“World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency“ is signed by 11,258 scientists worldwide.
Let’s have a look at principal author Thomas Newsome’s conference papers, indicating travel from his Sydney, Australia base. In 2018 alone, he visited at least Cleveland, Minneapolis, Brisbane, and Hobart. How about principal author Phoebe Barnard? In addition to organizing and attending conferences around the world, she splits her time among Namibia, South Africa, and the U.S.
When will the climate emergency become so dire that these authors decide to use Skype rather than take transcontinental airline trips every few months?
Related only in the reference to United Premier 1K:
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/10/05/new-version-of-the-boeing-787-announced/
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/10/11/if-christine-blasey-ford-was-permanently-damaged-by-brett-kavanaugh-what-hope-is-there-for-the-refugees-that-the-u-s-admits/ : “Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified that she was permanently damaged by Brett Kavanaugh, suffering from reduced academic performance, an inability to tolerate airline travel (except cross the Pacific to surf destinations in French Polynesia because driving to a California beach would be even more intolerable?), and various other maladies of PTSD…”
- https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/10/05/why-didnt-christine-blasey-ford-drive-to-manchester-new-hampshire/
I asked the same of one of Al Gore’s minions on a flight back from Sao Paulo back in 2007. She was there to convince the Brasilian government to cut carbon emissions. She didn’t have an answer.
It’s easy to see the efforts of these scientists as a small carbon expense with a great return on investment.
You know what GHG expense won’t see a similar climate ROI? All the travel and economic activity that’s part of the Olympics. That would be a great place to start reducing.