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Academic Travel and Global Warming
There’s a good article in this week’s issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education:
How do we reduce our contradictions or, better yet, our carbon emissions? The solutions are obvious, which is why no one wants to talk about them. They would require sacrifice, or at least a new way of thinking about and conducting our professional lives. Bring up the issue among a gathering of scholars and you will get something like the following responses:
- “I know that flying is an environmental problem, but travel is essential to my work (and I really like San Francisco in the fall).”
- “My research is a collaborative enterprise. I need to discuss it with colleagues face-to-face (over wine and cheese).”
- “The importance of my research outweighs the environmental costs of air travel.”
All of those points are reasonable (despite my parenthetical interjections). However, only the third argument directly engages the issue. And in some cases it might be accurate. The environmental costs of flights by scientists whose research, teaching, and outreach deal with environmental problems might be offset by their contributions to the development of sustainable policies, practices, and technologies.
But what about the rest of us?
I’m not sure how much professors at Carleton wrestle with this dilemma, but I’m curious to see if there was a survey, how many would give one of those three answers? However, the emissions from air travel are not just the fault of our faculty, but also the students who often fly home for breaks and study abroad. Should all of this stop? I’m by no means one to point fingers, but is there anyone looking at carbon offsets?
Photo by Flickr user Gilbert R. used under a Creative Commons license
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