The industry which is probably responsible for producing more hot air than any other, the academic publishing industry, is being exhorted to become carbon neutral. In an article in the Scholarly Kitchen, the official blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, entitled a ‘Call for Carbon Neutrality in Scholarly Publishing’ a group of senior publishers from a range of scholarly societies who constitute the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Council of the ISMTE (International Society for Managing and Technical Editors) has issued the call. It is not made clear why carbon neutrality is the concern of a group dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, but for a piece of climate change virtue-signalling, this article takes some beating.
The opening sentence says: “Like COVID-19 and systemic racism, reducing the worst effects of climate change is something that needs to be addressed at every level of society, including scholarly publishing.” With reference to Earth Day (which took place last weekend), the UN Climate Change Conference, COP 27 and an article entitled ‘Call for Emergency Action’ by Laurie Laybourn-Langton of the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research), it continues in the same vein:
Our businesses and associations must band together and work collectively toward reducing carbon emissions at levels that will provide our children and grandchildren with a livable [sic] world. It is not enough to simply publish research on this topic. We must work directly to combat climate change in our operational activities as well.
Quoting directly from the Laybourn-Langton article, the authors demonstrate they have fallen for the usual climate change tropes as in, “Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world” and the usual stuff about how the ‘climate emergency’ is having a disproportionately harmful effect on the poor and the oppressed.
Helpfully, the authors of the ‘Call for Carbon Neutrality in Scholarly Publishing’ quote the Wikipedia definition of ‘carbon neutrality‘ and concede that: “Carbon emissions from the knowledge economy in North America and Europe may be small relative to other sectors. This does not make them inconsequential.” But the piece neglects to set out what the carbon footprint of the academic publishing industry is, which aspects of the industry are contributing to that footprint and how that could be reduced.
Surely, carbon emissions from the ‘knowledge economy’ are not only small but are indeed inconsequential. There can be few processes that are specific to this industry that generate much of a carbon footprint over and above the usual things such as heating buildings and powering desktops that every industry has. But the use of paper to print journals and books has largely been stopped in favour of online journals and more recently of online books. Very few leading publishers and their associated scholarly societies publish anything in hard copy these days, even for advertising at conferences. Journals are online and university libraries order almost exclusively electronic copies of textbooks. At academic conferences, where once you came away with a pile of journals to read, you are usually handed a business card with a QR code to gain access to some free articles to read. Is it the proliferation of these business cards that these climate activists are concerned about? If so, that’s a campaign I could get behind.
When I first joined the editorial board of an academic journal in 1994 I made regular expenses paid trips to London and Oxford, international board members were flown in, and we were often flown across the globe to meet in exotic places. Editorial boards have long since abandoned these practices. The COVID-19 restrictions put an end to them, with all meetings now being held online. It is genuinely hard to see how much closer to carbon neutrality the academic publishing industry could be.
The authors exhort organisations to adopt measures that will keep “global temperature increases below 1.5°C”, which shouldn’t be difficult given that the average global temperature is currently falling. Being in publishing, they must also broadcast their efforts so the public can follow their good example. The likely soporific effect of such proclamations escapes the authors who suffer from a comical lack of self-awareness. They end with a climate ‘call to arms’:
It is hoped climate neutrality will become part of our discourse on social media and in our business meetings, just as we continue to publish about climate change in our journals. If this problem is going to be solved, it will not be through the work of a single person, organisation or government. It will be through our collective action.
Stirring stuff!
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
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Holy crap. What insanity from the mentally ill pervert crowd. How low do the flipping IQs go? Maybe the Eugenists have a point. Euthansiasts might also be on to something.
Most of these people don’t have children so in due course hopefully there will be less crazy in the gene pool.
Indeed, people that far out on the fringes are generally far less likely to procreate, so the problem is at least somewhat self-correcting.
Academic? Pah!
PhD in Feminist and Gender Studies? Complete Hogwash!
Professor? Don’t make me laugh!
Yet this idiot draws a wage, probably quite generous.
This is nothing more than narcissistic mental illness given far too much credence by the gullible and ‘caring’ who are unwilling/unable to call BS. They deserve zero publicity.
I may look like a middle aged white bloke but I’m actually a 12 y/o, black, one-legged, blind lesbian with autism. How dare you say I’m not.
Well, it’s just got really silly now, hasn’t it?
That’s all.
A piss take from Babylon Bee would have been less absurd. For some reason it made me think of this: THE FUTURE – Leonard Cohen – LETRAS.COM
….
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
….
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
…..
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby
It is murder
Well speaking of amputations I am absolutely staggered as to how this is able to happen! And you know what the worst thing is? I used to work there.
Given the amount of checks that take place, first on the ward then down at theatre in the anaesthetic room before induction, I honestly cannot fathom this, because even if the surgeon was half asleep ( everybody’s worst nightmare ) the other staff wouldn’t be! Plus the surgeon or registrar always does a great big ‘X marks the spot’ on the ward prior, with marker pen, so there can be no misunderstanding. Totally bizarre. I see no mention of if the surgeon or anyone else from the team has been struck off though, with legal action taken by the patient. Strewth, the NHS really has gone massively Pete Tong in recent years hasn’t it?;
”A hospital has admitted to cutting six people’s limbs off by mistake in the past three years.
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust confirmed six patients had limbs amputated due to medical mistakes over a three year period.
This is the highest number of any NHS trust across the UK.
Four amputations were performed in 2020 and another two were carried out in 2021 at the Yorkshire hospital.
All were results of medical negligence.
But they are not the only trust to have mistakenly carried out the operations.
FOI requests filed by Accident Claims revealed Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust performed two surgeries without needing to.
These types of incidents are referred to as ‘never events’ by the NHS and defined as ‘serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if healthcare providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations.’
A further five cases of amputations due to medical negligence were confirmed by Medway NHS Foundation Trust in Kent.”
https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/05/yorkshire-hospital-cuts-off-six-peoples-limbs-mistake-20403344/
I read recently that NHS England is considering abolishing or overhauling the national list of safety incidents / ‘never events’. Debatable whether the intent is to improve practice or to cover up incidents…
I’m not sure if the antics of the transableists mean they are brainless, brain dead or just sick in the head!
Ive had feelings like this myself. Like parts of my body didn’t really belong to me. I am not talking about genitalia and obviously I wouldn’t make a political point out of it. If you follow the right path you will learn why your body parts don’t fit and that begins a process of laughing at the state of your own ridiculousness. Buddha said that laughter is the only divine human trait. And then a lot of the blockages and difficulties within your body start to resolve themselves. Ultimately it lies in the breath which is much more subtle than we realise. If we had a deeper understanding of our existence and spirit and soul then all of this would become clear to us. We speak as diseased creatures casting scorn on the most visible manifestations of a malaise that we all share.
It is a fatal mistake in a time of trbulaton to allow the overseers to divide the population again and again. The nation state is far from perfect but it is tte best protection we have, If we are Brits we need to include everyone in our equation. In the 1930s homsexual behaviour became quite prevalent in British universities, Bohemianism along with strong traditionalism can co-exist. There is no preclusion in a strong state which looks after its own and this country has betrayed its own for so long that the people cannot attain a state of calm anymore. The whole aesthetic realm and the world of imagining has been disrupted. I would say that the first step is to bring this back. Regardless of the situation you can engender a mood among the people.
People from the far east say that westerners are ‘top heavy’. It is a description of physical movement and the western sense of the primacy of the head as the seat of the brain and consciousness. On a bodily level western martial arts tend to be very upper body reliant with this tendency increasing the further north you go. We learned a lot of things as Europeans during the ice age but we also forgot a few things. I can say honestly if you can develop upper and lower coordination it will be an example to others and many of the things that might’ve stressed you will disappear.A movement ot the drishti as it is called in Sanskrit, or the point of focus, this changes everything
VOMIT
You didn’t have to watch this nasty broadcast. Even in my twenties, when this came out, I saw it for what it was. Maybe you are late to the party it doesn’t matter. We aspire to something higher.
Dear God.
But wait, wouldn’t that be….disability appropriation?
Sorry, don’t have the stomach to read this but I am sure to some it is useful to know what goes on.