A climate scientist on Wednesday said he was being threatened with the sack for refusing to fly back to Germany from a research trip in Papua New Guinea.

Gianluca Grimalda, a senior researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), has spent six months investigating the social effects of climate change in the Pacific island country.

Grimalda made most of the outward trip to Papua New Guinea by land and sea, taking 35 days to travel around 16,000 kilometers.

He wished to return entirely by cargo ships, ferries, trains and buses, he said in a statement shared by the campaign group Scientist Rebellion.

But the IfW Kiel is allegedly insisting approval for his trip ran out on September 10 and he must return immediately by plane.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
13 points

I know flights emit a lot, but surely the emissions related to sustaining a man for 35 days (food preparation and shipment, water purification, living space cleaning and powering) outweigh that?

permalink
report
reply
-15 points

Yeah, being a scientist/having a bunch of degrees doesn’t exempt you from being a dumbass

permalink
report
parent
reply
-6 points

A good example of high INT, low WIS

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Jesus… Toxic much?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

How would you summarize the comment I was replying to otherwise?

If you don’t agree, that’s fine, but from my own experience, even academics with a bunch of accreditations and experience can be missing common sense / let emotions overshadow their knowledge

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points
*

Presumably you’d need to compare that to his regular consumption for those 35 days, so marginally, it might really only be the water purification and a little extra weight of food.

It would kinda be interesting to see a detailed breakdown of the comparison.

permalink
report
parent
reply
22 points
*

You’d be surprised. Long trips literally produce tons.

The emissions of this trip, if every passenger flew economy, is >2 ton CO2 per person.

The annual emission of a eu citizen is 4 to 7 ton a year so for a month that’s 350kg, given that he is not living on eu standards it’s quite safe to take the lower bound. The co2 of hitching on cargo ships and trucks is neglectabel, but if he has to catch a bus for most land travel, we can set it to 500kg max.

Taking the plane emissions at the minimum bound and the alternative maximal, it’s still 3x less. And personal emissions I think we could reduce by a lot in the next 10 years with greener agriculture, industry and just consuming less. Plane travel will not improve drastically the coming 20 years

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
Removed by mod
permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

He wants to travel home slowly via surface transport

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

What does that have to do with anything I said or was responding to?

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

Lots of people want lots of things, sometimes we just have to do what we have to do, even if it isn’t what we want to do.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Probably not no, flying really does emit a shit ton

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

A person eats and drinks every day, regardless of being on a journey, or stationary. If he sourced locally along the trip, there’s a good chance his emissions were lower, since Germany has higher per capita emissions than most countries, roughly estimated.

But even if he brought all the supplies from Germany, that would only increase transportation emissions slightly. Emissions for the goods themselves remained equal, wether they are consumed at home or elsewhere.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

!climate@slrpnk.net

Create post

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

Community stats

  • 3.9K

    Monthly active users

  • 6.8K

    Posts

  • 31K

    Comments

Community moderators