[Coral-List] Stop flying????!

Thu Mar 12 10:14:28 UTC 2020

Dear Listers,

If I may reiterate Sue Wells, comment - Yes, we should stop flying 
around the globe to attend distant meetings, not least to set an example 
to all those others we criticise for flying so much. At the same time 
selected meetings of scientists and managers working to save reefs may 
be justifiable.

With this thought in mind I should like to put on record that the past 
management of ICRS (the Society) did discuss ideas for making ICRS2020 
at least in part an on-line event. Remote access to meetings can work 
very well, especially if you have high-speed broadband, but the main 
difficulty to date has been that no venues yet seem to have the 
capability of streaming from more than one or two lecture halls. 
Nevertheless we did at one point have a discussion about the proposal 
that ICRS2020 should perhaps be the last global gathering and that in 
future the Society should support a pattern of regional meetings (in 
different regions in successive years), to which local delegates could 
travel by land, or others gain access via the internet.

I can not comment on the views of the current management team, but if 
enough of the coral reef community believes this or an alternative 
scheme is the most reasonable way forward then a) they need to lobby the 
current Council and officers, and b) develop a proposal to that effect, 
since plans for the next International ICRS (the Symposium) are normally 
considered and often decided upon at the previous one.

Certainly we don't want to be facing this dilemma in 2024!

Rupert Ormond

-- 
*Prof. Rupert Ormond***
**

**Co-Director, Marine Conservation International
Hon. Professor, Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology, 
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

On 11/03/2020 08:19, Gaétan Morand via Coral-List wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As we all know, if we want to try and mitigate climate change, we need to base our actions on actual information rather than feelings.
> I'm hoping I can contribute to this discussion by bringing in a few facts (with sources) on air travel and eating meat.
>
> One serving of beef is responsible for about 3kg of CO2 [1]. Most other meats have a lower carbon footprint.
> One return transatlantic flight is responsible for 1 to 1.6 tonne of CO2 [2], which is the same as 330 to 530 beef steaks.
>
> This means that just one yearly transatlantic return flight offsets the emissions savings from being vegan.
>
> Yes, air transport is only responsible for a small part of global emissions, but only because a small percentage of people actually fly, whereas 90% of people globally eat meat [3].
> For perspective, if every person in the world took just one return transatlantic flight per year, it would represent a minimum of 7.5 Gigatonne of CO2 (the current global emissions are around 36 Gigatonne per year [4]).
>
> In conclusion, reducing meat consumption is absolutely a priority as it is responsible for about 14.5% (7.1 Gigatonne) of global greenhouse gases emissions [5]. But on an individual scale, flying frequently is much worse than eating meat.
>
> Gaetan Morand
>
> [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
> [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year
> [3] https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-09/an_exploration_into_diets_around_the_world.pdf
> [4] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
> [5] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Alina Szmant via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Stop flying????!
>
> Great if people want to stop flying. But ALL aviation is only 2 % of global fossil fuel emissions while animal agriculture produces 30 % of global emissions,  and animal agriculture account for 60+% of land use which means deforestation and habitat destruction, lots of pollution and animal suffering.  So go vegan and travel to your heart's content.
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Sue Wells via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Date: 3/9/20 9:14 AM (GMT-05:00)
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Stop flying????!
>
>
>
> Well done, Mark.  Yes, we must reduce our travel significantly - once the
> virus peak is over there is likely to be a rush to take holidays and hold
> meetings and the skies will be full of planes again.  You rightly question
> whether enough effort is being made to enable "virtual" attendance at coral
> reef meetings.  I know that people are looking into this, and hope that some
> solutions will soon be on offer.
>
>
>
> In the meantime, my recent positive experience might be of interest. Over
> the course of 4 days in February, from the comfort of my office in
> Cambridge, I dialled into two international meetings, one in Washington DC
> on MPAs and one in Germany on protected areas more generally.  Both were
> fairly small (DC had 65 participants, with 5 dialling in; Germany probably
> less than 50 with c. 3 dialling in) and involved plenary sessions with
> break-out discussion groups.  There was a joint session when the two
> meetings "met" virtually, with others dialling in remotely.  The meeting in
> Germany used "global.gotomeeting.com" and the DC meeting used "webex" - both
> systems seemed to work fairly well for those dialling in.
>
>
>
> Overall, the presentations worked well (as is the case with webinars), and I
> could follow the plenary Q&A sessions and for the most part get noticed if I
> wanted to ask a question myself.  Ironically the one session when the
> presentations did not work was the MPA one on technology, but this turned
> out to be "human error" rather than anything technical with the dialling-in
> system.
>
>
>
> One big advantage was that I could attend both meetings, unlike other
> participants.  With the time zone difference, this led to some long days but
> it was worth it.  I could provide feedback from one meeting to the other -
> particularly useful for the discussions on the CBD post2020 target for
> protected areas which evolved as the meetings progressed.
>
>
>
> So what did I miss? Break-out groups were of course not possible to join,
> and I did miss the social side (catching up with old friends and making new
> ones) and networking.  I would not want to do it for every meeting.
>
>
>
> But in some ways I achieved as much as I did by participating in person last
> year in another meeting on protected areas, held in a mountainous part of
> Italy.   In line with my aim not to fly when overland transport is
> available, I used trains and buses.  I spent 2 days and 3 nights (c. 60 hrs)
> at the meeting location, and over 3.5 days and 2 nights (some 70 hrs)
> travelling.  Admittedly, there were some unusual aspects to the trip, which
> coincided on my way back with temperatures of 40oC in France and a major
> disruption to train services due to an accident But it gave me some real
> insight of what travelling will be like once the effects of climate change
> fully take hold.  International conservation meetings should definitely no
> longer be held in remote locations, however beautiful the surroundings,
> unless absolutely essential.
>
>
>
> As Mark says, we need to reduce travelling, keep flights to a minimum/those
> that are essential and unavoidable, and use the rapidly developing
> technology more effectively to keep in touch with each other.
>
>
>
> Sue Wells
>
>
>
> Sue Wells
>
> 95 Burnside
>
> Cambridge CB1 3PA
>
> Mob: 07905 715552
>
> e-mail:  <mailto:suewells1212 at gmail.com> suewells1212 at gmail.com
>
>
>
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