Antony Lewis over at CosmoCoffee has started a discussion of the environmental impact of scientists’ travel to conferences. Is this excusable, perhaps necessary, behavior, or a profligate waste of carbon? Sure, conferences are fun, especially when they’re in Taipei or Trieste, but I sometimes wonder whether those hours in the conference rooms are worth the costs to the taxpayer and the environment. Videoconferncing is getting better and better, but, on the other hand, all the real action (I’m talking science here, nothing salacious) at conferences happens in the halls, restaurants and bars, and you can’t replicate that with a camera and a wide screen. Yes, science would be the poorer for the loss of those opportunities, but most of us could probably cut back a significant fraction. Antony outlines some possible incentives that we could impose on ourselves to cut back on our travel, but in the absence of large-scale government action, even these relatively painful strategies will have meager impact. As long as airlines and governments alike balk at even small sums like five or ten pounds per passenger per flight (nowhere near the amounts actually needed to change behavior) any concerted strategy seems frighteningly unlikely.
(Antony also points to a book in progress by the brilliant and prolific David MacKay on sustainable energy which, in particular, discusses whether ideas like “carbon credits” and offsetting your emissions by, say, planting trees, make any sense at all.)
2 responses to “The Carbon Budget of Cosmology”
One also has to remember observing trips and the vast amounts of gunk poured into the atmosphere for satellite launches. Its not just talking about the science that produces carbon, in many cases getting the science also has a large environmental impact…
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.
SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.
To read the complete article please follow either of these links :
http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6
http://www.earthnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=89&page=viewtopic&t=11
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