Ned,
Thanks for your message. One part is very interesting:
there's no substitute for F2F meetings in order to accomplish some tasks.
I agree, but I would like to know which of the IESG tasks most require
face-to-face meetings. If they were listed, maybe some solutions would
be engineered so that more could be done between meetings.
There are plenty of reasons to keep trying: Fuel costs are going up;
advances in effective telecommuting technologies would benefit most
people; some disabled people can not attend in person; it would reduce
pollution*; network companies would sell more goods and services, etc.
Cheers,
James
* The extent to which this is important is illustrated by the fact that
the curve of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 500+
years fits closely to the equation:
fraction of unit volume = 0.000276 + 0.0081/(1 + exp(-(year - 2254)/56.8)
which explains about 99% of the variation of observed values. That
predicts that the amount of CO2 will double pre-1700 levels in 2060, and
be ten times pre-1700 levels around the year 2300. CO2 is the largest
source of atmospheric energy "forcing", which causes global warming. The
greatest sources of such gases will probably continue to be fuel burned
for transportation, until about 1/3 of all vehicles become zero-emission.