I've stopped flying to conferences for climate change reasons

https://twitter.com/monadic/status/1133678258338373632

by zoobab • 7 years ago

204 211 7 years ago

mrweasel• 7 years ago

I may be wrong about this (please correct) but I think over 10% of the world's carbon budget is spent on running computers. It's everyone's fault and we all need to fix this. Don't just blame bitcoin miners.

This part seem much more important, compared to trying to offset plane travel by buying carbon credits.

ubercow13• 7 years ago

Computers have completely changed the world. Do we all use more carbon or less in total because of that 10% now being used for computing? What did we get for it compared to other uses of carbon?

rgblambda• 7 years ago

One way to think of it: Computers enabled massive economic growth, which in turn led to higher carbon emissions. It would be interesting to try to quantify the increase/decrease in carbon emissions due to computing.

shubhamjain• 7 years ago

Computers can be run by cleaner sources of energy, not planes (at least not with what current technology permits; batteries don't have enough energy density). I prefer plane travel myself, but let's be honest, emissions-wise planes are a horrible way to travel [1].

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/shubhamjainco/status/110244951253...

mrpopo2• 7 years ago

A plane despite transporting hundreds of passengers is less efficient than a fully occupied car.

And according to these numbers, a plane is more efficient than a car with 2 occupants. Average vehicle occupancy varies around 1.5 people.

It doesn't make the plane a better way to travel, of course. It just shows that individual cars need to be proscribed just as much as airplanes.

SkyBelow• 7 years ago

Depends upon how you measure it. The image impact of flying to climate change conferences is likely far worse than the image impact of using a computer. This can sway opinion enough to change elections and to change the priorities of politicians.

rwallace• 7 years ago

It seems wildly improbable. Where did that number come from? I don't believe it's anywhere near that high.

edent3• 7 years ago

Next week I'm taking a 5 hour train journey rather than flying. When I figure in the time to get to the airport, the waiting in the lounge, baggage retrieval, etc. then flying doesn't save much time.

On the train I can work all the way, stretch my legs when I want, use WiFi / 4G, and bring as many liquids as I like. The environmental benefits are a bonus on top.

I wish more of Europe was accessible directly via Eurostar from London, but I'm quite happy with Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam for now.

(I'll be attending https://opensourceawards.org/ - come say hi!)

Aromasin• 7 years ago

If this if is the UK train service your experience can vary drastically though, depending on if you can get a seat or not...

davidarkemp2• 7 years ago

If it's the UK, then you can book a seat on most services... if you're travelling distance during peak time, and you know in advance, then I'd recommend it - and being prepared to politely but assertively ask people to move if they are sat in your seat.

matt7aylor• 7 years ago

I've found this to be a fantastic resource for creating travel plans in Europe (and beyond) without flying: https://www.seat61.com/

No affiliation, just been using it to help plan all sorts of travel since I stopped flying in 2011 (although I have to say the best way to travel long distance in Europe is by bicycle, if you can make the time).

murph-almighty• 7 years ago

As behind as the US is on this front, the NE Regional and Acela are fantastic for NY-DC travel. It's infinitely less headache in terms of what you can bring (liquids in baggage and not really much of a weight limit), space (leg room for days), general comfort (no cabin pressure)... I could go on about this.

edent3• 7 years ago

I had an enjoyable trip on the Empire line from NYC to Niagara. A beautiful way to see that part of the country, without the horrors of the TSA.

jtms• 7 years ago

I used to travel NYC to Boston fairly often for work and I absolutely loved the experience of taking the Acela. The problem is that it’s so expensive! This was fine when my employer was willing to pay, but I wouldn’t pay it myself (it’s usually far more expensive than flying in my experience)

siffland• 7 years ago

The problem for the US in the case of trains is that the US government owns Amtrak and they own no actual train tracks. Therefore when there are 2 trains competeing for the same track, Amtrak has to yield to the commercial trains. I have seen recent court arguments that it should be the other way around, but as of last year when i brought my father down from chicago to san antonio that was the case (that is a near 40 hour train ride).

I would ride the trainmore if it were quicker and a 4-5 hour flight or 18 hour drive didnt take 40 hours on a train.

darkpuma• 7 years ago

With no noxious TSA checkpoint and a streamlined boarding process, it's amazing how much more pleasant travel by train is. I often arrive an hour early, if not more, to an airport. Between unpredictable TSA wait times and the lengthy boarding process of airplanes, it's a huge waste of time. When I'm traveling by train, I often arive at the train station no more than 5 minutes before I am sitting on the train. There are no lines to enter the train station and the line to board the train moves quickly because the train has more space to move around on and because the train has multiple entrances and exits. It's totally feasible to walk into a train station then without stopping walk straight onto a train.

That's an experience I'm generally willing to pay extra for vs flying, but unfortunately in America the opportunities to take advantage of trains are lacking if you live outside the Northeast Corridor, as I now do.

sharperguy• 7 years ago

I'd say 5 hours is about the limit where the train makes more sense practically than flying. An eight hour train isn't worth it IMO compared to a 1.5 hour flight.

TazeTSchnitzel• 7 years ago

Consider a sleeper service!

tannhaeuser• 7 years ago

Depends on how long the trip to/from the airport is. Railway stations tend to be in city centers.

Edit: also, you can get stuff done on your notebook in the train, but often times not on a plane b/c of the excessive check-in, gating, boarding, security, customs ceremony

hyperbovine• 7 years ago

There is no such thing as a 1.5h flight. With security, traffic to and from the airport, "allow extra time for <x>", and actual airtime, you're looking at 4h door to door for pretty much the shortest travel distance that it makes sense to fly (LA to SF or DC to NY). The train compares much more favorably when you factor everything in.

oytis6• 7 years ago

Don't know about UK, but in Germany trains are obscenely expensive, especially when you compare them to low-cost airlines. There is nothing like "low-cost railway" so far, and I doubt there ever will be.

magduf13• 7 years ago

In Bavaria, they're dirt cheap, at least for the regional trains. For 25 Euros cash, you can go anywhere in Bavaria all you want, for 24 hours, in as many trips as you want. Of course, this doesn't really compete with airlines, as this is for inter-city trips within the state, and no two cities in Bavaria are that far apart.

But to say there's no "low-cost railway" is plainly false. Bavaria has probably one of the best train systems in the entire world, and it's not expensive by any means.

ahartmetz• 7 years ago

The regular Deutsche Bahn prices are very expensive but the special prices are often rather cheap. A further 25% less for BahnCard 25 owners. I take a lot of cheap train rides that way.

https://ps.bahn.de/preissuche/preissuche/psc_angebotssuche.r...

criddell6• 7 years ago

Low cost rail might exist one day in relation to the cost of flying where the carbon cost is added to the plane ticket.

jlangenauer2• 7 years ago

So you have a moral question: Is it more important that you save a few euros, or that future generations and people in poor countries (who, let's be honest, will bear the brunt of climate change) will suffer?

neuronic• 7 years ago

What? Of course there is low cost train travel. It is garbage, but it exists.

https://www.flixtrain.com/

However, if you want to go Hamburg-Munich on an ICE (better than flying imo IF (!) everything works) and you do not have purchased a "BahnCard" and you do not book far in advance then it is very expensive.

2nd class ICE ride on that track in 2 weeks is 153€, flex, one way. For that money you get a return flight.

If you can be 100% sure to make it to one exact train you can go for ca. 50€. [1] Risk of failing to catch that train is pretty high though.

[1] https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/dn?revia=yes&exi...

nudpiedo2• 7 years ago

I made that a lot in Germany and it is worth if you value also the quality of the travel.

There are regular offers between capitals and big cities across countries, travels I did from Stuttgart: Stuttgart-Paris 40€, Copenhagen-Stuttgart 80€ (the train got in a Ferry and then the travel continued until Hamburg!), Stuttgart Amsterdam 80€. Sometimes traveling to far places like Spain must go over Paris, and each country has their own train network with more or less adaptation.

The quality of the public train got worse in Germany during the last 10 years and it is not an infrastructure thought to be run as a business with profits, but it is still one of the best transportation services for long distance.

The only problems with the train is visiting remote areas where it is necessary doing to or three train changes, which increases the chance of delays.

tmikaeld• 7 years ago

I'm sad that trains don't get more attention than they do, it's amazingly fuel efficient due to the low friction and the enormous load-capacity.

elektor• 7 years ago

A laudable decision and one that I think needs to be encouraged on a university level.

However, I’ve found that human face-to-face interaction is more productive vs email/Skype and wonder if there’s potential missed opportunities if we were to completely forego in-person conferences.

chapium• 7 years ago

This is why I imagined 3d telepresence taking off. People like to explore the space around them, even if its just an illusion.

therealmarv• 7 years ago

Trying to "Youtube" rewatch talks for most of them. I think conferences can be very unproductive and sometimes are more like a "fun" event than a necessity.

passiveincomelg• 7 years ago

Yes, good conferences are fun. Fun and human connections are important for a healthy community. Hybrids could work; Live stream the talks and gather locally to watch them together.

dagw• 7 years ago

You make it sound like fun is a bad thing

tobltobs• 7 years ago

If your "fun" requires you to produce tons of CO2 then maybe yes it is.

chrisan• 7 years ago

Besides meeting new people/networking, what does one get from attending a conference physically that cannot be obtained remotely?

lr4444lr• 7 years ago

Hotel bar soap.

roter• 7 years ago

Or just leave the soap. Many hotels recycle it through the Global Soap Project [0] and Clean the World [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derreck_Kayongo

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_the_World

x38iq84n• 7 years ago

Essentially a vacation to a new destination paid by grant money. And the hotel bar soap.

ocschwar• 7 years ago

Boy am I looking forward to going to Dayton for Rust Belt Rust.

The bar soap better be awesome.

odiroot• 7 years ago

I can immerse myself more in presentations when I'm physically there. YT is not the same. I can also grab the speaker and ask them some questions.

Also going to some new interesting places.

klyrs• 7 years ago

I don't know about other fields, but theorems often get proved at math conferences.

DangerousPie• 7 years ago

There is still a big difference between attending a talk in person and watching it on screen. From AV issues (can you see their laser pointer) to the option of easily asking a question afterwards. Plus, many scientific conferences have poster sessions which are rarely accessible remotely.

And don't underestimate how important meeting new people and networking is! I would say that's probably my biggest motivation for going to conferences these days.

xfitm3• 7 years ago

Huge difference. Attending talks in person is akin to reading paperback, while watching a video is akin to a Kindle. It can be difficult to block out time on your computer and give undivided attention to a video.

tcpekin• 7 years ago

Isn't that the idea behind (academic) conferences? Bringing together everyone in a field to meet new people/network, and also learn from talks and poster sessions is the motivation. There is something I've found fundamentally different in being able to spend time with professors or graduate students "trapped" at a conference poster session than reaching out across time zones via an email->potential phone call. The ability to see tons of different research, ask stupid questions, and bounce ideas off of people in real time without any other distractions means that, to me, they usually are much more productive than I expected them to be.

hycaria3• 7 years ago

Why this title ?

Also, low number of respondents and considering the survey went through his own twitter with a Climate Code idea, probably very biaised sample.

However, I'd totally favour a company with a flight offsetting policy. Can anyone point me some?

Though I agree face to face is definitely a different experience. My point is maybe crossing oceans is not mandatory to learn from one another. A while ago people didn't had the choice, yet they were able to do much in all science.

n-exploit• 7 years ago

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but there are some resources here.

https://chooose.today/

hycaria3• 7 years ago

That looks and reads bad. I don't even get the point of the initiative :( Not what I'm looking for at all it seems. I just want company names that actively discourage/limit flying their employees.

hokkos5• 7 years ago

The goal of this project is to destruct carbon credits (tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon), it won't at all capture or even offset CO2 emission, it will only slightly raise the price of carbon credit. It is a totally misleading for the website to say that it will reduce your carbon footprint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

glitchc• 7 years ago

For these reasons, I limit myself to North American conferences. I derive a great deal from conferences; the face to face interactions and asking questions during question period are crucial to understanding the limits of the presented work (and not particularly apparent at all in the final paper). But, travel, esp. overseas, is time-consuming and expensive. The acceptable trade-off personally seems to be self-imposed geographical restriction.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

People still crossed the oceans, they just took a bit longer. Nowadays you can still take a trip on a freight ship, but it'll take about 10-15 days to cross the Atlantic (EU-US).

Maybe once Starlink launches, one could treat it as a remote office. Definitively more comfortable than working through a red-eye.

hycaria3• 7 years ago

Yeah, sometimes scientists moved to another lab overseas, but rarely on a whim, and for longer periods. Still, there are so many people around, surely there must be some that can challenge our thoughts or enrich our network without having to fly planes.

cagenut• 7 years ago

I've been thinking about putting together something like a "global warming for devops" or a "climate capacity planning" talk for velocity where the final slide is: cancel velocity.

That is, of course, over-simplifying, but O'reilly's conferences line of business is an interesting example of a non-energy company who's business model is existentially threatened by a meaningful response to climate change.

Internet debate artists will endlessly get caught up in the false-binary of banning international flights or not, but functionally, from O'reilly's perspective, there's no meaningful difference between an outright ban and an order-of-magnitude price increase. Either way the conference business craters.

Can they "pivot to video"?

Do they feel ethically obligated to try?

jsty• 7 years ago

Considering half the reason for those conferences is networking, perhaps a 'regional' / distributed conference model would work - you could still choose to attend an in-place event for all the networking benefits (albeit with a smaller group of people), but have all the talks live-streamed to theatres in each location (and online for those who don't care about the networking).

rjmunro• 7 years ago

I'm not convinced by offsetting. It's better to not cause the emissions in the first place, rather than pay someone else to reduce their emissions in exchange later. You can't know that they won't have reduced their emissions anyway.

Certainly taking the train to a conference is better than flying, if that's the choice you have. Concentrating on conferences local to you is a good idea. Attending remotely sort of works, but it's really not the same as being there. It's better if you are with other people at your end, watching together.

acdha• 7 years ago

Offsetting is good because it starts the process of getting people to think of it as a cost until we get a true carbon tax. You don't need to ban plans, just getting people to save money by taking the train is a net win over what we've been doing for decades.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

You could offset by paying to actually take carbon from the atmosphere, rather than just not producing more. Climeworks can do it for $600/ton, and will probably drop quite a bit. If they get to $100/ton, flying Lisbon → Brussels would still be cheaper than taking a train.

tombert5• 7 years ago

This is probably an unpopular opinion amongst liberals like myself, but I personally think the idea that the "average joe" is going to be able to change their lifestyle and solve climate-change to be somewhat of a pipe-dream. If you want to live in an ecologically more-sustainable way (using renewable energy, becoming a vegetarian, avoiding disposables, etc), that's great! I honestly encourage that, and it's probably a good thing, I won't try and stop you.

However, I think it's unreasonable to expect everyone to do that on their own. For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is just such a huge magnitude of people doing the "wrong" thing to cancel it out, largely because that (from a short-term-pragmatic-standpoint, the "wrong" thing is better) or at least cheaper. If you value your time at all, flying across the country is cheaper, meat is readibly available and inexpensive (and typically taste good), and driving to work is substantially easier than biking.

I don't know anything about ecology so I'll admit that I might regret writing this entire comment in a year, but it seems to me that the only way we're going to make a dent in climate change is to a) create technology that provides an experience that is competitive with the dirty version of something (electric cars could be a good example), or b) to start artificially taxing things that are really hurting the environment. If we started charging an extra dollar-per-gallon tax on gasoline, it would probably discourage people from driving as much, and put more economic incentive on point a).

I can commend someone not flying to conferences anymore, but I am afraid to say that I dont have the same self-discipline.

magduf13• 7 years ago

If you want people to make ecological choices, you have to do it at higher levels instead of expecting individuals to change their lifestyles.

So instead of continuing to widen roads, we need to build more trains, and change municipal development processes so that cities are made denser.

Instead of having short-hop air travel, we need to fund high-speed rail.

And yes, taxing things to change consumption patterns is a big part of this. Slap a big tax on gasoline/diesel and jet fuel and use that to fund HSR, for instance.

grayed-down6• 7 years ago

Then get yourself elected to a national level office and get to work. Usually an idealist's first set of budget or appropriation meetings is enough to cure them. It sure worked for me.

criddell6• 7 years ago

Airlines should be required to offset their CO2 emissions. Dr. David Keith has designed a machine that can pull CO2 out of the air for something like $200 / metric ton.

moosey• 7 years ago

In this time where it appears that the vast majority of civilization is paying almost no attention to climate change, one of the best tools that a person has in their arsenal is to reduce their own pollution, because it aids in building the necessary political will to do _something_.

If we don't, you know that those who politically oppose us will simply call us hypocrites: Russia doesn't use careful logic, and even though pointing out hypocrisy a logical fallacy, most leaders, both government and business, will continue to use it, because maintaining power always feels like the right way forward.

Basically we have to practice conspicuous ethics because there will always be someone saying it's useless behind you, even people who understand that climate change is real.

And even then, it might be a wash. We have to hope for a global "oh-shit" moment in the next few years if we are to have any hope of handling climate change. It doesn't mean that I won't be conspicuous and hope to help create like-minded individuals.

cuillevel3• 7 years ago

I agree, you can't (just) appeal to morality. You have to change the system (responsibly) to influence decision making.

Otherwise it's just the prison dilemma game and tragedy of the commons.

balthasar2• 7 years ago

Neoliberal capitalism offers no solution to mass waste or climate change.

tombert5• 7 years ago

Not by itself, no. I think we can add stricter government regulations to help, however, especially if we actually enforced them.

frankbreetz• 7 years ago

For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is just such a huge magnitude of people doing the "wrong" thing to cancel it out, largely because that (from a short-term-pragmatic-standpoint, the "wrong" thing is better) or at least cheaper. If you value your time at all, flying across the country is cheaper, meat is readily available and inexpensive (and typically taste good), and driving to work is substantially easier than biking.

It only takes a small percentage of the population to make a systematic change[0], I hope for humanity we are reaching a tipping point on this. People living their life in the correct way is spreading awareness and they are putting their money where their mouth is. These people and the youth climate strike may be our last chance. Also, the environment is the number one issue for the democratic party in the 2020 election. But, I do agree eventually these people making these changes will have to drive government agendas and the real mass changes will have to happen that way.

[0]http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of...

tombert5• 7 years ago

I should backpedal a bit and reemphasize; please do not stop doing good things for the environment by any means. The more sustainably you can live your life, especially if you can demonstrate a way to do it fairly easily, the more of a proof-of-concept you become, which can help put pressures on governments.

I mean, I don't own a car, am mostly vegetarian (I eat fish occasionally), and take public transit nearly everywhere, so it's not like I don't try and do my part (though I do fly a lot, so that probably cancels out all my savings).

Part of the problem with writing comments like this is that I do think some of the the issues causing climate-change to become a problem are due to a specific political party, and HN typically gets a bit flag-heavy whenever you start getting into overt politics.

kami8845• 7 years ago

The data from the article you provided talks about violent and non-violent protests and the numbers required for it. If 11,445,000 people were to storm the White House I imagine that would indeed have quite the effect. I don't see how it's related to not flying planes or not eating meat to effect climate change.

habosa• 7 years ago

I work in a role (Developer Relations) that involves a lot of conferences. Business travel, especially to conferences, has to be one of the biggest wastes of money and resources in corporate America today.

People spend thousands to go to a conference and the stated benefit is to hear a few talks that are definitely recorded and to have a handful of useful conversations.

Let's be honest: many people at conferences just see them as a way to have the company pay for you to get out of the office and go on a semi-vacation. I know I've gone to things with that mindset before.

Don't get me wrong it's not the events that are the issue, it's how far we travel to them. I'm sure 90% of the benefit could be had by going to local meetups and watching the big conferences online.

bduerst• 7 years ago

Conferences don't exist for the majority of the people who attend them. They're a sales tool for converting B2B decision makers, usually C- or VP-level, for which the acquisition cost helps justify the conference expenditures. This is from all sides, whether hosting or sponsoring the conference.

Developers and 'practitioners' are typically background noise to the main purpose, unless of course they have influence on the decision makers.

ido3• 7 years ago

That’s the real answer. Even as a mere self employed consultant I’ve been to conferences where I’ve gotten deals worth many time the cost of attending (e.g. spend $2k to land a $120k contract).

This is even truer in the scale of the really big players closing deals in the millions+.

czbond• 7 years ago

Thank you for saying this, before I had a chance to. And to add to it - many companies also make vendor purchase decisions for tools/technologies not on a strategic vendor analysis, but on which ones they see at conferences.

wink5• 7 years ago

I've heard this at times but maybe I'm visiting the wrong (right?) kind of events, I've seen mostly people excited to talk about the subject of the conference, or related subjects or meet new people. But I have to say I'm more used to community-run events, smaller events or barcamps - not stuff like excessively large conference frequented mostly by enterprise people who seem a tad less excited .. Java One comes to mind from what I heard...

So yeah, networking plays such a big part that I really prefer to meet people from all over the world (or at least all over Europe) once per year and not from the same pool of ~1000-5000 in my area.

pas3• 7 years ago

Meetups are usually a lot better for avoiding sales-related phenomena. And they are pretty topical, so you are almost sure to find a few good talks, they are not too long, and very much open ended, so if you bump into someone interesting you don't have to choose between skipping many talks or continue talking.

anarazel• 7 years ago

For me (a nearly full time open source developer) the more technical conferences are a way to stay inspired, resolve /dissipate conflicts and try to figure out hard plans. I've yet to find anything that comes close, especially with people otherwise distributed across all timezones. And yes, I find the hallway track more important than the talks.

None of that is served by local meetups / watching talks online.

idlewords2• 7 years ago

There's a lot of value in a semi-vacation, particularly in the United States, where it's not common to have more than two weeks of time off a year.

sarcasmic• 7 years ago

The clearest benefit of conferences for developers is networking and the "hallway tracks" -- the emergent discussions that arise after talks. The social processes of these are hard to replicate online. The asynchronous nature of online text chat, perhaps the most apt widely-deployed alternative, already lessens the urgency and spontaneity of the discussion. There are people who don't take advantage of the opportunities to insert themselves into emergent conversations, and unless their presence alone is a positive signal for the company, they're largely wasting their company's money.

The clearest benefit of conferences for sponsors is the potential lead between frontline-but-backoffice workers who work on a particular topic to the decision-makers behind them who can influence purchasing. Being present at conferences fosters passing familiarity of developers with the product, which helps conversations that occur between those developers and their bosses later: the emails from the higher-ups that ask "what do you think about Product?", and the off-the-cuff gut assessments that follow. Irrespective of the developer's initial reaction, name recognition of the product sticks around and often makes it to later rounds of evaluation and assessment.

crankylinuxuser• 7 years ago

Absolutely! 'LobbyCon' (colloquial name for any 'Con discussions in hallways or lobbies) is a thing. I can't really get anything like that online, regardless the platform. The closest, which is a longshot, has been IRC.

Sure, you can attend talks... However "magical" things happen when you get people with different skills all talking as equals. It's the opposite of mob mentality, where each person in a group adds to the collective intelligence and power to see further.

----------------------------------------------------------

And yes, I just got back from Circle City Con in which I gave a talk about "SigInt for the masses: Building and Using a Signals Intelligence Platform for Less than $150". For me, it was a 1hr drive. But still, watching a video or making one online != in person.

My talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyq6_IZ-2fE

My repo (including scripts, printables, presentation) is here: https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/siginttablet

xenocyon• 7 years ago

Anecdotally it seems to me that not only is most business travel wasteful, but the people who do it the most are the most wasteful (e.g. a junior dev won't make a trip unless it's really needed where an exec won't think twice). Thus the people who fly the most use are the most thoughtless about it, and certainly at their level the cost of air travel is an insufficient reason to modify behavior. It seems like a progressive carbon tax would be good: a light load on the poor schmuck who flies with great deliberation once a year, whereas the private-jet C-exec should have to pay such an large amount in carbon tax (more than a linear function of CO2) that it causes them to actually sit up and take notice.

elidourado• 7 years ago

Business travel broadly is a huge boon to trade and economic growth. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.212....

I agree that developer conferences may be wasteful, but don't paint non-conference travel with that brush.

drugme2• 7 years ago

Let's be honest: many people at conferences just see them as a way to have the company pay for you to get out of the office and go on a semi-vacation.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I find that these "semi-vacations" do a lot to recharge my batteries, which is very helpful to my productivity in the long run.

I'm sure 90% of the benefit could be had by going to local meetups and watching the big conferences online.

I would say more like 50 percent. The other 50 percent comes in the form of (vitally important) F2F interactions. Which are why, time and time again -- remote interactions are found to be "just not the same" as in-person interactions.

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I find that these "semi-vacations" do a lot to recharge my batteries, which is very helpful to my productivity in the long run.

Nothing's wrong with semi-vacations. But we might as well be open about it and provide an actual vacation and do it in a less carbon intensive way.

Let's say if a company instead of paying for a conference, just gave you a few days off and cash in hand. How would you spend it?

fourier_mode2• 7 years ago

Finally I see some discussion which I always kept thinking about. My political preference is leftward, but the point which the right wing believers raise about the left-leaning leaders speaking about climate change is not completely invalid, as personally they do not lead a minimalistic lifestyle.

And this begs the question about their sincerity about what they are proposing about climate change, do they actually mean it or do they just want to appease their political base.

Retra• 7 years ago

You can advocate for a policy without adopting it in your personal life. Especially if changing your personal life would have insignificant impact when compared to a policy.

People can do whatever they like on their own. We elect politicians to establish our public policy, not their personal policy.

fourier_mode2• 7 years ago

Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

robomartin5• 7 years ago

And yet reality is that if we completely eliminated the ENTIRE transportation industry world wide —land, sea and air, effectively destroying civilization as we know it—- a reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentration of 100 ppm will require somewhere in the order of 50,000 to 100,000 years.

Talking about non-solutions might feel emotionally satisfying, yet it does nothing at all to really address the problem. Worse yet, it pulls the conversation away from real solutions.

MagnumOpus• 7 years ago

reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentration of 100 ppm

Shifting the goalpost? Getting near net zero increase would be sufficient to avoid an extinction event.

pulls the conversation away from real solutions

Do you have a real solution? If not, why badmouth something constructive just because it is not constructive enough? If yes, why don't you post it?

dmitriid3• 7 years ago

Getting near net zero increase would be sufficient to avoid an extinction event.

--- start quote [1] ---

This is the largest, dirtiest coal mine in Europe. It's responsible for 100 Million Tons of CO2 emissions per year.

That's 3168 kg of CO2 per second.

--- end quote ---

I will be flying to Barcelona from Stockholm in June. Some sites show me the three-hour flight will cost 616kg of CO2. Is it per person? I don't know. Let's assume per person (even though I'm pretty sure it's for the entire flight).

In that same time that mine will have released 60×60×3.5×3168 = almost 40 million kg of CO2. Enough for every single person on that flight to take over 200 such flights to be anywhere on the same level of CO2 emmissions.

[1] https://twitter.com/JoanieLemercier/status/11113348483990528...

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

The reality is that there is no one single industry where reductions will be sufficient. We need lots of reductions across the board. Including in transportation.

robomartin5• 7 years ago

No. This is wrong and it is not supported by data.

If humanity and all of our stuff evaporated from this planet it would take 50,000 to 75,000 years for atmospheric CO2 to drop by 100ppm.

These are all non-solutions. Even if we become extinct and all of our technology, buildings and power-plants rot away and dissolve, you are still looking at tens of thousands of years.

None of these things, individually or collectively are better than humanity not being on this planet. Which means they can’t possibly produce results any faster than that.

jdietrich7• 7 years ago

Everything is the real problem. If we eliminated everything but transportation, we'd still be screwed. Transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, domestic energy use - we have to fix it all to stand any hope of mitigating the worst effects of climate change. We can fix it all, but that requires concerted effort.

Transportation is the biggest single source of emissions in the US, so it is entirely reasonable to make it a high-priority target.

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

robomartin5• 7 years ago

I continue to see that this issue is dominated by ideology and brainwashing.

I have an open question that nobody has answered yet:

If all of humanity evaporated from this planet tomorrow, it would take 50,000 to 75,000 years for atmospheric CO2 to drop by 100ppm.

We know this to a high degree of certainty because of ice core atmospheric data going back 800,000 years. In other words, way before any of our technology even existed.

So, the natural “no humans anywhere” rate of change is in the order of 100ppm per 50,000 years.

Now the question:

How does your <insert any idea you care to test here> msnage to improve on this rate of change a thousand-fold when it is but a rounding error when compared to the planet without humanity at all?

Simple example: Convert the entire world to the most optimal forms of renewable energy!

OK, if all of humanity LEFT THE PLANET and we took ALL OF OUR TECHNOLOGY WITH US, it would take 50,000 to 75,000 years for a useful change in atmospheric CO2.

This renewable energy shift is an insignificant change when compared to a planet empty of us and our crap. Which means that, if there’s a reduction of atmospheric CO2 at all it can’t possibly happen any faster than 100ppm per ~50,000 years.

Anyone claiming otherwise needs to explain the magical methods they will use to violate the laws of physics as we know them.

BTW, to whoever made the comment: I don’t have to know the solution to a problem in order to recognize the problem as well as to identify non-solutions. I don’t know how to make humans breathe under water, but I can tell that eating more fish is not a solution.

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

Without questioning any of your assumptions.

You see impact of up to 75k years from your and my emissions. Essentially any pollution you and I cause can be considered permanent from a human time perspective. If we were to stop emitting today, it's not certain where equilibrium would settle, nor what tipping points will pass as temperatures increase.

You conclude there's no point bothering and to keep doing near permanent damage? Just keep on shitting in the pool until it's unusable? This is concluding there's no point investing in a pension.

Personally, I conclude we need to reach carbon neutral as soon as possible - to stop making the problem worse. Very simply put 100ppm is going to be better for humanity and other species than 150ppm or 200ppm etc, so stop as soon as possible. To not pass the irreparable tipping points, to stop adding fuel to the fire.

Not as soon as convenient, or as soon as affordable, but as possible. Mobilise countries as though on a war footing: rationing - of flying, of petrol, of food, of consumer goods and clothing, quotas, enforcement, require industries to stop producing some thing and produce something else instead. ALL of these were done in WW2, and no laws of physics were broken. Now consider human population growth, so probably add child rationing too.

Personally I don't see that mobilisation happening soon. Based upon the pathetic progress over the last 30 or 40 years I think it almost inevitable - the market can't solve it. Very probably not in my lifetime, as humanity will probably need to be much closer to a clear abyss of impending disaster. I do think it the inheritance my children can very likely look forward to, and a society that's much less free and may have far less opportunity. Because their parent's and grandparent's generations couldn't be arsed.

Nevertheless two easy first steps toward stop making the problem worse are carbon neutral electricity generation, and reducing flying. No magic or disingenuous claims.

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

Do you fly to conferences annually? How many?

one conference per year - 23.9%

two to four conferences per year - 47.8%

Five plus conferences per year - 16.4%

sharpneli4• 7 years ago

By looking at the EU CO2 spot prices we can get a quick glimpse on how much does the plane ticket matter compared to things like using Coal as power.

A plane ticket from Finland to Japan would go from ~1000€ into 1020€ if it would pay the same CO2 emission prices as coal power pays. So basically nothing.

We should focus on reducing the big CO2 emission sources instead of these. But it is understandable why people do things like this. They are really easy way to signal one cares about the environment, even though they are basically meaningless as the same person enjoys bit lower electricity prices due to cheap coal that pumps way more CO2 than the flights ever would.

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

We should focus on reducing the big CO2 emission sources instead of these.

To be honest I don't know how I personally can focus on big CO2 sources. But I know how to stop flying.

sharpneli4• 7 years ago

You could reduce your electricity use. Just drop consumption by 10% and you already more than offset any flying you do. Or try to get solars and enjoy.

grandridge• 7 years ago

Stop eating industrial grown food. Stop whipping your ass with soft toilet paper. Stop consuming plastic. Stop ordering stuff from Amazon. Stop living in the modern world

dm3• 7 years ago

The co2.myclimate.org website shows 1.6t CO2 emitted with an offset cost of 38€ for a flight from Finland to Japan[0].

For example, according to the Carbon Footprint Factsheet published on the UoM website[1], beef is only 6.61 pounds (~= 3kg) CO2 per serving (4oz ~= 0.12kg). You'd have to eat a lot of meat to produce an amount of CO2 comparable to that caused by a single flight.

Newer cars in EU are emitting around 110g CO2/km[3], so the Helsinki-Okinawa trip would result in an 8157km*110g/1000 ~= 900kg of CO2. Still less than a flight. However, according to Wikipedia[4], the flight CO2 emissions in EU are at ~100g/km per passenger which contradicts the co2.myclimate.org calculator unless the global efficiency figures are much worse than EU. Flights also emit nitrogen oxides which have a stronger effect at higher altitudes.

A carbon tax enforced by the governments would be the most effective measure[2] AFAIK.

[0] https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=19789...

[1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/wiki/faq_carbonpricing

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...

sharpneli4• 7 years ago

I based mine on the wikipedia numbers. But regardless even 38€ is peanuts.

I also agree that carbon tax, or universally applied emission markets, would be the best. Coal power would be absolutely hammered as people prefer eating meat and flying instead of marginally cheaper elecricity.

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

I didn't participate in the survey but I've stopped flying to conferences for climate change reasons as well.

Proven• 7 years ago

Climatists still fly to climate change conferences. Some in private airplanes. See, it's not that bad!

alex_duf2• 7 years ago

I may be wrong about this (please correct) but I think over 10% of the world's carbon budget is spent on running computers. It's everyone's fault and we all need to fix this. Don't just blame bitcoin miners.

On that topic AWS really need to beef up its game!

schwank• 7 years ago

AWS is already powered over 50% by renewable energy.

alex_duf2• 7 years ago

That's 50% short of what I'd expect a tech company to achieve

hokkos5• 7 years ago

Who cares ? I just want 100% low CO2 energy. If they just buy the same quantity of renewable energy credit that they used, it is misleading because it does not cover their usage around the clock.

“Just purchasing more solar energy in a grid that already has lots of solar generation will not result in zero emissions,”

“To guarantee 100 percent emissions reductions from renewable energy, power consumption needs to be matched with renewable generation on an hourly basis,”

https://energy.stanford.edu/news/100-renewables-doesn-t-equa...

At one point they will have to stop with "renewable" and accept nuclear and the low carbon label (on an hourly or minute basis).

pjkundert• 7 years ago

If your collaboration with your technical peers produces so little incremental value that you don't foresee your lifetime output displacing other products/services of lower value and/or greater environmental cost -- then don't travel.

Otherwise, travel as much as you can, while it increases your output.

forgotmypw• 7 years ago

It would be nice to see conferences adopt some kind of "bring your own bowl, spoon, and/or cup policy, so that each day does not result in a couple of plastic plates and cups being manufactured, used once, and trashed.

js8• 7 years ago

A little OT but the connection will be apparent at the end.

I had this interesting idea of "economic entropy". In analogy with statistical physics, a macrostate is what and how much is produced by the economy (consumable commodities), and a microstate is how it is produced (all the intermediate supply chains). So to one macrostate can correspond a large number of microstates, logarithm of number of which is the entropy of the macrostate.

Now assume we have two completely independent (not involved in trade) economies, and each of these is in some macrostate and with the corresponding entropy. And we enable the trade. Then over time, we might end up in the same macrostate (they together still produce exactly the same amount of goods), but now the entropy of the entire system is much higher, because there is much more possibilities of how the supply chain works (they are not confined into one of the two previous economies).

Now imagine that for some reason, cost of travel and transportation is really economically negligible. Then microstates with long path of transport for products correspond to same macrostates as those with short path of transport for products. Even more, they will be statistically favored, since global economy has high entropy.

In practice, the high entropy state looks like: You have several multinational companies with sites in the same city, and their executives fly around the world to convince other executives of multinationals to buy their products (be part of their supply chain). The corresponding low entropy state would be that each city has its own set of companies, which all together form a single supply chain.

The point is, historically, we came from low entropy state into a high entropy state, and we are now screwed. We know the low entropy state would be more efficient, but we have no idea how to get there. But getting there would greatly reduce transportation, which is one of the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions.

idlewords2• 7 years ago

We're at the point where the only way to have a real impact on warming is large, global changes in the industrial economy. To pretend that anyone's individual behavior matters only obscures this already difficult-to-discuss issue even further. Aviation is not a significant contributor to global warming (at most 4.9% of the impact according to the ICCC), and if everyone stopped traveling to conferences tomorrow, I suspect it would have a minimal impact on airline schedules.

I get that people want to have a sense of agency, but framing the problem as a question of individual choice is counterproductive.

perfunctory6• 7 years ago

It's obvious that we need large radical changes in the industrial economy. However, individual behaviour is not inconsequential. It's an important factor, if not a prerequisite, in economy transition. We live in a democracy after all. We need to show our leaders that we care.

Aviation is not a significant contributor to global warming

Nothing is. There is no low hanging fruit here. Any given industry has at most X% of impact. We need lots and lots of adjustments across the board. Including in aviation.

but framing the problem as a question of individual choice is counterproductive.

It's not either/or. We need both. We need every help we can get.

TearsInTheRain• 7 years ago

It would be helpful if we could frame this debate using numbers. What percent of the average american's carbon footprint is variable vs fixed?

badatshipping2• 7 years ago

Am I alone in fundamentally not believing in the power of individual action when it comes to stuff like climate change, recycling, voting? People always say that if everyone thought that way then nothing would get done, but that doesn’t change the fact that my individual contribution is worthless.

I think the way to get society-wide change is for the government to either mandate or incentivize it at a systemic level. This “what can I do as an individual to make change” stuff seems like either virtue signalling or irrationally directed anxiety.

maze-le• 7 years ago

No you are not. Issues that are bigger for one human/group to tackle effectively are the reason we have invented political processes and systems in the first place (laws, governance, taxes, regulations). We should use the tools we have, and not offload the task of confronting climate change to the individual. The individual is not suited for this task, as there are too many of them, that will do absolutely nothing unless forced to.

That doesn't mean that a single human can't change anything. Every single action, that reduces CO2 emissions (or sequesters already emitted CO2) is a step forward. But it will be too little, too late and the only effective course of action would be legislative in nature.

tzs• 7 years ago

I think the way to get society-wide change is for the government to either mandate or incentivize it at a systemic level.

The only way that will happen is if people like you vote in a government that will do that.

Not voting because your vote by itself has an infinitesimal effect on the outcome is like a smoker who ignores the health risks and keeps chain smoking because each individual cigarette only has a negligible chance of causing lung cancer, and thus concludes that smoking is not actually dangerous.

badatshipping2• 7 years ago

You are right that large-scale things happen as the cumulative effect of many small things, but the difference is that in your example the smoker is responsible for all of those cigarettes, whereas I only get one single vote.

Incidentally, I do vote; I just don't do so thinking my individual vote matters. It matters that lots of people all vote, but this reinforces my original point that some kind of structural incentive or policy is needed to get lots of people to all do something.

janpot• 7 years ago

I love how conferences and tech communities these days emphasise the importance of inclusion of every individual. I wish they would put as much effort in creating eco-friendly environments. I attended a conference two weeks ago, and the amount of plastic I had to go through in order to just have lunch was embarrassing.

sequoia• 7 years ago

Second, I want us all to make a Climate Code of Conduct.

Some thoughts:

1. Climate Code would be a second code for most conferences. Would it be the last, or should we anticipate conferences in 2022 needing 4 or 5 or 6 codes addressing various issues?

2. Will attendees be required to affirm & agree with the climate code (as they’re asked to follow the typical CoC)? If so, what do you do with people who disagree that conferences tracking their “food-miles” is of critical importance to averting climate catastrophe?

3. These codes of conduct will presumably dictate where resources and effort should be allocated to combat climate change. These resources are limited, meaning if you put resources towards tracking food-miles, you’re not putting them towards something else. Who will decide how to allocate these limited resources to achieve maximal ROI in terms of combatting climate change? Will it be a global team of PhD climate and political scientists, or a bunch of unqualified randos on a google doc? If the latter, how can anyone reasonably expect such a group to come up with a sensible plan? Assuming imminent climate catastrophe, it would seem the consequences of misallocation of resources would be dire.

I understand that people feel very passionately about this subject and see this as an end-of-the-world, holy crusade sort of subject. However, treating things as holy crusades will typically lead to bad results, such as virtue signalling taking the place of meaningful work & alienating people who don’t hold the same opinion. Let’s think carefully before we add another layer of moral bureaucracy to our professional community.

eruci• 7 years ago

The number of people traveling to conferences is tiny compared to the number of people who travel for lesser reasons, like vacations or soccer matches.

Hence, it makes no difference. I love going to conferences and don't feel guilty about anything.

avocado111• 7 years ago

Offsetting flights does not work. Of course, it is nice to protect woodland and jungles. But you just can't plant so many trees that it could replace a single, hour-long flight.

When a tree grows, it extracts some CO2 from the atmoaphere and stores it in its biomass. When it dies, this CO2 goes back into the atmosphere. When we use fuel for flying, we release hundreds of kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere (for a short flight of a single person!), which have been stored over the course of hundreds of millions of years. A tiny bit of a tree that you plant today might become fossilized, but even if that happens it will only store an incredibly small amount of the carbon that is consumed. It is quantitatively completely impossible to undo that by planting trees.

The only solution is, if at all possible, to stop flying, and use other means of transport, like electrical trains and buses. We can't have both mass air transportation and an alive planet.

Jommi• 7 years ago

Can you explain more about this? Any sources?

I've stopped flying to conferences for climate change reasons

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