Here, I would like to present some short reflections on negative impact of universities on the climate emergency, as pointed out by Prof Kevin Anderson [1]:
- international scientific collaboration most often by air travel
- international personal/romantic relationships locking people in high-carbon futures
- providing high-level education, leading to high salaries, and high consumption
Ad 1) Personally, I would like to propose that the value of scientific conferences, which – in my opinion – are not very valuable for scientific exchange, but promoted since they are a main source of income for many professional organizations and a nice “perk” for researchers with low or modest incomes. In addition, an event management industry organist a wide range of conferences has developed over the years which has a vested interest to keep these conferences running. Therefore, my argument would be that the majority of scientific conferences could be cancelled or scaled down without loss of scientific insight, since their main driving force are financial interests of professional organizations and the event management industry.
[to be continued]
References:
[1] Source missing
German 
English