Air travel is an essential part of the professional lives of many academics, and a major source of pollution from that sector. In the context of the climate crisis, there have been appeals to reduce air travel by replacing it with other modes of transportation, replacing it with videoconferencing, or renouncing inessential trips.

Role of air travel in academia

The individual emissions of academic researchers are high compared to other professionals, "primarily as a result of emissions from flying to conferences, project meetings, and fieldwork". Touristic opportunities also contribute to motivating such travels, which are considered as a perk of the profession.[1]

Attitudes of academics

Emissions and their reduction

The Template:CO2 emissions for a single conference trip were estimated to 7% of an average individual’s total Template:CO2 emissions. The total emissions of scientists travelling to conferences for presenting papers were estimated to 0.228% of international aviation emissions in 2008.[2]

In a case study of a PhD project, mobility represented 75% of the carbon footprint, which could have been reduced by 44% using videoconferencing. The total emissions were 21.5t Template:CO2-eq or 2.69t Template:CO2-eq per peer-reviewed paper.[3]

Activism

Voluntary reduction in air travel

Some academics reduce or stop flying in order to reduce their individual carbon footprints and/or to lead by example.

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus stopped flying in 2014, and claimed that slow travel made "his world shrink and become richer".[4]

External links

References

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