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Re: Travel Considerations

2007-10-12 14:12:40

  Hi James,

  I think you're missing the point. I'm not advocating being wasteful
because everyone else is. I'm saying that this effort is futile and
will not result in _any_ "win" for the planet. Your analogy to driving
an SUV is incorrect because not driving the SUV (or driving an
electric car instead) results in less emissions. A trivial amount but
every little bit helps. Flying 1000 people to Frankfurt instead of
Prague does not result in any less emissions. Encouraging other
organizations to follow our lead-- having 10000 people scattered over
the course of a year fly to a hub instead of through the hub to a
spoke-- won't either. The demand is still there to fly to places like
Prague and San Diego and airlines typically fly at less than 100%
capacity, sometimes significantly so.

  If you think there is an individual responsibility to change what
you can then please don't waste your effort on something that won't
have any effect! Do something that will make a difference.

  I for one would rather fly to (spoke) Prague than (hub) Frankfurt;
to (spoke) San Diego than to (hub) Chicago; and anywhere (spoke) on
God's green earth (yes, it's still green in spite of the IETF World
Tour) than (hub) London.

  Dan.

On Fri, October 12, 2007 12:17 pm, James M. Polk wrote:
Unfortunately, using this logic -- I can buy a tank and get 2
gallons-to-the-mile mileage because the rest of the planet (or at
least America) is still buying SUVs that get horrible mileage too,
since there will be nearly an unmeasurable difference to global
warming if I drive my tank or not... so why not drive it anyway.

There is an individual responsibility to change what we each can
change to help.  As an organization, we can have a greater positive
affect if we reduce demand for such spoke flights by only flying to
hub sites of major airlines -- if we're going to continue to meet in
person.

If other organizations see ours as an example, and do the same, then
the positive affect is greater on us doing the right thing...

Doing the right thing in mass has to start somewhere -- why does it
have to start somewhere else here?

It's Friday...

At 01:30 PM 10/12/2007, Dan Harkins wrote:

  You're assuming that if 1000 people decide not to fly to Prague
some weekend that the number of planes burning jet fuel to fly there
will be different. I don't think so.

  Maybe you can start a "Boycott Prague The Spoke City" campaign which,
if wildly successful, will reduce demand to fly there by some discernable
amount and thereby reduce the number of planes flying there and the
amount
of jet fuel they would've burned. Well, as long as the planes that aren't
flying to Prague aren't used to fly to Heathrow or Frankfurt or some
other
hub city. Also doubtful.

  I do not intend on making ietf-discuss into a forum for discussing
the pluses and minuses resulting from a degree centigrade temperature
change but let me just say that "the planet wins" is a somewhat dubious
statement.

  Dan.

On Fri, October 12, 2007 7:32 am, Eric Burger wrote:
Here is an interesting optimization problem: it turns out the most
polluting part of a conference is people taking jets to fly to the
conference.  Minimize that and the planet wins.  Favors hub cities
over
spokes, like San Diego or Prague, where you "can't get there from
here",
no matter where "here" is.

See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/318/5847/36.pdf

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