Concordia faculty are able to continue to meet in
person (pandemic conditions permitting), for networking and
collaboration, while foregoing flying in many cases simply
because of their location. They have easy access to trains and
buses to get them to other major research centres (in Toronto,
Ottawa, and throughout Ontario and Quebec, as well as in New
England and Mid-Atlantic states in the US), with travel times of
under a day, and in many cases either equal to or less than the
door-to-door time of flying. From SFU, we are a half-day away
from Seattle (driving is actually faster than taking the train),
and travel anywhere else without flying takes a very long time.
Maybe if the west coast of this continent had some
high speed rail networks we could even up the cost-benefit
analysis, and I am happy to advocate for that, and even commit
to using it if it ever gets built.
Lisa
Lisa Shapiro email:
lshapiro@sfu.ca
Professor of Philosophy o. 778.782.9025
Philosophy Department f. 778.782.3033
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Professor of Philosophy o. 778.782.9025
Philosophy Department f. 778.782.3033
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Website: lisacshapiro.org
PI: SSHRC Partnership:
Extending New Narratives in the History of
Philosophy
Coeditor
with Marcy Lascano: https://broadviewpress.com/product/early-modern-philosophy/
I respectfully acknowledge
that SFU is on the unceded ancestral and
traditional territories of the səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ
(Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw
(Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and
kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations.
On Nov 1, 2021, at 3:35 PM, Igor Herbut <igor_herbut@sfu.ca> wrote:
Hi Anthony,
it is extremely difficult to even roughly estimate impact on the climate of any single driver, and the UN IPCC usually estimates them only with "low confidence". Even the central quantity of interest, the "equilibrium climate sensitivity" is after 50 years of study known within the error bars or roughly 50% of its value. What is, however, relatively noncontroversial are the CO2 emissions from various sources, and the overall concentration, which can be directly measured, and is the main issue anyway, since CO2 stays in the atmosphere a long time, and at least according to the IPCC is the main culprit.
At any rate, the most important heating effects are water-vapor feedbacks, and as with any non-linear feedback effects they are very difficult to estimate, particularly on the long run. Therefore the great and well-known uncertainties of the actual climate projections. This will not surprise any physicist or engineer, and is well documented in the IPCC reports themselves, but maybe less prominently in their "summaries for policy makers".
Eliminating the air travel altogether would most likely not cause even a bump in the CO2-concentration Keeling curve I quoted. But it would surely negatively and strongly impact the state of sciences, at least natural sciences I am familiar with. I would suppose that everybody would agree that we need more scientific understanding of the complicated phenomena, one of which is climate, certainly not less of it. In my experience it is next to impossible to do any serious collaborative work over zoom, and not face-to-face. One should refrain from generalizing one's own mode of work to fields and activity one may not be terribly familiar with.
Igor
From: Anthony Perl
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 2:53 PM
To: Igor Herbut
Cc: Craig Scratchley; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUHi Igor,
One needs to be very careful when distinguishing the climate impacts of aircraft emissions versus those from ground level sources. Turns out burning fossil fuels in the tropopause, where lots of aircraft cruise, has a 200% - 300% greater impact on the climate than burning the same fuels at ground level.
See:
Anthony
On 2021-11-01 2:46 p.m., Igor Herbut wrote:
Dear Anthony, Rhonda, and colleagues,
before changing drastically our lifestyles and thinking of ways how to force others to follow, maybe one should ask oneself: 1) what proportion of the global CO2 emissions actually comes from air travel?,2) what effect the severe travel restriction in 2020/21 had on the actual CO2 increase?
For those who may not know, the answers are: 1) around 2%, 2) none.
References:
1) See, the US environmental protection agency's site, under "Climate change indicators" :
and under "Global greenhouse emissions", Fig. 2. Plenty of other useful info on that site about the actual rate of see level rise, "increase" in extreme weather events, warming of the ocean, etc.
2) See the CO2 Keeling curve at Mauna Loa observatory:
particularly the left panel. Can you see a difference?
I am assuming that those entertaining the thoughts about sweeping changes in the way we all work at SFU know well the numerous (numerical) facts about the global warming phenomenon, beyond the latest headlines.
Cheers,
Igor Herbut.
From: Anthony Perl <aperl@sfu.ca>
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 12:43 PM
To: Ronda Arab; Martin Hahn
Cc: Craig Scratchley; Nicky Didicher; Simon Watkins; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUHello colleagues,SFU is way behind on the "flying less" academic agenda. See:
On 2021-11-01 12:28 p.m., Ronda Arab wrote:
Do a lot of staff and faculty have electric cars? I would think that in itself would put pressure.
I think Covid has taught us a lot about how much of our professional air travel is *really* necessary. I’ve felt guilty about my air travel footprint for a while and am going to seriously cut down on conferences and research trips.
Ronda
Sent by magic
On Nov 1, 2021, at 12:23 PM, Martin Hahn <mhahn@sfu.ca> wrote:
No. It is rather pitiful. There still are a total of 4 level 2 charging stations at SFU. (There are 6 at Capilano U, around 50 at UBC plus 6 level 3). Here, there is also a bunch of 110v outlets available for charging in West Mall.I was told when I inquired pre-covid that more would be built soon and that SFU was waiting for gov. subsidies. But there have been, and continue to be, such subsidies and nothing seems to be happening.
Overall, a token effortMH
On 11/1/2021 11:54 AM, Ronda Arab wrote:
Are there very many electrical charging stations for staff, faculty and students who use electric cars to get to work?Ronda
Sent by magic
On Nov 1, 2021, at 11:53 AM, Craig Scratchley <wcs@sfu.ca> wrote:
Here's one of a number of articles on the subject:
They were working on this plant for a couple of years perhaps, but the switchover was just this past summer apparently. If you live in UniverCity, your building might get heating from this plant as well.
Also, I have noticed that facilities services has some electric vehicles, but I couldn't find a fossil/hybrid/electric breakdown in a quick search. Presumably they are trying to lower the fraction of non-electric vehicles as older vehicles go out of service. I once read that because it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce a vehicle, there is apparently some environmental argument to allowing a vehicle to live out its useful life. I never looked into the detailed tradeoffs.
Craig
From: Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:28:31 AM
To: Simon Watkins; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUThanks, Simon! Glad to know about the wood scraps.Nicky
From: Simon Watkins
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:17:46 AM
To: Nicky Didicher; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Re: Fossil fuel use at SFUActually SFU now burns biofuel for its heating, consisting of wood scraps mostly.They upgraded the heating plant a couple of years ago.Still true about the cars though
Simon WatkinsDepartment of Physics
Simon Fraser University
8888 University DriveBurnaby, BC, V5A 1S6CanadaTel:778 782 5763
From: Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 1, 2021 11:05 AM
To: academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: Fossil fuel use at SFUWhile I’m pleased to know that SFU is increasing its efforts to remove invested money from the fossil fuel industry, isn’t our main boiler in the basement of the library (I believe the biggest one at a university in Western Canada) run off diesel? And aren’t the majority of SFU vehicles still gasoline powered?Nicky
Nicky Didicher, English,Simon Fraser University,pronouns she/elle![A button
with
"Hear my
name"
text for name
playback in
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Reduce, Organize, Communicate, be Kind!
At Simon Fraser University, we live and work on unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
-- Anthony Perl Professor and Director of Urban Studies Professor of Political Science Simon Fraser University #2111 - 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3 Tel: 778-782-7887 Fax: 778-782-5297 e-mail: aperl@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.-- Anthony Perl Professor and Director of Urban Studies Professor of Political Science Simon Fraser University #2111 - 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3 Tel: 778-782-7887 Fax: 778-782-5297 e-mail: aperl@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.