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.
“Threatened with the sack”
Don’t threaten me with a good time
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?
Yeah, being a scientist/having a bunch of degrees doesn’t exempt you from being a dumbass
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
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.
I don’t think flying is the root of the problem.
But the IfW Kiel is allegedly insisting approval for his trip ran out on September 10 and he must return immediately by plane.
He should have been back weeks ago. They want him back quickly, not over a month from now. He’s already proven himself to be unreliable and unprofessional, so I’m not surprised the institute isn’t being more flexible than they already have been. He could have avoided flying by planning ahead. Jobs come with responsibilities.
He’s already been given several weeks of leeway, which is a LOT more than most of us could expect from our employers.
H A N N A ?
Feels less like he’s being threatened because of his stance on flying, and more like because he’s already been out there a month longer than he was supposed to be, time he could’ve used to travel back more environmentally friendly, and they want him back now.