Green employment and other reductions in travel
Maxine Clarke
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 12:34 UTC
Well it isn’t science, but it is about the camp-followers of science, i.e. science publishers. Henry Gee writes a post here, making the point that, in his view, “the time has come for journal publishers, and employers in general whose employees’ expertise resides in their heads rather than in physical plant, to consider, seriously, whether commuting is even necessary.”
Some discussion follows.
What other science and science-related activities can become “greener” by cutting down on physical travel? Conferences, collaborations and panels (of various kinds) are three areas that have come under scrutiny. Does “going green” in these enterprises depend on unrealistic technological expectations (online real-time video conferencing, and so on), and if so, does this discriminate against areas of the world that don’t have that kind of infrastructure?
Updated 03 June 2008 12:44 UTC
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Replies
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Does “going green” in these enterprises depend on unrealistic technological expectations (online real-time video conferencing, and so on), and if so, does this discriminate against areas of the world that don’t have that kind of infrastructure?
Probably not as much as you might think. I’d hazard that many developing countries are going digital more quickly than ‘developed’ ones as a way of subverting their poor conventional infrastructure.
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I hope you are right, Henry — I have heard it say that broadband connections/internet speed are not as good as you need for online conferencing, and that electricity supplies often go down, etc. But I have no special knowledge, I’d be the first to say.
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One of the concepts of the virtual meeting that I have been involved with is that surronding poster avialability. One of the main reasons to go to a meeting is to see the posters (i.e. the up-to-the- minute work in a field). I know that Nature has it’s Precedings website and I believe that Precedings would be a great place to exploit this idea. There are already companies such as Marathon Media that provide posters from meetings (you can opt out of having your poster available). They allow you to upload your poster and then they distribute them either via the web or could do it on CD/DVD or even print them out. This may not reduce the level of attendance completely but could help.
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