With Globalization, Scientists Should Be Minimizing Carbon Footprints

Traveling to and from conferences should be reconsidered given the world that we live in today.

                                                    Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

We live in a world connected by the internet. With the click of a mouse, a person in the United States can be laughing and singing with a resident in Bangladesh, India. The stretch of technology has made possible the seemingly impossible. With that in mind, why are scientists still traveling around to conferences unnecessarily? That is a point of contention.

With this technological improvement optimized, why are scientists still flying around the world to attend scientific conferences? Especially, when they are advocating the world to reduce their own carbon footprint?

These questions need to be answered in order to instill the courage to change among people in society. According to an article published by the Associated Press, people tend to change when the authority is using less carbon than they are currently using.

Which is to say, a person is unlikely to change if the professor/scientist is advocating reducing their carbon footprint while flying around the world advocating the message — using large amounts of carbon while doing so. The author states that the scientist responds by citing that airline travel is around 3% of contributions to all global carbon emissions. I will step in and say — so what do you need to fly all over the world to spread your message?

Scientific Conferences Breed Collaboration

Scientists often meet unexpected scientists working on similar or different research projects at scientific conferences. The dialogue or discussion can in some cases yield great collaborations for the future decades. Which in turn, can yield important scientific advances in a given field.

Which begs the question: Are scientific conferences important?

The answer is a resounding YES. I do not think that any scientist would question the importance of certain conferences which they like to attend. There are certain conferences that can seem redundant or not important to a respective scientist. This depends on their research and interests in the end.

All scientists do not need to attend all conferences throughout the entire year. Why not rearrange conferences? To date, conferences have grown out of control to the point where attending every talk is not just unheard of but literally (and physically) impossible. Which begs the question of the need to attend in the end.

Is there a better way to disseminate new scientific findings to the world?

Webinars are popular today and well attended by different communities around the world. Why not make more webinars for scientists to watch? Then the actual scientist/professor might be more accessible if they are at their academic institution to both an audience and their graduate students. Research relationships might be stronger as a result (I thought that I would throw that one in there for any scientist who has had a “hands-off” advisor).

There must be a better way to reduce a scientist's carbon footprint which does not require them to lose their academic/research rank. The answer is not far away. Especially, with creative people and technology today. Each of us needs to think about solutions rather than just giving in to the status quo.

The article in the Associated Press gives a large number of excuses as to why scientists need to travel and use more carbon than need be. I call bull. Each of us can learn how to reduce our footprint a little each day. Which would amount to a large scale across nations.

Climate Change Is Broadly Accepted

Change is being called around the world. With the COP25 talks wrapping up in Madrid this week, more actionable plans by various nations will come to light over the next few weeks. This is good.

On top of this great news, some large investors are pulling investments out of fossil fuels. A nordic investor recently pulled $24 billion of investment funds from fossil fuel investments and reinvested them in fossil-free investments. The fund called Storebrand is in Norway and has completely divested fossil fuel investments.

In a recent article from the Washington Post, a large number of Americans broadly accept climate change. Although, the contributors to climate change and the solutions to combat climate change are not well known among Americans. The article is filled with interesting statistics on the causes and contributors to climate change and people’s understanding of them.

The fact that climate change has been raised to the international stage (which is normal) along with having an unusually large number of Congressional hearings this year so far (which is unusual), suggests that climate change may be taken more seriously in the years to come. Especially, as voters head to the voting polls next November for their choice to lead the nation over the next 4 years to a decade.

The time has past to have a conversation about the various contributors to climate change. We stand at the point where each of us has to ask ourselves, what difference (small to large) on a daily basis can I make to reduce my carbon footprint today? The small choices will among large groups add up to a large change. Let’s start now.