The journal "Sciences" devoted an article to these American scientists who began to rigorously count their carbon footprint.

Among them, Professor Kim Cobb: in 2017 air transport accounted for 85% of its carbon dioxide emissions. The year she traveled 200,000 kilometers to attend conferences and scientific meetings most of the time. Kim Cobb as a small minority of academics has decided to cut back on air travel to fight climate change. For many scientists, including many climatologists, it is not only about lowering their carbon footprint but also setting an example. Many indeed consider that it would be disastrous for their credibility not to make substantial efforts.

Confirmed researchers who travel the planet by plane and who are often invited could, for example, make a greater effort than young researchers who must build their careers and whose recruitment may depend on trips which allow them to establish international collaborations. At a time when scientists have to travel more and more abroad to seek funding, why not choose to organize web meetings as much as possible rather than jumping in a plane.

But other, more complex questions also arise: should observations and field missions, which are essential in many disciplines, be included in carbon expenditure? The idea of reducing the environmental footprint is not to lower the research activity itself.

Regards

I don´t think that will affect their scientific credibility. Because who will know his footprint?

Dear Bachir Achour and Marcelo Eduardo Rojas Vidal

Thanks for your inputs and thoughts here! I will send you the results of my gathering of info and evidence soon!

Cheers,

Jens

Interesting question, Jens! And tricky. As academics, we depend on infrastructures of conferences, publications etc. established in our disciplines. When travelling, we are bound to rules to get compensations for our travel costs, e.g. in Germany there is the "Reisekostengesetz", which defines a framework for how to make your choice. The dominating restriction is not the environmental footprint, but low budget, thus economic. From this point of view, we aren't free to cross the Atlantic for a conference or go to Australia by boat. -- What I am saying is: there are structural elements. We depend on them. Still, it is our responsibility to do our best to reduce our ecological footprint, reduce the amount of carbon we emit from flying. Not all conferences are a question of "life or death" for our careers. Also, we should think about political / legal change, i.e. make our universities and state laws include ecological criteria as well, not only budgetary concerns, to influence our choices where to go and what vehicles to choose.

Thanks Franz Mauelshagen for your thoughts! Part of the motivation for me to gather whatever evidence there is on this question is to present it to university management in an effort to consider if the structures we have in place presently are conducive! Cheers J

The largest university in Montreal, Canada, has a research budget of $ 450 million, employs 1,426 full-time faculty and has a total student population of 33,125 undergraduates and 12,505 graduate students. To assess the impact of academic mobility, researchers asked the research community (n = 703; including professors, research professionals, and graduate students) about their travel habits. They also measured the contribution of trips made by sports teams and international students as well as students engaged in study abroad programs and internships using data provided by the university. While the average distance traveled for work and research by the university community of this university is approximately 8,525 km/person, professors travel more than 33,000 km/person per year. They also estimated that the 5,785 international students or students enrolled in a study abroad programs travel approximately 12,600 km/person annually. The footprints C and N linked to the annual trips per inhabitant of this university vary, international students generating for example 3.85 T CO2 and 0.53 kg N while professors generate 10.76 T CO2 and 2.19 kg N. Air travel emissions are the main contributors to these footprints.

Here, in this link, is the testimony of a researcher.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01652-2

Regards

It's very important to be congruent between what one says and what one does.

Hi Bachir Achour - very interesting data from the university you present. Is it available somewhere? I'd love to be able to share it with others.

Cheers,

Jens

Dear Jens,

There is no publication on this subject available to the public. I got this information after writing to the University of Montreal. They kindly gave me this information by email. These are official and credible data.

Regards

All, here are the results of my search for information.

Dear Jens,

Good job! Congratulations.

Regards

Hei Jens, this is super important and thank you.

I shared the file internally to my research group manager, suggesting she brings this up to the upper management. I acknowledged your effort in compiling the file with sources. Luke, as a Finnish governmental research institute flies its staff considerably less compared to an average Finnish University, but nonetheless we fly too :)/:(

I hope it is OK for you that I, and we all here share these sources with our colleagues from our own and other organizations we know in an effort to shift the current organizational flying policies, from the most economic to more environmentally responsible. Whenever I share the entire file, I will acknowledge your initiative :)

Regards,

Saba

Good question. Habits and lifestyles of many academics may put to question their commitment to addressing climate change, even when the same academics have widely written and published on the subject.

This an interesting question, though I think we'd need to specify credibility to whom for more nuanced answers. Policymakers? Other scientists? Climate change activists? Climate change deniers? Certainly for those researching and advocating on climate change issues (self included), the bar is a bit higher in terms of expecting researchers to "walk the walk", something which weighs upon me every time I travel.

However, as many of the other commentators have alluded to, the inverse question is likewise relevant. How much is establishment of scientific credibility/status predicated upon heavy travel emissions? Traveling a lot does not improve or diminish the quality of anyone's scientific work, but it might be a proxy for coherence between professional and personal lives, at least for those working on climate change issues.

Of course, not every conference is make or break for career development, but in general, they are a key aspect of building professional profile and visibility, especially for junior scholars. Also, for those of us who need to travel to field sites to even collect data upon which to publish and present, our travel needs are again greater.

My imagination is certainly piqued about how to research both of these question empirically.