The coming of the millenium then, is a moment for all of us to reflect on the destiny of humanity and the environment we live in
〈 We must contemplate changes in human expectations and lifestyles; certainly changes in amounts and patterns of consumption. Even in the highest-minded moments of Earth Summit discussions, sustainability of the environment is talked of on timescales of no more than decades or a century. Yet we have become accustomed in these two days to hearing about the fluctuations of Earth environment on timescales of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. In ordinary life, we have not got the temporal evolution of humankind and of our planet in proper relative perspective. Are the people of the 21st century to be known as those who reaped the harvests of this planet to such degree that everyone who came after had to make with less.
〈 We are implicitly relying on technology to save us in the longer term
〈 Changes in lifestyle and application of technology must be informed by profound knowledge of the Earth. Yet even stronger than the message of impressive scientific insight that we have received from many excellent speakers yesterday and today, is the realisation of the enormous inadequacy in our understanding of our planet. We must advance our knowledge greatly is we are to manage it in its increasingly stressed condition.
Experience from meteorology and oceanography tells us that we cannot understand the atmosphere and oceans on the basis of observations at the surface alone. Vertical sampling and observation throughout the whole height of the atmosphere and the whole depth of the oceans has proved essential to comprehension.
The same is true of the solid earth- for the same reason AND for an additional reason as I will remind you in a moment.
Drilling is the only means of direct observation of the parts of the earth's interior on which we rely for resources and to which we are vulnerable (through earthquakes and volcanicity).
Moreover, as we have heard throughout this symposium, the timescales of change in the solid earth are highly variable from zero to several orders of magnitude longer than those that characterize in the atmosphere and oceans. The record of the past preserved in the sedimentary record beneath the sea floor and (with precious higher resolution but a shorter time-range) in lake sediment and polar ice cores; it contains invaluable information on the potential of the earth for future change.
