There’s a tension–some say a contradiction–between institutions of higher education championing far-reaching reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously participating, directly and indirectly, in large amounts of air travel in the name of the advancement of knowledge.This opens up academics to charges of hypocrisy–from the public and from fellow academics. Many scholars are well aware of the contradiction, but find it hard to give up their high-flying ways for reasons of professional well-being.
As various analysts have pointed out, the contradiction is inherent to a large degree in the culture of higher education, particularly among wealthy institutions. One manifestation of this is the persistence of courses and programs that rely on high-emitting, long-distance air travel. (The School for International Training’s International Honors Program is a particularly blatant example.)
How to change this culture is something that Flying Less supporters have long struggled with–individually and collectively. It is, thus, inspiring to find examples of people making positive changes within their institutions and illuminating another path for students.
In that spirit, we share with you (below) an article by Mark Rhodes, an assistant professor of geography at Michigan Technological University. Originally published three days ago in the U.S. edition of The Conversation, the article tells the story of a fascinating summer course that he designed and led on sustainability, tourism, and urban planning. Much of the course unfolds on the rails of the U.S. train system (Amtrak).
Students ride the rails in this course to learn about sustainability and tourism
Amtrak’s California Zephyr at Book Cliffs, Utah, USA, May 2021. Photo by Carter Pape. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
As a geographer, I wanted to offer a summer study abroad program on sustainability. However, it wouldn’t make sense to design a sustainability program that includes flying abroad due to planes’ excessive carbon footprint. Alternatively, Amtrak’s diesel-powered trains reduce per person carbon dioxide emissions by 40% compared with flying.
Aside from an environmental lens, I also wanted students to learn about sustainability from economic and social perspectives. During the program, students use only public transit, stay in locally owned lodgings and eat at locally sourced restaurants.
Combine my love of Amtrak with a desire to get students out of the classroom, and we found ourselves riding across the country to learn about sustainable tourism, landscapes and urban and regional planning.
What does the course explore?
Over the course of three weeks, students visit six locations, with overnight train rides between each ranging from 16-24 hours. The days are broken up into lessons on observing landscape and land use, sustainable tourism and urban deindustrialization, with at least an hour of class time on each train ride.
Destinations serve as living laboratories for our students. Classes in some cities, such as Galesburg, Illinois, or Sacramento, California, lean more heavily on exploring the cities’ industrial histories, also known as industrial heritage. In cities such as Portland, Oregon, or Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which experience large influxes of visitors every year, we focus more on tourism and planning.
Why is this course relevant now?
The federal government is investing billions of dollars to create a “new era of rail” in the United States.
The course appeals to millennial and Gen Z students who are increasingly concerned about the climate crisis and continued carbon emissions. The experience gives students real-world examples of how they can make a difference, such as through engaging with public officials and changing small habits in how they travel.
What’s a critical lesson from the course?
Tourism will not save a community.
While staying in Glenwood Springs in Colorado, students complete an assignment about “destination tourism” – when tourism becomes the primary driver or economic base of a region. Students ride the country’s only rapid rural bus transit systems “up valley” to Aspen. On the bus, they come to understand what they’ve read in the “The Slums of Aspen,” a book about how the elite ski town passed a resolution that pushed out their immigrant workers, who live farther and farther “down valley” due to gentrification but still work in Aspen.
Once students arrive in Aspen – during the offseason, in May – they find a polished ghost town full of Prada, Dior and other high-end fashion stores and highly manicured city parks. After returning to Glenwood Springs, they reflect on the differences between the cities in terms of housing costs, sustainability and tourism labor. They also walk away with a more critical eye toward water access, the seasonality of labor, public transportation availability and Indigenous rights in our college’s own area – the Keweenaw Peninsula.
With about 100 hours aboard Amtrak trains, I also assign students podcasts such as “99% Invisible” and “Working Class History.” I often see students on the train listening to podcasts with their headphones and writing journal entries that are due every time we arrive at a new hotel.
What will the course prepare students to do?
After finishing this course, the students – who are predominantly from rural areas in Michigan – have a better understanding of how and why they can use public transportation in their daily lives and travels. They also have a greater understanding of the positive and negative impacts of tourism on a place, particularly in postindustrial communities, and how they can be more intentional tourists themselves. Ultimately, they learn how they, as travelers and community members, can contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.
Here are synopses of some key academic writings, published in 2022 and 2023, relevant to the work of FlyingLess.
An interdisciplinary team of seven researchers investigate what role climate change concerns and norms play in the frequency of leisure air travel in Norway, “one of the countries of the world where people travel the most by air,” and what explains such travel. Using survey data from 2019 and 2020, involving 2,842 individuals, they find that the primary factor informing leisure flight frequency are “established habits and lifestyles.” These habits and lifestyles “reflect self-enhancement values (including valuing indulgence and stimulating experiences) together with urban residence and the perceived ‘normality’ of air travel.” Also significant is the perceived superiority of flying (in terms of speed, convenience, and the ease of organizing trips relative to other modes of travel). In other words, climate concerns and norms have a weak effect on such travel. For such reasons, the team sees “the need for interventions to limit the emissions from leisure air travel substantially and permanently.’ Such interventions might include “norm-directed interventions”—they invoke restriction on tobacco advertising as an example–that challenge “a lifestyle of unsustainable air travel.” Such interventions, they write, “should be combined with the facilitation of public debate on the issue, supporting the climate change mitigation norms that may be emerging.” They also endorse raising taxes to make air travel more expensive, and other, less energy-intensive modes more attractive. (See Marianne Aasen, John Thøgersen, Arild Vatn, Riley E. Dunlap, Dana R. Fisher, Ottar Hellevik, and Paul C. Stern, “The limited influence of climate norms on leisure air travel,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 31, no. 10 [2023]: 2250-2269.)
As demonstrated by this blog post and others that we at FlyingLess have done over the years, there’s a lot of literature on the importance of reducing air travel in academia. What there is a lot less of are examples of what successful reductions look like. Four scholars seek to help remedy this by drawing on seven years of work with academic institutions to cut aviation emissions and lessons the authors have learned from a transdisciplinary project involving interviews at four academic institutions and surveys at eight—all of them in Germany. (See Susann Görlinger, Caroline Merrem, Maximilian Jungmann, and Nicole Aeschbach, “An evidence-based approach to accelerate flight reduction in academia,” npj Climate Action 2, no. 1, 2023: 41.) Given the need to achieve far-reaching reductions in emissions, many academic organizations have committed to net zero targets, the authors point out. However, “reducing a few flights, and relying on technology will not be enough,” they assert. “Instead, we need to rethink and redesign the scientific system, its values and culture, and the way scientists interact.” Such transformation, they find, requires a focus on reshaping both internal frameworks (within universities and research institutions) and external ones. Within academic institutions, there is a need for a clear delineation of responsibility for flight reduction, strong leadership and engagement, and consistent and sufficient support to enable far-reaching change. In terms of external frameworks that shape travel practices, the authors center the work of funding agencies; government (especially in relation to public universities and research institutions); ranking organizations (regarding the necessity of taking seriously institutional efforts to achieve emissions cuts and incorporating those achievement in their evaluations); and conference organizers/professional associations. To enable the transition to a low flying academia, the authors have put together an open-access toolbox. That toolbox is the subject of the blog post above this one.
The climate crisis and the heavy ecological impacts of academic fieldtrips involving long-distance travel have given rise to questions as to whether they are inherently unsustainable and, thus, whether they should continue. Andrew Telford, Andrew, Annemarie Valentine, and Steven Godby do not offer simple answers to these questions (“The paradox of the ‘sustainable fieldtrip’? Exploring the links between geography fieldtrips and environmental sustainability.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education [2023]: 1-18). Instead, their goal is to encourage critical reflection on such matters. The three geographers note that they “regularly engage with students about different types of pro-environmental behaviour.” Yet, only rarely have they “engaged with students about the environmental implications of field classes” that are commonplace within their discipline. The authors model such engagement via a study involving 48 “undergraduate geographers at an East Midlands university” in the United Kingdom; the study utilizes an initial survey, an online class, and semi-structured interviews. Interviewee testimonies, the authors find, “suggest that virtual fieldtrips are (and could prove to be) a valuable learning tool.” Testimonies also “suggest that a physical, in-person presence is equally as important”; this could entail the “on-site” presence of academic staff (with students connecting virtually) or advance “reconnaissance work” by staff. Ultimately, however, the authors champion “a fundamentally dual-dialogue approach,” not least for the pedagogical benefits it yields. As they effectively argue throughout, “the sustainability of geography fieldtrips (in lieu of their environmental impact and the global climate emergency) must be based on deliberative participation and collaboration between staff and students (and stakeholders in affected field environment).”
The notion that academics should reduce work-related air travel as a form of climate action has become increasingly popular in recent years. Authors Ryan Katz-Rosene (a founding editor of the “Flying Less in Academia Resource Guide”) and Anne Pasek thus reflect on what they call the Academic Flying Less Movement (AFLM), a movement in which they participate. In doing so, they address two questions: 1) does participation “in these types of small-scale, mostly voluntary, demand-side actions” produce significant results? and 2) how might the AFLM “scale up” within the academy and beyond to bring about meaningful changes in relation to climate change and the aviation sector? The two scholars find value in personal action (in the form of individuals opting to fly less), but not in and of itself; it is meaningful because those opting to reduce flying tend to be people of high socio-economic status and of “disproportionate climate influence.” Hence, the significance of individual actions lies in their potential to intersect “with other scales and forms of climate actions that can, in toto, be more materially significant.” In terms of the second question, the authors insist on the importance of working simultaneously on multiple scales—from the personal to the global—and moving back and forth between them, not least because each scale is dynamic and presents unique opportunities and limitations. For such reasons, the AFLM, in addition to continuing to work within the academy, “ought to seek partnerships with other sectors to influence aviation supply chains, agitate for change within domestic transport regulations and even more ambitious international agreements governing aviation’s climatic impact as part of a broader spectrum of climate related civic actions.” (See “Spiral-scaling climate action: lessons from and for the academic flying less movement,” Environmental Politics [2023]: 1-22.)
In the effort to reduce flying and associated emissions, “super short-haul flights” have received significant scrutiny. One reason is that emissions per passenger relative to distance traveled is typically greatest for the shortest flights. That train travel can sometimes easily substitute for these flights provides further justification. Following such reasoning, some European countries—Austria, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands—have taken various steps to either ban or discourage (via taxes) super short-haul flights. And more are considering doing so. However, as Frédéric Dobruszkes, Giulio Mattioli, and Laurette Mathieu point out (“Banning super short-haul flights: Environmental evidence or political turbulence?” Journal of Transport Geography 104 [2022]: 103457) “climate change is the consequence of absolute GHG emissions and not of flight efficiency.” As such, the authors, by examining 31 European countries, explore whether it is prudent to focus on super short-haul flights–those of less than 500 kilometers–as part of the overall fight to reduce aviation emissions. They find that, while it might make sense to target super short-haul flights as “low-hanging fruit,” the actual emissions impact is small: such flights comprise 27.9% of departures from airports in the 31 countries, but only 5.9% of jet fuel consumption. This is why they suggest that a focus on super short-haul flights risks exaggerating their, while effectively obscuring (or delaying the addressing of) the much greater impacts of longer flights. It is these longer flights—and the forces that drive them—they assert, that “ought to be the primary target for action.”
Universities produce large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the same time, many institutions of higher education see and present themselves as leaders of sorts in responding to the climate crisis. However, as Kirstie O’Neill of Cardiff University observes, there is typically a disconnect between the discourse of universities—not least because of their neoliberalized nature–and their incremental approaches to cutting GHG emissions that they generate (directly or indirectly). Given the breadth and depth of the climate (and broader ecological) crisis, “more radical change is required,” O’Neill contends, “than is currently envisaged.” To this end, the geographer examines three areas of university activity that have potential for contributing to substantive change. Those areas are teaching, campus buildings, and university-related travel (particularly by air). Teaching commensurate with the demands of the climate crisis require challenging norms deeply held by students, O’Neill contends, norms related to neoliberalism, economic growth, and techno-optimism. Regarding buildings, O’Neill advocates a fundamental rethinking of what constitutes a “good university” so that the built environment reflects place-based sensitivities, while fostering socially and ecologically just connections with areas of socio-economic disadvantage. As for travel, far-reaching introspection within institutions is needed to challenge the “climate hypocrisy” and the “dirty little secret of academic life” that universities’ heavy reliance on flying reflect. O’Neill offers concrete ideas on all three fronts to help the reader think about what such transformations might look like. (See “Can Universities Be Climate Change Leaders?” In Julian Dobson and Ed Ferrari [eds.], Reframing the Civic University: An Agenda for Impact, Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2023: 63-81.)
In light of the significant impact of aviation on the climate, the European Union is exploring ways to decarbonize air travel. In consideration of such efforts, a team of seven scholars based in Germany and Switzerland examines the two main technology options for cutting emissions: CO2 removal and synthetic, electricity-based fuels. (Romain Sacchi, Viola Becattini, Paolo Gabrielli, Brian Cox, Alois Dirnaichner, Christian Bauer, and Marco Mazzotti. “How to make climate-neutral aviation fly.” Nature Communications 14, no. 1 [2023]: 3989.) Carbon dioxide removal, the authors explain, takes place via Direct Air Capture and permanent geological storage of CO2. Synthetic jet fuel is a product of CO2 captured from the air and hydrogen synthesized through water electrolysis. The team finds that, if growth in aviation is sustained, mitigating its climate impacts during this century via CO2 removal and synthetic fuels will require “significant amounts of energy, natural and financial resources.” In the case of (decarbonized) electricity use required annually to achieve carbon neutrality during the period of 2050-2010, for instance, it would necessitate 1.3 times the present yearly electricity output of the European Union’s 28 member-states. Regarding freshwater consumption needed annually between 2018 and 2100, it would almost equal the current levels of consumption of the EU-28. For such reasons, the authors advocate reducing demand for air travel in the short and medium terms. This would “[give] society time to develop other, possibly longer-term, sustainable solutions.”
Four of the organizers of the Fourth International Feminist Geography Conference share their experiences and reflections for would-be first-time organizers of a hybrid gathering. The conference took place in June 2022, in three in-person locations: Boulder, Colorado (USA); Kandbari (India); and Durham (United Kingdom). It also involved virtual participation across many different time zones. About 500 individuals registered for the conference, with 300 of them participating in the live event (two-thirds of them virtually) and with many of the others engaging recorded papers and sessions before and after the gathering. The feminist geographer authors—all of whom were new to hybrid-conference organizing—find that the gathering was an “enormous success,” not only because of the high level of participation (which was far greater than previous conferences), but also in terms of inclusiveness. The bulk of the article focuses on four themes that offer valuable lessons for anyone thinking about organizing an international hybrid conference. They are: (1) budget and funding; (2) technology, equipment, and hybrid format; (3) advertising, networking and keynote speakers; and (4) organization and timelines. In the end, the authors emphasize that organizing such a conference is an “exceptionally labor-intensive” endeavor. They thus stress the importance of “planning ahead, planning early, and strategizing about how to allocate time and labor throughout all stages of preparation.” This requires “thinking carefully about organizing committee makeup, structure, and task designation.” (See Hanieh Molana, Deirdre Conlon, Jennifer L. Fluri & Nancy Hiemstra (2023) Conference Organizing in the Hybrid Age: Lessons from the Fourth International Feminist Geography Conference, The Professional Geographer, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2023.2258395)
In an open access volume on pedagogy in relation to refugees and displaced persons, geographer Joseph Nevins considers long-distance travel courses that study these matters. (“On the Pedagogical Value of Not Going There: Mobility, Fossil Fuel Consumption, and the Production of Refugees,” in Brittany Murray, Matthew Brill-Carlat, and Maria Höhn [eds.], Migration, Displacement, and Higher Education: Now What? Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023: 173-182.) Via a focus on the ties between climate change, fossil fuel consumption, and associated inequities, he argues that such courses contribute to some of the very factors that underlie “forced” and illegalized human movement across international borders. In other words, he asserts that the very exercise of fossil-fuel-dependent mobility and the associated CO2 emissions that travel courses entail harm people and places, particularly the already vulnerable, thus helping to produce a world of people in need of refuge outside of their home areas. In the end, he suggests that the conscious exercise of immobility on the part of students and faculty concerned with forced migration can enrich the learning experience for all by illuminating such connections. It can also aid the fight against intensifying climate breakdown by challenging socio-ecological inequities and excessive consumption among the globally affluent, and thus make forced migration and refugees less common.
As with land transport, fuel consumption associated with air travel has grown over the last couple of decades and shows no signs of abating. Frequent flyers are responsible for an increasing share of the emissions from air travel. The question is, what drives the ways of the “hyper-aero-mobile”? Noel Cass, a Research Fellow in Energy Demand Behaviour at the University of Leeds, addresses this, in part via an overview of relevant academic literature. (“Hyper-aeromobility: the drivers and dynamics of frequent flying,” Consumption and Society, Vol. 1, Issue 2, 2022: 313–335.) He determines that the key factors “are not individual and psychological, but structural, social and cultural.” In terms of the latter, they include the availability and proximity of airport infrastructure, changing social norms (e.g., “conference culture” or the notion that long-distance travel and individual well-being are tied), and a growing population of individuals whose social networks are geographically extensive. Findings from 30 semi-structured interviews with members of “high-energy-consuming households” in England support this assessment. With only a “decade left to pursue a habitable planet,” Cass thus concludes that “the only strategy for flight demand reduction which is likely to be successful” requires “targeting first the hyper-aeromobility of the rich,” one reason being that broad societal “norms descend from the desirability of elite lifestyles.” Limiting the jet-setting ways of the rich necessitates working to shrink, not expand, airports, and decreasing aviation routes and the number of flights. This task, Cass writes, “is likely to require stronger government actions than are being considered, including but not limited to frequent flyer levies, taxing of air fuel, and/or more coercive measures such as the rationing of flights.”
Each year, the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has an annual meeting. It is a large affair: in 2018, it took place in San Diego, involving 28,691 registrants and 12,761 presenters. In their open-access article (“Recommendations emerging from carbon emissions estimations of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.” eNeuro 10, no. 10 [2023]), Caroline Kay, Rob Kuper, and Elizabeth A. Becker used the presenters, 92% of whom traveled by air, as a proxy for the larger group to calculate their travel emissions based on their city of origin. Those emissions total 69,593 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents–in other words, they reflect radiative forcing–or 38,010.85 metric tons in terms of carbon dioxide alone. When emissions associated with the meeting venue and hotel accommodations are added to those associated with travel, the former make up less than 5% of the total, the authors find. The authors then consider alternative meeting formats with an eye toward greatly reducing emissions and ensuring equity. In this regard, the authors conclude that a multi-hub format, with hubs spread across the globe, and a fully virtual format are not only the most ecologically sustainable models, but also the most inclusive ones.
Activists from Greenpeace paint an Air France plane at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to protest the French government’s greenwashing of air transport, May 2021. Source: Euronews.com.
When nine Greenpeace activists scaled a fence at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and painted an aircraft green this past May, they helped bring to the world’s attention a global problem: the greenwashing of aviation. This refers to the hiding or understating of the ecological harms associated with flying.
Take Qantas, for example. In March 2021, Australia’s largest airline announced that its non-stop flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Frankfurt, London, New York, and Paris, scheduled to begin in 2024, will be “carbon neutral.” Qantas will miraculously achieve this neutrality by “offsetting” these 18-20-hour flights–the CO2 emissions for which average 5.6 tons per business class traveler and 8.75 tons for those who fly first class.
Many–including Parke Wilde on this website–have offered hard-hitting critiques of carbon offsets. Central to these critiques is a recognition of the hollowness of the concept of carbon neutrality or what some call net-zero. As climate scientist Peter Kalmus recently wrote in The Guardian, “‘net zero’ is a phrase that represents magical thinking rooted in our society’s technology fetish. Just presuppose enough hypothetical carbon capture and you can pencil out a plan for meeting any climate goal, even while allowing the fossil fuel industry to keep growing.”
Such projects and estimates are predicated on the assumption that the infrastructure and aircraft will be utilized as intended. But they may instead become “stranded assets” that don’t realize their promise. Indeed, given marked economic, political, and ecological instability, this is more than a theoretical possibility.
To give one example, a recent paper by two earth systems engineers (Aaron N. Yesudian and Richard J. Dawson. 2021. “Global analysis of sea level rise risk to airports.” Climate Risk Management 31: 100266) asserts that many major airports are already at risk due to coastal flooding. The authors find that sea level rise associated with a 2-degree-Celsius increase in average global temperature will lead to 100 airports below mean sea level. The cost to maintain risk at present levels in 2100 , they estimate, will be between US$39 billion (the median-case scenario) and US$57 billion (the highest case).
This irony, of course, is that flying exacerbates these very risks. And there is little indication that those most dedicated to jet-setting will change their profligate ways voluntarily. According to a recent report, for example, “Private jet providers are experiencing ‘unprecedented demand’ from wealthy customers seeking to avoid the “mosh pit” of commercial flights on autumn getaways as coronavirus travel restrictions ease.”
In the face of such vandalism, some recent developments and ongoing struggles provide some hope.
The Campaign for Better Transport, an organization in the United Kingdom, has called upon the UK government to ban all domestic flights that can be completed in less than five hours. Were this ban to be approved, it would end air routes such as London to Manchester, London to Edinburgh and Birmingham to Glasgow. These flights, says Paul Tahoy, Campaign for Better Transport’s chief executive, are “a climate disaster, generating seven times more harmful greenhouse emissions than the equivalent train journey “
On 22 May, activists block a main road in protest against the construction of a new airport in Lisbon. Photo by Marta Vidal. Source: Equal Times.
Meanwhile, in Portugal, that country’s aviation regulator blocked plans to build a new airport Lisbon area in March–and did so in part for environmental reasons. Still, the Portuguese government is pursuing various avenues to advance the project. But climate justice activists are intensifying their efforts to prevent this from happening. In May, for example, activists blocked the road to Lisbon Airport to protest the government’s plans.
In the United States, fights against airport expansion are not as high-profile, but they are present–particularly in California. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, numerous organizations have come together to stop the proposed expansion of the Oakland International Airport (OAK). (OAK happens to be among the world’s 100-most-threatened airports by sea level rise–see above.) The Stop OAK Expansion Coalition is comprised of groups ranging from Flight Free USA to Railroad Workers United, the latter a manifestation of the coalition’s commitment to including organized labor and workers in their efforts. (Relatedly, earlier this year, Stay Grounded and the London-based Public and Commercial Services Union published a helpful discussion paper on a “just transition” that centers the well-being of workers in the effort to bring about climate-safe forms of mobility.)
Officials in New Zealand offer a different path, or at least the beginnings of one. In February, the country’s parliamentary commissioner for the environment proposed that people departing New Zealand by air (including citizens) pay a departure tax to compensate for the environmental harm caused by flying. The next month, Air New Zealand’s chief environmental adviser voiced support for raising the price of airline tickets, saying that there’s “no going back” to pre-Covid levels of international tourism. The adviser, Jonathan Porrit, categorized air travel as a privilege, not a right. “I just don’t believe in the idea that the number of international visitors to New Zealand can grow and grow and grow without limits,” he said. “So, if a higher price for the privilege of flying to New Zealand puts some people off, good.”
Recent academic publications
Academic research and publishing on matters of climate change and aviation–and often in regard to how its relates to the academy–continues to grow. In addition to our discussion above of the article from Climate Risk Management, we provide brief overviews here of some recent publications.
An article by Agnes Kreil of ETH Zurich focuses on two research questions: 1) What normative arguments do academics make for and against reduced air travel in academia? and 2) What are their assumptions about the ties between academic air travel and ‘good’ academic work? To explore these questions, Kreil examines her home institution, which has made one of the strongest efforts of top research universities to decrease academic air travel and has set clear reduction targets. While the author finds robust support among academic professionals at ETH Zurich for reduced air travel, many expressed concerns. A “dominant narrative” that Kreil identifies is that reductions will harm academic work. It is a concern, she says, that is “tightly bound up with the internationalization” of, and rising competition within academia. She thus advises that reduction advocates take seriously the concerns underlying such narratives, while working to “redefine … what ‘good’ academic work means” in order to align “the goals of ‘good’ academic work and air travel reduction.” See: Agnes Kreil, “Does flying less harm academic work? Arguments and assumptions about reducing air travel in academia.” Travel Behaviour and Society 25 (2021): 52-61.
In a time of intensifying climate change and a global pandemic, new conference formats are emerging. A fully virtual conference, asserts a team of four authors, is sustainable and inclusive, but lacks the benefits of face-to-face interaction. In contrast, the hybrid model (an in-person conference at a central location that allows for virtual participation) tends to discriminate against non-fliers (due to an inferior experience) and also encourages flying. The authors thus embrace a multi-hub model, which is a combination of in-person and virtual interaction. Much of the article is dedicated to describing and exploring the multi-hub model (and variations of it) in detail. It helpfully considers the choice of location for hubs, the structure of the conference program across time zones, as well as matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It also considers technical setup, financial issues, and the facilitation of virtual socializing and networking. See: Richard Parncutt, PerMagnus Lindborg, Nils Meyer-Kahlen, and Renee Timmers. “The multi-hub academic conference: Global, inclusive, culturally diverse, creative, sustainable.” Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics (2021): 53.
An international trio of authors investigate the relationship between conferences, meetings, and workshops involving international air travel and the academic production (via publications) that result (directly or indirectly). They assert that because the benefits of in-person meetings in terms of knowledge production and dissemination are difficult to assess objectively, publications are “one of the most straightforward metrics.” The authors thus survey 211 marine biologists and oceanographers in 27 different countries, 36% of whom responded. They find that over 60% of respondents are willing to attend virtual meetings, and consider the trade-off worthwhile given the ecological benefits of remote participation. They also find “that scientific productivity decays with the number of meetings attended and that the less productive people exhibit the largest carbon footprint.” See: Laurent Seuront, Katy R. Nicastro, & Gerardo I. Zardi. “Heads in the clouds: On the carbon footprint of conference‐seeded publications in the advancement of knowledge.” Ecology and Evolution (2021).
Two fisheries scientists, Karin Limburg (United States) and Françoise Daverat (France), consider the shared and unique challenges they face in trying to transform their professional practices, particularly in relation to travel. Their essay ( “COVID, Climate Change, and Professional Travel: Reflections by Fisheries Scientists during the Pandemic.” Fisheries [2021]) takes the form of a “transcontinental conversation.” Within, they exchange their experiences and analyses regarding the practical obstacles to decreasing reductions in their work-related CO2 emissions. They also raising matters for all environmental scientists to consider in relation to mobility and participation in professional gatherings. These include matters of accessibility and equity–e,g, resource availability, familial responsibilities, and gendered divisions of labor. In the end, the authors together note that human populations and our economies are growing, putting us on a collision course with the biosphere. The violent climate events of 2020 are a stark warning of what is to come if we continue on this path.” A different, more sustainable path, they say, requires both systemic change and individual reductions.
Large travel footprints are not limited to jet-setting academics. It turns out that Canadian medical students are also high-emitters. Each spring, thousands of them travel across Canada to interview for residency positions. An interdisciplinary group of researchers conducted an online commuter survey among the participants in the annual Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS) interview tour in 2020 to measure the flight-related carbon footprint. Based on responses from 960 of the 2943 participants (32.6%), the authors find that CaRMS -related flights emitted 4,239 tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents), an average of 1.44 tons per applicant. They also find that, were the interviews centralized in a single city, flight-related emissions could decrease by up to to 74.7%. And were the interviews conducted virtually, the resulting emissions would be at least at least 98.4% lower. See: Kevin E. Liang, Jessica Q. Dawson, Matei D. Stoian, Dylan G. Clark, Seth Wynes, and Simon D. Donner. “A carbon footprint study of the Canadian medical residency interview tour.” Medical Teacher (2021): 1-7.
Who “owns” CO2 emissions is one matter. Figuring out where they belong is another–especially when emissions involve mobility. Many cities, regions and countries thus do not include long-distance transport in their carbon accounting. This is especially the case for extra-territorial air travel. Kobe Boussauw and Jean-Michel Decroly, two Belgian scholars, help remedy this in their article (“Territorializing international travel emissions: geography and magnitude of the hidden climate footprint of Brussels.” Urban Planning 6, no. 2 (2021): 285-298). The authors research the geography and magnitude of the climate footprint of international travel with Brussels as a destination. In doing so, they estimate that international travelers added the equivalent of 2.7 million tons of C02 to the official climate footprint of the Brussels-Capital Region, which was 3.7 million tons equivalent in 2017. Not surprisingly, travelers from greater distances are responsible for a disproportionate share, a key reason being their reliance on air transport. People from the United States, for example, comprise 7.6% of all travelers, but they are responsible 21% of the additional emissions. In conclusion, the authors argue that territorializing carbon emissions associated with international travel is a necessity as failure to include them distorts debate about climate change mitigation. They also assert that a sustainable future is “one where jet aircraft will no longer play a substantial role.”
