OK, Paul, I'll bite on this topic, especially since you've raised it to me in my role as President of the Association of Environmental Studies & Sciences in the past. At the risk of being subsequently castigated by you as one of those people living in "willful ignorance," I'd respond as follows:
1. A recent study pegged the CO2 emissions associated with the annual presentation of ALL scientific papers at 0.003% of total annual travel emissions (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0066508). Dare I say that total suspension of Environmental Studies/GEP conference travel would be little more than a symbolic gesture? 2. While you minimize the value of face to face interactions with scholars, and indicate that electronic means of interaction would yield commensurate results, I think that's a bit simplistic. Undoubtedly, we all could sit in our offices and watch each other make conference presentations on Skype. However, some of the most productive time that I've spent at conferences has been chatting in the hallways, and yes, bars, with colleagues, deriving new insights on environmental issues, hatching crazy schemes that sometimes come to fruition and may prove beneficial in some small ways. These are often happenstance encounters that I daresay would not occur in the halcyonic virtual world you sketch out in your posting; 3. Yes, young scholars often do spend a lot of time on their iphones and other electronic devices, but for me that’s yet another justification for in-person conferences. Such events help us to convey our passion for the field, our humanity, in ways that speaking to each other on a screen will never convey. Conferences are also a critical venue for networking for young people that can never totally be substituted for electronically; 4. Every effort should be made to reduce the carbon footprint of conferences. AESS has a committee researching such approaches, as does many other organizations. What these efforts can communicate to our students, and to the public, is that we're a microcosm of society, i.e. our activities do impose a carbon footprint, but every effort should be made to reduce it; 5. A reasonable compromise in this context might be to have a serious discussion about reducing the incidence of conferences, perhaps every other year, for example? In the end, however, I can't help but believe that a total cessation of conferences would do little for the environment while robbing our field of its life's blood, which is real world interaction and collaboration. wil Dr. Wil Burns, President, AESS Co-Executive Director, Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment A Scholarly Initiative of the School of International Service, American University 2650 Haste Street, Towle Hall #G07 Berkeley, CA 94720 650.281.9126 (Phone) http://www.dcgeoconsortium.org Skype ID: Wil.Burns Blog: Teaching Climate/Energy Law & Policy, http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of HARRIS, Paul Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 7:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [gep-ed] Virtues of academic conferences At long last, someone in a position to do something has admitted that scholars/teachers jetting around to conferences is morally questionable (not least because today's information technologies allow far more collaboration than was possible at conferences even quite recently): http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/us/setting-aside-a-scholarly-get-together-for-the-planets-sake.html?ref=earth&_r=0 It will be interesting to see where this goes. Will it overcome the willful ignorance of so many scholars -- those who think that THEIR work is so vital as to justify conference travel -- that such voluntary behavior is contributing, albeit perhaps in individually small ways, to profound human suffering and death in the future through climate change? Even a tiny contribution to someone else's death seems to call into question conference travel (and most other travel, at least by auto or airplane). I've broached this topic on this list several times over the years, so I realize that it's not likely to get any traction, and that there will be all sorts of excuses for continuing business as usual (“How dare you deny young scholars the right to collaborate” [these are the same young scholars who collaborate 24/7 on their iPhones, etc.]; “Collaborating via video conferencing [etc.] just isn’t the same as talking in person” [but there’s evidence that collaborating remotely can result in more scholarly productivity] – that sort of thing). ISA, APSA and all of the other big academic associations, including those devoted to environmental issues, seem to have conferences as their core business models. They don’t want to change. And we scholars don’t help. We love our conferences, right? And we, like most people, always want to leave it to others, probably people in the future, or governments or corporations, to change things. Of course we don't think about it consciously (so as to avoid guilt, maybe), but our attitude seems to something along the lines of "I teach about environmental solutions, so I don't have to be part of them myself," or, even more powerfully, "My research shows that institutions matter more than individuals, so I can justify living as I do." How many decades more will scholars take these and similar views, and continue to set the wrong example? I wonder what our students, particularly those who study climate change, think each time we jet off to a conference? The word “hypocrite” instantly comes to mind. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. 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