Re: [AUDITORY] What are we doing for the planet?

[Jeremy Marozeau <000000aae0ca5ce5-dmarc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear List,

Thank you all for your contributions. Many of you posted some proposals on the list, and many more sent me personal messages. So good news, there are already lots of good solutions. We just have to find a way to implement them.

So if you want to discuss this matter further, without polluting the auditory list, please join me here:

https://join.slack.com/t/greenauditory/shared_invite/enQtNTg0MTMzNTAzNzk2LWZkYjI5MGRhMDE3M2E3YmFhNzU4NDdiZmNmYmQ2NWU3YWRkYTE4MDgwNGMyMDZhODY1ODZlYWFlMGVkMmQxZmM

Among all the interesting ideas, here some of the highlights.

 Thanks to Barbara Tillmann and John Sloboda, we are now aware of the work of Richard Parncutt to organise a multi-hubs international conference. Although there is room for improvement, they were able to estimate an average drop of 70% of carbon emission compared to a traditional meeting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtDHidVyZE

Thanks to Emila Gomez, we have learned that the EU has put up guidelines on how to organise sustainable meetings. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/emas/pdf/other/EC_Guide_Sustainable_Meetings_and_Events.pdf

The happy fellow of the MRC (Cambridge) also have plenty of good ideas, including remote conference attendance using robots (https://www.doublerobotics.com) or virtual conferences venue (https://www.virtualtradeshowhosting.com). They also suggest encouraging people to ‘buy offsets’ for every conference they attend by air. (https://www.flysas.com/gb-en/fly-with-us/travel-extras/co2-offsets/)

It has also been mentioned many times that we should be “champion for science … to amplify the SNR of evidence-based facts” on climate change (Mike Winters).  Someone else tweeted: “The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.”  (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47543905). So it seems that we really have work to do.

Alban Levity argued that we should be careful with the cost-benefit of our actions. “It is important to check that micro-efforts bring about a global result.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrbooi9PNw

Finally, I would also like to mention that many people argued that introducing “virtual conferences” will not only reduce our carbon footprint but will allow the valuable contributions of scientists with limited financial resources, not able to travel due to family reasons (young mothers for example) or physical disabilities. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/03/19/academic-travel-culture-it-is-not-only-bad-for-the-planet-it-also-bad-for-the-diversity-and-equity-of-research/ (Thanks to Hamish Innes-Brown for the link).

Now what? I would like to start a group that will discuss these ideas further and advocate to implement them at our next meetings. If you would like to be part of this group, please join me on this slack.

https://join.slack.com/t/greenauditory/shared_invite/enQtNTg0MTMzNTAzNzk2LWZkYjI5MGRhMDE3M2E3YmFhNzU4NDdiZmNmYmQ2NWU3YWRkYTE4MDgwNGMyMDZhODY1ODZlYWFlMGVkMmQxZmM

Or contact me if you have any problem or other ideas….

Let’s keep the green ball rolling.

Jeremy

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From: Barbara Tillmann <barbara.tillmann@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2019 4:55:39 PM
To: Jeremy Marozeau; AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: What are we doing for the planet?

 

Hi Jeremy,

based on your recent post on the Auditory List, I think you might be interested in this contribution, recently discussed (and adapted) by the music cognition community and implemented in the 2018-conference in Graz, with the help of Richard Parncutt and his team, see below.

best,

Barbara

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	ICMPC15/ESCOM10
Date:	Sat, 16 Mar 2019 14:29:47 +0100
From:	Organizers of ICMPC15-ESCOM10 <parncutt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To:	parncutt@xxxxxxxxxxx
To:	barbara.tillmann@xxxxxxx

Dear colleague,

Thanks again for your involvement in ICMPC15/ESCOM10 2018!

News flash: We produced a video to help colleagues organize more affordable,
accessible, culturally diverse, environmentally friendly, better documented,
global academic conferences:
https://youtu.be/TPtDHidVyZE

Special request: Please forward this email to a colleague in any discipline
who is planning (or considering planning) a conference in the future. Please
also distribute the link on social media.

Further information:
https://music-psychology-conference2018.uni-graz.at/en/aims/future/
Comments are welcome!

Yours sincerely
Richard Parncutt
On behalf of the international ICMPC15/ESCOM10 team
icmpc.org/icmpc15

On 06/03/19 22:59, Jeremy Marozeau wrote:

Hello dear colleagues.

As scientists, we should be fully aware of the danger of climate change, and when alarming studies on the environmental impact of man on our planet are published, we should take action.

We also understand that an effect is more likely to be significant with a larger “n”.

So here is my question: Shouldn’t we, as a large scientific community, try to reduce our carbon footprint?

If so, how? I would be interested in hearing your opinion on that issue.

Here are some initial thoughts:

1] Make conferences more environmentally friendly.

While organizing conferences we can try to reduce our plastic waste (avoid plastic bottles, or plastic cup, use recyclable name tags…), paper (no more printed programs, note pads, or flyers into conferences bags). There are plenty of eco alternatives for those. Also, we could reduce our consumption of red meat (OK, I don’t suggest to go vegan yet, just to reduce the amount of meat that will be served and avoid leftovers).

2] Deleting the archived emails from the auditory list from our personal inbox.

As you know, data centers storing our emails consume a lot of energy. If each of the recipients of this list deleted the emails they receive after reading them, it could mean hundreds of thousands less emails to store and as much energy saved. These messages are stored in the auditory list archive already so that can be accessed easily: http://www.auditory.org/postings/

3] Reducing the amount of air travel for conferences.

Yes, I know that networking is an essential part of our job; however, can we try to reduce the number of miles we are traveling each year? For example, during the next big conference (ASA or ARO) instead of having everyone going to the same city, can we organize the conference at two venues simultaneously: one on the East coast and one on the West? People would join the closest venue and talks would be transmitted via video conferences so that everybody can attend all the presentations.

These are of course just some suggestions. I am far from having all the good solutions and ideas. I just hope that together we can find some.

 Jeremy

Jeremy Marozeau

Associate Professor

DTU Health Tech

Technical University of Denmark

Department of Health Technology

Ørsteds Plads

Building 352, Room 124

2800 Kgs. Lyngby

Direct +45 45254790

jemaroz@xxxxxx