Dear Paul and All, Paul, this is a great topic to raise. The pros and cons reveal an interesting dialectic: i) thesis - the usefulness of conferences justify the contribution that we make to GHG emissions in getting there vs. ii) antithesis - the usefulness of conferences do not justify the contribution that we make to GHG emissions in getting there. One way to synthesize these seemingly irreconcilable positions is to consider alternative ways to interact without travelling somewhere (as has been put forth by many). Another way, is to ask ourselves, why the value of conferences is even being questioned in this light? Presumably, the most CO2-sensitive among us make decisions about whether or not to travel to the local store based on whether the utility of the thing they need to purchase justifies the GHG emissions produced. Should this then not be the basis for evaluating the worth of academic conferences? If this is the case, then the words of those who question the usefulness of conferences deserve deeper introspection. In short, I think the question we should be asking is, how do we design academic conferences better so we do not feel it necessary to ask such questions. During my first ISA conference (in Montreal), Paul Wapner, Simon Nicholson and Kate O'Neil (forgive me if I forgot others on the organizing team) organized a pre-conference GEP workshop. Not only did the workshop give me a chance to meet many from the GEP group en masse, the talking points and the participative style of the workshop provided some interesting research ideas and really helped to bind the group together. Personally, I think if we put our minds together we could all conceptualize a new type of conference that justifies the GHG emissions to get there. With that said, I know that there might be a few hardcore folks who do not see any justification for fly-in, fly-out conferences when alternatives exist. And I assume for the sake of consistency that this cohort also questions the point of bricks and mortar education because the GHG emissions associated with getting people to a central campus would far exceed any air travel associated with conferences :-) Happy holidays all. I am looking forward to seeing you in New Orleans. All the best,Scott Scott Victor VALENTINE,PhD
Associate Professor andEnvironmental Policy Programme Leader Department of PublicPolicy and School of Energy and Environment City University of HongKong Room B7506, 83 Tat CheeAvenue, Kowloon Tong, NT Hong Kong SAR Tel: (852) 3442-8922 website: www.scottvalentine.net e-mail: [email protected] Newest book: Wind Power Politics and Policy (OUP): Wind Power Politics and Policy | | | | | | | | | Wind Power Politics and PolicyWind Power Politics and Policy [Scott Victor Valentine] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The wind power development policy community faces a conundrum. On the one hand, as the most commercially viable form of utility-scale renewable energy | | | | View on www.amazon.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | | From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Wil Burns <[email protected]>; Paul Harris <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 8, 2014 3:08 AM Subject: Re: [gep-ed] Virtues of academic conferences <!--#yiv8939585511 p.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraph, #yiv8939585511 li.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraph, #yiv8939585511 div.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraph {margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;}#yiv8939585511 p.yiv8939585511MsoNormal, #yiv8939585511 li.yiv8939585511MsoNormal, #yiv8939585511 div.yiv8939585511MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;}#yiv8939585511 p.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, #yiv8939585511 li.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, #yiv8939585511 div.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, #yiv8939585511 p.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, #yiv8939585511 li.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, #yiv8939585511 div.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, #yiv8939585511 p.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, #yiv8939585511 li.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, #yiv8939585511 div.yiv8939585511MsoListParagraphCxSpLast {margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:115%;}-->Ronnie, you are talking about changing not just the preferences of academics who like to travel to conferences, but the entire academic system, in which conference presentation is a necessary part of obtaining tenure. I understand the environmental contradictions inherent in all the travel (and I feel a twinge of hypocritical, CO2-induced guilt every time I print my boarding pass), but we have more work to do than just acknowledging the collective action problem. Until we can conference by hologram Star Wars-style (how cool would that be, seriously engineers, what are you doing with your time?), we are just going to have to weigh for ourselves the costs and benefits of academic travel and make our choices accordingly. -Beth P.S. If you feel guilty about going to ISA for only one panel, I had a cancellation on mine dealing with energy security. I can slot you in, if you’re interested. _____________________________ Elizabeth L. Chalecki, PhD Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska - Omaha Non-Resident Research Fellow, Stimson Center, Washington, DC From: Ronnie Lipschutz Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 12:29 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected], Wil Burns, Paul Harris, [email protected] I suppose that the question ought to be posed differently: individual choice vs. collective action or mobilization? Consumer choice or mass action? Clearly, as a single person on a scheduled flight, one makes little difference. But as Arlo Guthrie once pointed out, "If a whole bunch of people sing it [Alice's Restaurant]. it'll be a social movement!" (or something to that effect). If academics were to begin a movement to change the social practices expected of us, the cumulative impact could be considerable and that would stand as a shared commitment. Now, I am not without sin, since, for ISA, I plan to fly to Houston, drive to New Orleans for one day and back, and fly home from Houston. (Not really what I want to do, but I made a commitment to be on one panel this year.) Yes, I am being hypocritical on this and would dearly love to find a way to interact with colleagues and not have to fly hither and thither. Ronnie On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 10:19 AM, John M. Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: My question is both broader and narrower than the one that Paul begins with. If a conference comes relatively close to me -- within a manageable day's drive (say 5 hours... for me that means San Francisco), it often feels like a less substantial climate impact to drive there and attend (sorry, no ready bus or train options, though carpooling can be feasible) than it does to fly to a more distant transcontinental or international destination for the same the same or similar event. ...and yet: when I fly to the more distant destination, I take a seat on already scheduled airlines and -- wherever possible -- local public transit. In that sense, the far longer trip generates far fewer 'new' carbon emissions, etc., than the shorter trip does. Is one better than the other? I pose the question not just as one of individual responsibility. But surely one approach, assuming Paul's is not an argument for eliminating all face-to-face meetings, is for concentrating these at the regional level. Yet it seems plausible that, at least in the US and other countries without robust public transit infrastructure, this might generate more 'new' emissions than a more distant national or international conference. Is this distinction between otherwise scheduled and new emissions sound? Is it morally and or politically relevant in this case? John On Sunday, December 7, 2014, Raul Pacheco-Vega <[email protected]> wrote: In the interest of disclosure, I sit on the Executive Committee of the Environmental Studies Section of ISA and I'm the Chair of the Professional Development Committee of AESS. And I travel quite a lot for field research and other academic workshops, so I am hardly an unbiased commenter. I do buy carbon offsets, though (this in no way makes me any less responsible for my carbon emissions, but at least I do try to offset and reduce them). I sit on the side of "there are very significant benefits to meeting face-to-face rather than online". I do a lot of online (WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype, FaceTime) meetings, and with the rare exception of (OMG, a non-Jobs fan about to gush) FaceTime, I find almost every single model of non-face-to-face meeting sorely lacking. I wrote a defense of large-scale conferences a while ago http://www.raulpacheco.org/2014/04/in-defense-of-large-academic-conferences-my-post-isa2014-reflections/ Like DG, I combine my large-scale academic conferences with fieldwork (as I did in Japan with IASC 2013, Uruguay with CLAD 2013, Toronto with ISA 2014 and Madrid with GIGAPP 2014). I also try to go to way fewer conferences than I used to do. But it's always important to keep it in mind. On the personal side of things, there are quite a lot of downsides to extensive academic travel. I also wrote about that. http://www.raulpacheco.org/2013/11/the-downsides-of-academic-travel/ Thanks for the reminder! Best,Raul _____________________________________________________________________Dr. Raul Pacheco-VegaAssistant Professor, Public Administration DivisionCentro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, A.C (CIDE, A.C.) Campus Región Centro | Circuito Tecnopolo Norte S/N, Col. Hacienda NuevaAguascalientes, Ags. 20313, MexicoTel. (+52-449) 994-5150 x 5196Cel. (+52-449) 280-2484Website - Twitter - Facebook - CIDE webpage Read my publications: On Academia.Edu On ResearchGate On MendeleyMy citations: Available on Google Scholar Associate Editor, Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies | On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 10:27 AM, Ronnie Lipschutz <[email protected]> wrote: Oops! There's that old collective action problem again: I contribute so little that my stopping would hardly matter. I know there are people looking into conferencing with robots. You get to control your little unit, complete with camera, video screen, card printer and alcohol denaturer at sites kitted out for remote conferencing. No extortionate hotel rooms, no high-priced cookies and no air travel torture. Hallway encounters are still possible (although bedroom encounters are not). Of course the life cycle emissions of such a system would be fairly great, but this is a "reusable" arrangement that can be used again and again. I admit it's not like face-to-face encounters, but... Best, Ronnie Ronnie On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 7:53 PM, Wil Burns <[email protected]> wrote: 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. 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. -- Ronnie D. Lipschutz Professor & Chair of Politics; Provost of College 8 UC Santa Cruz 1156 High St. Santa Cruz, CA 95064 e-mail: [email protected] phone: 831-459-3275/459-2543 web site: http://politics.ucsc.edu/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=rlipsch "Nothing in the world...is as old as what was futuristic in the past." (Ben Lerner, 10:04, p. 152) -- 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. 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. -- John M. Meyer, Professor Department of Politics Humboldt State University Arcata, CA 95521 USA 707.826.4497 (voice) 707.826.4496 (fax) [email protected] users.humboldt.edu/john.m.meyer -- Ronnie D. Lipschutz Professor & Chair of Politics; Provost of College 8 UC Santa Cruz 1156 High St. Santa Cruz, CA 95064 e-mail: [email protected] phone: 831-459-3275/459-2543 web site: http://politics.ucsc.edu/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=rlipsch "Nothing in the world...is as old as what was futuristic in the past." (Ben Lerner, 10:04, p. 152) -- 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. 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. 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.
