The carbon footprint of large astronomy meetings

Abstract

The carbon footprint of large astronomy meetings The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society took place in Lyon, France, in 2019, but in 2020 it was held online only due the COVID-19 pandemic. The carbon footprint of the virtual meeting was roughly 3,000 times smaller than the face-to-face one, providing encouragement for more ecologically minded conferencing.

An astronomical institute’s perspective on meeting the challenges of the climate crisis

“…This report can therefore serve as a template for other institutes. Our analysis provides a complementary, European perspective to the analysis on the Australian astronomical community 5 , the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope 6 , the annual European Astronomical Society conferences 7 and an earlier analysis of US astronomy 8 .…”

“…A negligible fraction of emissions originates from flights inside Germany, and only 9% from flights with destinations inside Europe (including the Canary Islands). Though small, this European component can be further reduced by replacing air travel with train travel 7 . Changes to the German public servant's travel law in early 2020 ensure that train trips to well-connected European destinations are now reimbursed, even if they are more expensive than a flight 18 .…”

Physical or virtual? Or is there a middle path? - Reimagining medical conferences in the COVID-19 era

“…Virtual events eliminate travel, are faster to organize, provide more value at a fraction of cost, chat rooms and virtual common interest rooms enable networking, create a level playing field and thus democratize education, help foster social and gender equity in participation, provide uninterrupted access across timezones, and are environment friendly. [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ] Virtual meetings, however, are criticized for being impersonal, faceless, listener attention being diluted by parallel distractions, and prone to technical glitches. Aspects of a physical meeting that cannot be replicated in a virtual setting include the time and intensity to explore complex scientific issues, the ability to interact spontaneously, and the opportunity to strengthen relationships.…”

“…Aspects of a physical meeting that cannot be replicated in a virtual setting include the time and intensity to explore complex scientific issues, the ability to interact spontaneously, and the opportunity to strengthen relationships. [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ]…”

Serendipitous discovery of a dusty disc around WDJ181417.84−735459.83

“…We thank the anonymous referee for a quick and adequately thorough revision of this manuscript. EGE acknowledges Astronomers for Planet Earth 3 and recent works that raise awareness about CO 2 emissions from our professional activities (See e.g Burtscher et al 2020;Stevens et al 2020) and commits to not travel anywhere by aeroplane for the purpose of promoting this paper. EGE also thanks Andrew Swan and astronomy PhD students in the University of Hertfordshire for helpful discussions.…”