I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been a particularly big fan of scientific conferences. Of course, I love to travel to new and exciting destinations, but I rarely get much of substance out of the typically brief presentations that constitute the bulk of the scientific conferences on offer.
In the February 17 editorial of the British Medical Journal, Ian Roberts and Fiona Godlee (the BMJ’s editor-in-chief) question the wisdom of traveling long distances to attend conferences, particularly at a time when awareness of how our plane travel contributes to global warming has never been greater. They cite one recent study that estimated that the 15000 delegates who attended the American Thoracic Society’s conference in San Diego pumped approximately 11000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
How much is this? Alot. According to Roberts and Godlee, “The yearly per capita carbon dioxide emission in the United States is about 20 tonnes, so the 11 000 tonnes from the American Thoracic Society meeting is equivalent to that produced by around 550 US citizens in one year. But the US, the most energy hungry nation on earth, is not the best comparator—11 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide is equivalent to that produced in one year by 11 000 people in India and 110 000 people in Chad.”
There is a strong case to be made that alternative means of sharing one’s work and networking with one’s peers will need to be developed. The author of an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education has already started thinking about what such alternatives might look like. Much more remains to be done.
It’s not just academics that travel – it’s the journalists, marketing managers and other staff who run the exhibition booths. We at Nature are as guilty as anyone. The question for me is: how do exhibitors such as Nature save CO2 and money without losing valuable contact with customers – academics, but also other businesses?
Hi Samia,
It’s certainly a worthwhile question to ponder. It seems to me that a certain level of human contact is always going to be necessary, so there will probably always be a need to emit some CO2 just to conduct business at a basic level. Unless, of course, all forms of transportation eventually become free of emissions.
In the mean time, we could all probably do worse than to follow the Vatican’s move toward carbon neutrality!
Pete, at the risk of sounding self-serving, what do you think the role of networking websites like Nature Network is/could be in connecting researchers so that they don’t have to fly around the world?
You make a good point, but I am afraid air travel will remain necessary for many scientists (being a tropical forest ecologist, I don’t see myself biking all the way to East Africa to collect samples). Maybe we could all consider buying Green seats and compensate our air mile emissions.
Hi Corie,
The fact that I’ve never met you in person, yet we have the ability to meet and converse on topics of mutual interest through the NN website, speaks volumes about the possibilities of the Internet in general, and sites like NN in particular, to facilitate connections between people.
I wonder whether virtual conferences might be the way of the future? I’m not sure exactly what they’d look like, but there must be ways of conducting the information-conveying aspects of a typical science conference (i.e., the lectures and the associated Q & A sessions) without everyone needing to be in the same geographical location. Perhaps anyone who wanted to network or continue the discussion could then do so through a conference-specific site hosted by NN? I don’t know – these are just some random and crazy ideas that others have no doubt already thought of and implemented elsewhere!
Great idea Pete! I’ll raise it with my colleagues here at Nature.
By the way, did you know that there are scientific events (talks, etc) happening on Second Life? Check out Jo Scott’s blog here on NN. She works for Nature and organizes talks on our island in Second Life, aptly called Second Nature. There are other scientific events on SL.
I very much agree with the last two posts.
As Timo Hannay recently pointed out, virtual conferences (e.g. Second Life) are not designed to replace the traditional model, but rather to be an alternative option. I think this is a really exciting area.
Another option is virtually attending a physical Conference. I did this two weeks ago at the Science Blogging Conference in North Carolina. This was an awesome experience and I blogged about this here
Not every session was broadcast live but seven of the ones that were can be viewed here With over 18,500 views already, that’s seriously impressive statistics considering that only ~ 200 attended in person.
I wonder how people misuse the data statistics available in public. First, as most agree that it’s nt only scientific conf. that costs to pollution. Second, how does the example of 11000 indians polluting environment stands here? Once u tell 550 US citizens polluting the same, it’s 20 times of that!! People just try to make use of data to broadcast their non-scientific mentality in some way or the other. Its disappointing to see few ppl making indian population as a trademark of count statistics.
I wonder whether virtual conferences might be the way of the future?
The social side might be a bit of a problem. And that’s what we all go for, isn’t it?
A week ago I “attended” a project meeting in Connecticut virtually. The travel time to the meeting would have been longer than the meeting itself. Virtual meetings might be more important than virtual conferences, because the social aspect isn’t so important for them. Oh, and because you can sit at home with a glass of wine during the meeting.
Bob