University researchers have been branded “hypocrites” for condemning air travel as bad for the planet but then flying to conferences anyway. The Times has more.
A study found that about a third of the academics at a leading U.K. university had flown to at least one meeting in the previous year, despite a large majority expressing concerns about aviation emissions.
“There is a level of hypocrisy: academics know that flying is bad for the environment,” said Professor Jonas De Vos of UCL, the lead author of the study. “But still, we often fly to international conferences, often to [make the argument] that society should be more sustainable.”
Aviation is estimated to account for about 4% of global warming and almost all climate scientists agree that reductions in air travel would be needed to meet the 1.5ºC Paris target. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a shift to holding conferences and other events online.
However, in a study published in the journal Global Environmental Change, De Vos and his colleagues describe how flying remains “deeply embedded in how the global academic system functions”.
Aviation emissions are produced by a small minority of the global population, they add, which means they are often seen as “a particularly unjust” form of pollution. “Academics are one of the groups with privileged, yet highly unsustainable, lifestyles,” they write.
“Despite ever-increasing volumes of academic research and teaching on environmental sustainability… air transport remains a large contributor to academic carbon footprints, even among scholars researching environmental or climate topics.”
The new study provides one of the most detailed snapshots yet of the attitudes of researchers, lecturers and other university staff on flying, and how they ultimately end up travelling. More than 1,100 members of University College London filled in surveys. More than 80% of them said flying was detrimental for the planet.
He said researchers often feel pressured to travel, with presenting work at international conferences seen as necessary to win promotions and funding.
Three quarters of the academics agreed that international conferences should be organised in cities easily accessible by high-speed trains, and that trains should be cheaper and rail networks expanded. Online alternatives to traditional conferences were not seen as offering the same opportunities to network.
On the website NoFlyClimateSci.org, several climate scientists explain why they have decided to cut down on flying for work. They include Dr. Lennart de Nooijer of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, who describes how he became uneasy with work travel when he realised many of his colleagues were planning to stay on for a personal holiday after a conference being held in Chile. “Isn’t part of the attraction of attending conferences and meetings the sheer pleasure of visiting other countries?” he said.
Worth reading in full.
You can read a summary of Professor De Vos’s paper in Nature here.
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“Shops and public transport may still make masks a requirement”.
So when’s freedom day then?
Oh, I forgot. In 5 years. Or maybe never. How hard can it be for these bastards to stop lying?
That concerns me a lot too. The implications of the Telegraph article are that, in effect, freedom day is a con. However, the Daily Mail article suggests mask mandates will be totally abolished. This will be a real test for Boris, if he goes ahead or not.
Cattle may be let into certain parts of the field on July 19th.
Exactly. My double-jabbed parents-in-law, who have gone along with everything the Govt has recommended, and are going to have another two – one in each arm? – this Autumn (at my daughter’s wedding reception yesterday – mother-in-law ‘Are we allowed to hug?’) are SO looking forward to not having to wear the things on the bus. Mother-in-law says she can’t breathe properly in it. What DOES ‘may still make masks a requirement’ mean??
Passes the buck onto someone else to decide the ‘rules’ and terms of business. Leading from behind – Johnson still gets what he wants but businesses and organisations will do his dirty work – aided and abetted by the Covid mask worshippers.
How would they enforce it, though?
No mask no food
In other words nothing will change! How on earth can Boris et al think we cannot be fooled by this. They are offering nothing and we are supposed to be grateful. I’m done with it and will no longer can tolerate this superstitious nonsense. I will support businesses that use their common sense and go back to driving everywhere if I have to!
Well, shops and public transport has better be ready to show a “proof of claim” that their enforcement to make me wear a mask will not cause me harm! I want to see proof that a full medical risk assessment has been carried out, on their company premises and with the public, otherwise my exemption still stands. They can’t bleat about it being “the law”, and they’d better realise after a year of this crap, we’re all well versed with knowing where we stand, that we’re not going to put up their diktats, and in the case of retail, we’ll take our business elsewhere! Shops and transport should be encouraging and welcoming their customers back. If they continue to treat people like bio-hazards, then they deserve to fail.
I have not seen the Telegraph piece, but if Johnson says to ‘ use your judgement on wearing masks’, that would be a dirty cop-out. And, he knows full well what the likely result of that would be.
For crying out loud, he doesn’t even have to go as far as to say no more need for masks, just say that the mandate has been removed.
By saying ‘you decide if they are necessary’, well that’s fucking outrageous!
Yes, I predict that all major companies will be “urged” to keep their mask mandates in place, possibly with a “little” incentive? Get them to be bad cop now!
” ‘Javid and Sunak will defeat lockdown’ – Halligan”.
Nearest I’ve heard to encouraging news for a long time. I’ll believe it when I see it though….
Tin Lizzie gives the National Hell Service a medal.
For killing old people.
For neglecting every illness but one.
For stopping screening.
For slamming surgery doors shut.
For making dental treatment unobtainable.
For squandering money in dizzying quantities.
For forcing quack remedies on terrified dupes.
Please, please, please tell me it isn’t true.
This makes me sick.
I’ve heard the Vatican are looking into sainthood for it, too.
No, too time consuming a process for the current demolition crew. There’s the St. Gregory knighthood they could sully, mock and demean.
The George medal for cowardice and dereliction of duty, running away from the enemy and killing your own population. That’s novel.
Services to TikTok?
The George cross is awarded on the recommendation of a person, probably the prime minister. Also, last summer I was seeing three or four patients an hour in an out of hours service referred by local GPs with or without a telephone consultation, but then I wasn’t an NHS employee, please stop tarring all clinical staff with the same brush.
I’m afraid that wild generalizations do happen here – best treated like the equivalent of wearing a mask.
We can only say it as we have found it and Annie is bang on the money.
That plus all that “Sir” nonsense – they can and should fuck the right off!
Anyone remember Mugabe? or Saville?
And for denying people the right to be with their dying loved ones in hospital.
The management of the NHS are the ones to blame for the the shit show. The majority of NHS staff at the coalface have been working their socks off. I have colleagues & former colleagues working in both hospital & community settings who have been dealing with the shit show dumped on them from above, all the while wearing horrendous PPE. These are teams who deal with stroke & brain injury rehabilitation which is challenging at the best of times due to understaffing. Rehabilitation isn’t a priority in healthcare, it’s not sexy or high profile.
However, I do feel a bit squeamish about the award & am a bit embarrassed.
Some individuals did experience the strain of dealing with an infectious disease in a nosocomial setting, and they – justifiably – have a distorted view of its prevalence and severity.
As to the majority of NHS staff, they had a much lightened load from April 2020 onwards until quite late in the day (when hospitals began opening up)- but they did have a lot of dishonest top-down bullshit imposed – ike the constant wearing of pointless masks. They also suffered from staff shortages because of the use of inappropriate tests.
And yes – the black magic stuff was imposed top-down from politicized desk-jockeys subservient to political fakes. That is the key structural issue – the banishment of genuine expertise and ethics from the decision-making process, supplanting evidence-based medicine.
Nah, it’s the NHS in-toto that’s to blame for the shit-show.
In my experience running around like a blue arsed fly is a sign people are acting busy, not being productive.
My experience with the NHS made me save enough money to avoid future “experience” with the shockingly bad NHS.
When I want to get better, I go private.
Doing their fucking tictok vids
I have no doubt that individuals have behaved nobly, and beyond the call of duty. In which case they should be recommended for individual awards commensurate with what they have done.
Well, if the WIV can be nominated for an Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement award …….
All valid apart from the Tin Lizzie bit. She doesn’t make the decisions.
Dudley Council:Twice testing daily of school children is essential.
SO WILL BE FIRING SQUADS,SCAFFOLDS AND GUILLOTINES ( FEEL FREE TO ADD OTHER METHODS OF VIRMIN ERADICATION) FOR THESE LOATHSOME CREATURES WHO WISH TO PERPETUATE THIS EVIL,POINTLESS AND BRAIN DEAD PRACTICE.
Oh the Tumbrils, the Tumbrils are calling, come let me oil your squeaky wheels.
With their body fat/grease?
Blood’s no good, it dries out too quick.
Trebuchets.
…it’s fun watching ’em go SPLAT at the end.
GREAT IDEA.
Mandatory vaccination the first step to establishing Gilead in the United Kingdom.
The George Cross awarded for acts of “highest heroism” in “circumstances of extreme danger” to the entire NHS. The NHS that withheld known treatments, adopted harmful ones, discharged sick elderly to nursing homes, staged tiktok dances, was never overwhelmed? Now we know the Queen is in on it.
… and forced individuals with respiratory disorders to wear masks. Witchcraft rather than medicine as policy.
“Government in Greece made it clear vaccinated can gradually regain their pre pandemic life and rights…” Those vaccinated, that is, still alive, not sickened or maimed.
How, pray tell, do the vaccinated return to life as what it was, when half their fellow citizens may not? This is a contradictory claim. Life will not be as it was if the population is divided and half deprived of their rights.
The most sinister part of their assault is the one of ‘lockdowns only for companies who still have unvaccinated employeees’.
And the 0.28% figure is misleading data mining of the finest and most egragious.
This is all about coercion and discrimination now.
It has absolutely zero to do with health and is in no way justifiable medically.
Agree. Plain as day.
“People will be urged to use common sense and keep carrying masks…”
A contradiction.
Use your judgement on masks, as it should have always been. If you think they work (like a comfort blanket), wear one. I will still avoid anywhere that insists on muzzles when its been proved they do nothing
There are lots of medals and titles bestowed purely on longevity. They started deifying the NHS some years ago, wonder whose idea that was
“Biden misses July Fourth vaccine goal.”
Biden misses______.
Fill in the blank.
Biden misses toilet bowl with stream of piss, again
Just read the excellent Omar Khan article above. I love his use of the term “data denier”. Very useful if you are ever accused of being a “Covid denier”
Yes. It’s a very good, comprehensive article.
I see we have more bollocks from the Guardian this morning:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/04/politics-trumps-covid-science-in-javids-push-to-live-with-the-virus
Complete horseshit! How can they write an article claiming that ‘politics trumps science’, then continue with the tired old trope about masks – which are entirely political: the scientific evidence, in the form of the statistics, clearly shows that masks outside clinical settings have no impact on spread.
And as for it having nothing to do with people’s mental health, what planet are they on? Has it not occured to them that for those who can’t wear masks the past year has been immensely stressful, avoiding places where maskivist jobsworth are known to lurk, and constantly having to be prepared to stand up to challenges which can appear out of nowhere.
Yes, what planet are they on?
“Doing away with them has nothing to do with the economy or people’s mental health; it is motivated by ideology.”
Despicable, demented, fookin orrible rat-bags
This kind of 100%-arse-about-face bullshit really and truly makes my blood boil. Oh how I utterly despise it.
Fixed that:
“Implementing them has nothing to do with the economy or people’s mental or other health; it is motivated by ideology.”
ITEM: “Hundreds of GPs to start offering Pfizer vaccines from today – Australia is ramping up its vaccine rollout, the Daily Mail reports, as business leaders urge the Government to commit to ending lockdowns and opening international borders by the beginning of 2022”
When I heard our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announce last Friday, on behalf of the federal and all eight state/territory governments, that “when Covid is like the flu, we should treat it like the flu, and that means no lockdowns”, I thought he had finally see the light.
Only fifteen months late to the sceptics’ party, but, I thought, we finally have official confirmation that SARS-CoV-2 is what it has always been from the off – not the Killer from the East but an unremarkable seasonal respiratory virus, like the flu for those who are very elderly and already very ailing but so thoroughly innocuous for everyone else that you need a test to find out if you have it. I thought that, at last, Scomo had run up the white flag in his damaging, quixotic quest for Zero Covid in Australia.
I should have known better. The headline that we should learn to live with the virus and as a result decommission lockdown (and presumably masks and contact tracing and all the rest of the bollocks) sounded enticing but then I read the fine print of the new, grand ‘four phase plan’ to get us out of lockdown purgatory.
Turns out that ‘treating’ Covid like the flu means just that – treatment, of the medical kind and only of the ‘vaccination’ kind. And ‘vaxxing’ our way out of lockdown will mean bumping up Australia’s current 8% vaxx rate to something closer to 90% to achieve herd immunity (which apparently can not now be achieved by prior cross-immunity from related coronaviruses including the common cold and SARS1, or from naturally-acquired infection).
A vaxx passport will be used to coerce people to get the jab (including annual boosters for ever and a day). Yield to the jabbers and you get to leap Australia’s closed international and interstate borders in a single bound and to be exempt from lockdown and other domestic restrictions. Decline, and you do not get the freedom goodie-bag. Vaxx status is to be verified through a digital vaxx record.
So, not just like the flu, then, after all.
It’s going to be like that everywhere eventually. They’re just trying different horses for different courses, to see which gets their jab-agenda in place the quickest. Welcome, by the the way! Glad you’re on board.
It’s all like a really bad dream. I want to wake up now – PLEASE!
Definition of ‘common sense‘ confirmed by Johnson re. the wearing of masks …
= “Received bullshit”
The good news is that I have observed very little use of QR codes recently.
While the complicit media sound the horn of freedom for the 19th, I’m looking at how the government are making jobs with titles such as:
–Government Social Research Service – Research Officer Campaign 2021
–Higher Scientific Officer for International Disease Monitoring and Veterinary Exotic Notifiable Disease
–Business Administrator – Psychology Services,
–People Analytics officer
These jobs all appeared at the same time around a month ago. Seriously, do you really trust Jabbid?
I think there’s no doubt the biosecurity industry is here to stay and the medical industrial complex has taken the chance to grab a larger chunk of the pie. The only question is the extent to which it is allowed to blight people’s lives. If there’s another new virus, the same folly and evil will probably happen again.
It’s worse than just being awarded a George Cross, I’m fairly sure last night I heard talk of an updated version of clap for carers or some other nauseating Orwellian initiative for the sheeple. The standing ovation at Wimbledon for the woman who has maimed and killed 1000s with her needless experimental monkey vaxx took some beating in the “pass the sick bag” department. At least it helps to expose how disgusting the people who run the UK actually are, so there is that.
But this is the country where the man who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service when it blocked all attempts to charge Jimmy Savile for his crimes, Sir Keir Starmer, is leader of the opposition. That is the UK, in a nutshell.
I’m not sure how businesses and public transport operators are going to handle a situation where the customers won’t wear a mask. Before, the police could, in theory, have been called. What are they going to do now, hire bouncers? How does that work?
Lots of places already have security staff, and they can hire more.
Omar Khan as always wrif. He gives a good sum-up of some major bullet points here.
This one is too, Dan Miller at CW.
Suffice to say he has no high hopes for Javid, to the contrary.
His real task is to implement the vaxx passport based social credit and digital currency system.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/exit-hancock-pursued-by-catastrophe/
If the Government ‘frees’ everybody will Social Media and Ofcom stop censoring? As it will no longer be against ‘Government Guidelines’
Ah. OK. I didn’t think so.