Alex McLeanI'm a little bit concerned about going to a conference this week that will endure a record-breaking, limit-smashing heatwave, while hosting people flying long haul from round the world to do 15 minute presentations over a couple of days. Hopefully the venue air conditioning will be enough, they say.
The conference is proudly announcing that it is the 'biggest ever', going multi-track for the first time. One of the big reasons why I submitted is that it has always been a single track conference, so that you can take in everything as a collective experience, including through one-to-one poster presentations which are excellent for making connections with people.
On the positive side the conference does have a decent environmental statement and environmental committee, and a history of taking ethical issues very seriously.
Thinking about suggesting that fellow participants take 30 seconds from the start of their presentations to acknowledge the climate chaos outside, and support the conference committees in enacting radical change to break this damaging academic approach to sharing research. I'm sure the conversations have been had, but there is always a lot of friction to actually changing things.
Matt
Caitlin Rowley