied to biased media reporting. Notably, 85% of respondents agreed, to some extent, that earth scientists working in the fossil fuel industries are as concerned about the environment as the public in general, and 54% strongly agreed. As one of our interview respondents working in industry noted: "We are all citizens and we all need to be environmentalists."

Support for environmental remediation was generally strong (Table 5), as 91% of respondents agreed, to some extent, that environmental remediation should be a priority within the fossil fuel industries, and 57% strongly agreed with this statement. Furthermore, 80% of respondents agreed, to some extent, that carbon sequestration should also be a priority. However, only 37% of survey participants felt that the fossil fuel industries could be trusted to comply with voluntary carbon emission standards, and 63% disagreed with this statement. In terms of employment, 71% of respondents working in academic/government institutions and 56% of geologists working in industry disagreed that fossil fuel industries could be trusted to comply voluntarily.

The notion of a monolithic, negative industry response to environmental initiatives does not appear to be entirely accurate. The majority of our respondents, whether in universities, government or industry supported environmental remediation and considered earth scientists working in the fossil-fuel industries to be as environmentally concerned as the general public. As noted earlier, Royal Dutch Shell supported the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, whereas Shell US did not (Skodvin and Skjærseth 2001). Onethird of our respondents (out of 78% agreeing to some extent) strongly supported the notion that the future of the fossil fuel industries lies in a shift to a "Beyond Petroleum (BP)" perspective that would embrace alternate and/or renewable energy sources. Most of our interview respondents also strongly supported the shift in emphasis, although there was some skepticism about whether the shift in BP has been more public relations than real change. Nevertheless, fossil-fuel industries appear to be moving away from a focus on petroleum towards what might be described as the "energy industry."

To explore these perceptions further, respondents were asked to rate the importance of energy sources in the near future and in the distant future (Fig. 2). As can be seen, a majority of respondents rated the oil sands, conventional nuclear energy and hydroelectricity as very important energy sources in the near future. However, for the distant future, most of the respondents considered only nuclear energy and hydroelectricity as very important and support fell for the oil sands as an energy source. Respondents also indicated that non-conventional oil and gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and clean coal will decrease in importance in the more distant future. Renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels and hydrogen were rated as very important in the near future by less than 30% of the survey respondents. Although respondents suggest an increasing importance for these energy sources in the more distant future, only solar energy reached near majority support as very important. These assessments may reflect the expertise of earth scientists, who are more familiar than the general population with the scale of energy requirements in modern society and the degree to which these can be met by currently popular alternative energy sources.

According to Pawluch (1996, p. 136), professions "organize, consolidate, and then often transform as they face threats to their existence and look for ways to rejuvenate themselves" (cf. Bucher 1962, 1988; Bucher and Strauss 1961). Threatened occupations can also respond to external threats and advance themselves by finding new areas of need; or "entering the social problems arena and linking themselves to pressing social issues" (Shaffir and Pawluch 2003, p. 901-903). As part of an effort to determine whether earth scientists support advocacy as it relates to social problems linked to their scientific expertise, a number of questions were posed that addressed how climate change is presented and understood within the larger community. The results clearly indicate that our survey respondents were not satisfied with how climate change science is provided by the IPCC (Table 7). Only 16% strongly agreed that it provided the best scientific information available on recent climate change. Only 1% of those expressing an opinion strongly agreed that the media do a good job whereas 53% strongly disagreed. Similarly, 54% strongly disagreed that environmental groups could be trusted to present complex arguments about climate change to the general public. A further 63% of our respondents expressing an opinion strongly disagreed that most people’s views about recent climate change are informed by scientific knowledge. Not surprisingly, 81% [98% in overall agreement] strongly agreed that politicians are more influenced by public pressure than scientific facts when it comes to climate change issues.