To save the planet should scientists refrain from traveling?

Today’s issue of Science includes the results of an online poll that the magazine conducted last December. The poll was prompted by a letter to Science from the University of Wyoming’s Ingrid Burke.

Burke’s letter urged readers to consider the environmental consequences of their travel. The poll asked readers: Would you participate in an annual meeting remotely (via video teleconferencing or other technology)? Respondents were given four answers to choose from:

1. Yes:
Participating remotely would be about as valuable as attending in person.
2. Yes:
It would lose some value, but the trade-off would be acceptable given the environmental benefits.
3. No:
It would lose some value, and the trade-off would be unacceptable despite the environmental benefits.
4. No:
Participating remotely would be about as valuable as not attending at all.

The results revealed rough parity between the combined yeses (52%) and the combined nos (48%). The most popular answer by far was 2. Forty-four percent of respondents would forego the full experience of attending a conference in person to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases.

Later this month I’ll fly to San Francisco to attend Photonics West . In March I’ll fly to Dallas to attend the American Physical Society’s March meeting . My mission at both conferences is to meet people and learn about what they’re working on. Attending virtually isn’t a good option. Still, not wanting to deprive polar bears of their habitat, submerge the Maldives, or turn Spain into a desert, I tried to find out how much carbon dioxide my trips would generate per capita.

The answers I got from the Nature Conservancy’s carbon footprint calculator were equivocal. My share of the CO2 emitted by a jetliner on a “long” return flight is 2.2 tons. For a “short” flight, it’s 0.4 tons. But my gasoline-sipping 18-year-old Honda Civic emits about 6 tons of CO2 per year. In my case, giving up attending a few meetings each year wouldn’t reduce my personal carbon footprint dramatically.

One of the respondents to the Science poll, John Burke Burnett, left this comment on the poll’s website:

There might be a hint of sarcasm in Burnett’s comment, but I prefer to recast it as a challenge to software and hardware engineers: Create a virtual conference on a Star Trek Holodeck , and I’ll stay at home.