“Climate Action is Slow for a Combination of Understandable Reasons”

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Professor Philip Kitcher (London, 1947) is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York. He is a mathematician, historian and philosopher by training, and he is regarded as one of the leading figures in the field of philosophy of science today. 

He has authored over 15 books on topics including evolution, epistemology, pragmatism, and secular humanism. His 2017 book ‘The Seasons Alter: How to Save Our Planet in Six Acts’, co-authored with Evelyn Fox Keller, has been characterised as a “landmark work of environmental philosophy that seeks to transform the debate about climate change”, presenting the realities of global warming through a human-centered narrative to better assimilate the science of climate change and its very real implications for human beings.

On 2 November 2021, Professor Kitcher delivered a lecture titled ‘Why Is Climate Action So Hard?’ as part of the PERITIA Lectures Series ‘[Un]Truths: Trust in an Age of Disinformation’. His lecture took place virtually as part of the Berlin Science Week. You can watch it here.

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Question: What do you think is the role of philosophy in the conversation about climate change, and how do you think philosophers can contribute more to this critical conversation?

Philip Kitcher: Philosophers have done some truly outstanding work on climate modelling, posing and addressing the kinds of methodological questions that are the bread-and-butter of philosophy of science. Our discipline has contributed much less to the other issues that arise about climate change, and that is something that ought to be remedied.

The most basic work philosophers can do consists in offering a structure for the full range of disputes. Evelyn Keller and I tried to do that, by considering six major questions that need to be taken up in sequence.  After that we attempted to organise the discussion of each of them, thinking first about framing questions about the evidence for global heating, second about how to assess the impact, third about our obligations to future generations, fourth about how to evaluate the economic consequences of various plans for assuring our descendants a manageable future, fifth about how to answer the legitimate demands of developing nations, and finally sixth, about the transnational democracy that we seem to need (and lack). There are aspects of all these issues that require philosophical treatment.

 

Q.: Climate action – particularly on the part of policy makers – has been far slower than we need it to be, even in countries where the reality of climate change is not widely contested, and even as climate change scepticism is waning overall. What can philosophy tell us about our apparent inability (or reluctance) to think and act in our own (and the planet’s) long-term best interest?

P.K.: Climate action is slow for a combination of understandable reasons. First, there are large numbers of vulnerable people, in every country, including the affluent world. These people worry that their already precarious lives will be devastated by the kinds of things young activists clamour for. Young people are right to ask for attention to the future but, since they haven’t yet committed themselves to a definite place in society, they do not worry about large changes that might impoverish older generations, or leave middle-aged people without a means to support themselves. Second, the problem of assessing the various kinds of futures that might emerge from the different proposals for limiting the rise in temperature is extremely hard. It is probabilistic in character, and we can’t give serious estimates of any number of important probabilities. Hence, lots of fearful people understandably don’t want to see radical change, because they can hope that things will turn out well even if little is done now. My PERITIA Lecture elaborates on this predicament in much more detail, and (I hope) it shows more clearly how philosophy can contribute.

 

“Young people are right to ask for attention to the future but, since they haven’t yet committed themselves to a definite place in society, they do not worry about large changes that might impoverish older generations”

 

Q.: Your 2017 book ‘The Seasons Alter’ is in part an attempt to present the realities of global warming in a digestible way for the general public to understand the science and politics of climate change more readily. What can your research tell us about the effective ways – and the not-so-effective ways – to talk about climate change with people who remain sceptical about it?

P.K.: Our book imagined dialogues between an activist and a sceptic with respect to each of the six questions I mentioned earlier. It’s hard to say whether we succeeded in providing models for constructive conversations between members of these two parties. I’ve received a fair number of enthusiastic emails from readers who thought the book was a must-read for their sceptical friends. In retrospect, though, I’d have written the third chapter differently; the dialogue there didn’t probe deeply enough into the vulnerabilities many opponents of climate action feel. I think the participants should have been people who were actually seeking jobs (rather than people who had just found them), and that the difficulties of economic disruption should have been presented more deeply and more vividly.

 

Q.: In their 2012 book ‘Merchants of Doubt’, science historians Naomi Oreskes (who recently delivered a lecture as part of the PERITIA Lectures Series) and Erik M. Conway ring the alarm on ‘mercenary scientists’ – high-level scientists with strong ties to particular industries – who use their influence to “keep the controversy alive”, actively misleading the public by denying well-established scientific knowledge, including on climate change. How can experts and science communicators help the general public identify these ‘contrarian scientists’ and pinpoint their underlying motivations?

P.K.: As my review in Science indicated, I think Merchants of Doubt is an exceptionally important book – one of the greatest contributions to public understanding of climate change.

I would love to see greater transparency in how the money flows into science labs and into particular projects. I suspect (though I don’t know) that there are all sorts of barriers to getting the information. But, assuming those barriers were broken down, journalists would have a moral responsibility to recognise who is getting funding from Big Oil or Big Pharma, adjust their assessments of controversies accordingly, and let the public know which of the alleged “contrarians” are getting handsomely paid for their efforts. If journalists could find out how the funding flows, and then live up to their responsibilities, the result would be a great legacy of Oreskes’ and Conway’s pioneering work.

 

“I would love to see greater transparency in how the money flows into science labs and into particular projects. I suspect that there are all sorts of barriers to getting the information.”

 

Q.: Many news platforms – and even some science journals – like to talk about “both sides of the global warming debate” to seem more balanced and unbiased, presenting unsubstantiated alternatives as though they are on equal footing with the scientific consensus, which can make it harder for people to distil fact from fiction. At the same time, not mentioning such ‘alternative positions’ may lead some people to feel suspicious and think that certain facts are being hidden from the public. How should we address this paradox?

P.K.: I have been appalled by the tendency of many reputable newspapers to write articles that “balance the conflicting views.” Of course, doing that is just fine when a debate is genuinely unsettled. When a scientific community has reached a consensus, however, it’s either cowardice or a misguided effort to “make science exciting” and so woo, or retain, readers. A whole generation of science journalists seems to fear being sued, sacked or vilified if they take a firm stand. Their editors also appear to want them to emphasise the “personal aspects of the story” – as if readers wouldn’t read an article about science unless it were jazzed up. My guess is that the root of the problem lies with the sense, on the part of journalists and their bosses, that they don’t know enough about science to give their own assessments. That could be remedied if people with a strong background in science were actively recruited, if journalists were offered paid leaves to keep up to date, and so forth.

You are right to hold that people will protest that a newspaper, website, or news channel is “taking sides.” The trouble is that, in our epistemically fractured world, people already believe that about the media they are taught to despise. Getting back to a situation in which media don’t always tell their adherents what they think those people want to hear will be extremely hard.

 

“[Balancing conflicting views] is just fine when a debate is genuinely unsettled. When a scientific community has reached a consensus, however, it’s either cowardice or a misguided effort to ‘make science exciting.’”

 

Q.: What is your position on the argument that individual changes (e.g., reducing meat consumption, flying less, recycling more, etc.) are just as important as – some might argue even more important than – systemic changes (e.g., eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, introducing carbon pricing, etc.) in reducing our carbon footprint on the environment?

P.K.: Completely straightforward. It’s a good idea for individuals to do what they can. But they should realise that individual effort alone is never going to do the trick. Even if decisions by people began to create incentives sufficiently strong to outweigh the bribes producers currently get under the status quo, the process would be far too slow to do much good. Giving up meat is a good idea for at least two other reasons. Installing solar panels is a good idea, too. But without very large systemic changes, probably far more ambitious than anything any climate summit is likely to yield commitments to (let alone live up to), emissions will continue to accumulate at dangerous rates.

 

Q.: Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann has argued in his latest work that outright climate denialism is now fading, and in its place we are seeing what he describes as a new form of ‘soft denialism’, which ultimately has the same goal of slowing actions to curb CO2 emissions. Do you agree? If so, what do you think would be some effective strategies to combat this new form of soft denialism vis-a-vis the more traditionally overt forms of climate change denialism?

Michael Mann is a brilliant climate scientist, an excellent writer for the general public, and a brave man. He’s basically right. I’d just add that there are all sorts of forms of “soft denialism.” Some ex-sceptics say “It’s too late to do anything.” Others say “Why do we take the interest of people who have not yet been born more seriously than those of all the living people who are suffering?”  Others might say “The best we can do for future generations is to keep the economy going.” Others say “This is a collective problem, and requires collective governance – but we’re never going to get that (a good thing too, nobody wants to be run by the UN or faceless bureaucrats in Brussels).” Yet others might say “What we need is geo-engineering. The current forms are either too risky (sulphur in the atmosphere) or only applicable at small scales (carbon capture). Let’s wait until technology discovers the solution.”

I could go on and on about this. We argue that the concerns of the living are important, but that they need to be balanced against our obligations to future generations. It cannot be a matter of ignoring either constituency. Similarly, rich nations, the countries that have created the current mess, have ethical obligations to parts of the world that would otherwise be denied the opportunities for economic development that the mess-makers have long enjoyed. Problems of collective actions have different scales at which all parties must come to agreement – and it is therefore foolish and irresponsible to retreat from joint deliberations, simply out of aversion to transnational entities (or faceless bureaucrats in different places). Finally, to do nothing, and bet on technology finding a way out is an irresponsible gamble on the human future.

 

Credit cover picture: Shutterstock

It Matters How We Open Knowledge – ALLEA Statement on Equity in Open Access

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Today, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) published the statement “Equity in Open Access” that addresses how “gold” open access publishing routes and large read-and-write deals contribute to establishing inequitable structures within academic research.

“If we make scholarship free to read, but very expensive to write, we end up reinforcing inequitable structures of privilege and power within the academic system; this is not a price we should be prepared to pay,” says Prof Luke Drury, Chair of the ALLEA Open Science Task Force.

The statement builds on this year’s theme of the International Open Access Week (25-30 October), ‘It matters how we open knowledge: building structural equity’, which was in turn inspired by one of the four core values of Open Science, as defined in the recently released UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science:

“Open Science should play a significant role in ensuring equity among researchers from developed and developing countries, enabling fair and reciprocal sharing of scientific inputs and outputs and equal access to scientific knowledge to both producers and consumers of knowledge regardless of location, nationality, race, age, gender, income, socio-economic circumstances, career stage, discipline, language, religion, disability, ethnicity or migratory status or any other grounds.” (UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, Page 7)

It also reflects the first of the eight key principles for scientific publishing recently adopted by the General Assembly of the International Science Council:

“There should be universal open access to the record of science, both for authors and readers, with no barriers to participation, in particular those based on ability to pay, institutional privilege, language or geography.”

 

Plan S and “Gold” Open Access 

In 2018, a consortium of major research funding and performing organisations started demanding long-due reforms in the academic publishing industry, an initiative widely known as Plan S (see also ALLEA’s previous Response to Plan S).

Widespread support for Plan S has triggered first steps in gradually disassembling the paywalls that continue to shield scientific literature from its readers. The so-called “gold” open access route (which makes articles freely available online for anyone to read) is considered an important tool towards Open Science but scientists that wish to publish via this route are often charged with substantial “article processing charges”.

“While for obvious reasons this route is promoted by commercial publishers, it effectively replaces a barrier to access with a barrier to participation.”, the authors state. As part of these reforms, large “read and write deals” are being negotiated between library consortia and commercial publishers, a notable example of this being the German “Projekt DEAL”.

 

Reinforcement of Inequitable Structures

Although collective deals can be beneficial to individual researchers that are affiliated with organisations covered by such agreements, ALLEA highlights several important inequities resulting from these developments:

  1. “[These deals] effectively incentivise such researchers to publish in the journals covered by the deal, which are often expensive journals that trade on their high ‘impact factor’ – a metric noted as problematic by Open Science initiatives.”
  2. “This tacit incentivisation risks further increasing the market dominance of the big commercial publishers and clearly disadvantages smaller specialist and learned society publishers.”
  3. “It takes no account of the fact that, at least in the humanities, there are still a significant number of researchers not affiliated with institutions covered by the deals, nor in some cases with any institution.”
  4. “It privileges established over early career researchers. It ignores the needs of researchers based in the Global South, in smaller institutions, or in industry. It favours well-funded areas of research over equally important, but less well-resourced areas.”

The authors argue that “It is a false framing of the discourse to say that either the reader or the writer has to pay; in most cases it is actually a third party (the library consortia in the case of the big deals) and ultimately it is the taxpayer for most publicly funded research.”

The statement describes several alternative open access publishing models, but the authors emphasize that a global solution to open access across all disciplines will only be available once adequate resources and infrastructure are made available.

 

About the statement

The statement was prepared by ALLEA’s Open Science Task Force, which aims to contribute to the development, coordination and implementation of Open Science policies and initiatives with a particular emphasis on issues relevant to the greater European area. The task force draws on the expertise of ALLEA’s academy members in promoting science across all disciplines as a global public good that is as open as possible and as closed as necessary.

Download the Statement

ALLEA Leads New SAPEA Project on Strategic Crisis Management in the EU

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ALLEA is taking the lead on a new SAPEA project on the topic “Strategic Crisis Management in the EU”, to address a question raised by European Commissioners to the Scientific Advice Mechanism: Based on a broad and multidisciplinary understanding, how can the EU improve its strategic crisis management?

The project will deliver an Evidence Review Report, informing policy advice to be given by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the Commission in response to this question.

In the Scoping Paper that defines the project, it is observed that, after the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU and European societies need to prepare themselves better for future natural or human-made shocks: “Improving EU crisis management has thus become an essential issue for protecting and enhancing the present and future wellbeing of EU citizens”, according to the Scoping Paper.

“Supporting that policy ambition with evidence-based advice implies an urgent need to investigate – based on the best available cross-disciplinary expertise – improvements to the overarching EU crisis management framework. Such a framework must be able effectively to anticipate various major threats, risks and crises, help to prevent them by addressing their root causes which make the EU and citizens vulnerable to emergencies, respond to them effectively when they do occur, as well as to absorb and recover from major shocks, based on robust, future-proof policies. The framework must be able to integrate Commission-internal and external crisis management actions effectively.”

The Scientific Opinion is expected to be delivered by the end of second quarter of 2022.

How SAPEA Works

ALLEA is one of the five networks that compose SAPEA and will work together with its Member Academies and other European Academy networks to lead the project.

To ensure the delivery of a report of the highest standard in a transparent way, SAPEA’s work is guided by a set of principles and procedures which can be found in its Quality Assurance Guidelines.

SAPEA is part of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism. Together with the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, it provides independent scientific advice to European Commissioners to support their decision-making.

Jointly with its networks, it brings together outstanding expertise from natural, applied, and social sciences and humanities, from over a hundred academies, young academies and learned societies in more than 40 countries across Europe.

Towards a New European Research Area — Interview with Kerstin Sahlin

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Kerstin Sahlin (Royal Swedish Academy of Science) is the Chair of the new ALLEA Working Group on the European Research Area. Picture credit: Umeå University/Mattias Pettersson

Professor Kerstin Sahlin (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) is Professor of Public Management in the Department of Business Studies at Uppsala University. She is also the Chair of the new ALLEA Working Group on the European Research Area, which held its first meeting on 7 October. The group will contribute to the further development of the ERA, its political framework, implementation and monitoring. In this interview, she provides us with an overview on the key issues at stake for the future of ERA.

 

Question: You are the chair of ALLEA’s new working group on the European Research Area. Could you tell us a bit about the objectives of this project?

Kerstin Sahlin: The group will address strategic issues of importance to accomplish the ERA such as free circulation, research inequalities and widening participation, young researchers, academic freedom, and global approaches to R&I. The programme of action will include engaging with the European Institutions, particularly the European Commission, on the development of the ERA, its implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The group will also continue to contribute to the monitoring and shaping of EU research and innovation framework programmes.

 

“The programme of action will include engaging with the European Institutions, particularly the European Commission, on the development of the ERA, its implementation, monitoring and evaluation.”

 

Q.: The European Research Area (ERA) was created in the 2000s as a mechanism to address the fragmentation of the EU’s research and innovation systems. After more than 20 years in development, could you mention one key achievement of this project and one relevant pending issue ahead of us?

K.S.: The European Research Area (ERA) is the ambition to create a single, borderless market for research, innovation and technology across the EU. In 2018, the European Commission initiated a process to revitalise the ERA and in 2020 launched what is called the new ERA. This new ERA seeks to strengthen mobility of researchers and the flow of knowledge, incentivise investing in research and innovation, promote gender equality and diversity in science, and enhance cooperation among universities, business and other research and innovation actors.

 

Q.: After the recent Communication of the European Commission on the future of ERA and the new EU Pact for Research and Innovation, the new ERA is taking off. In your opinion, is the ambition and the framing of priorities of this policy initiative moving towards the right direction?

K.S.: In general, we are very positive to the ambitions of strengthening the European Research Area. The new ERA – and the EU pact for Research and Innovation that was formulated as an agenda for the new ERA – includes a long list of topics. It is still a very open and complex process. The programme of action will include engaging with the European Institutions, particularly the European Commission, on the development of the ERA, its implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

 

“We want to see a new ERA that facilitates cooperation, improves framework conditions for science and research across Europe, facilitates good research practice (…)”

 

Q.: In which areas can European academies work together to contribute the most to the future of the new ERA?

K.S.: We want to see a new ERA that facilitates cooperation, improves framework conditions for science and research across Europe, facilitates good research practice, defends academic freedom and trustworthy science, strengthens diversity and inclusivity, and helps us think and act globally. An ERA, in other words, that forms along the strategic priorities of ALLEA.

 

Members of the new ALLEA Working Group on the European Research Area in their first meeting on 7 October, 2021. The breadth of expertise and geographical representation of the group’s membership reflects the heterogeneity of the ERA itself.

 

Q.: An often-antagonising debate among scientists is the role citizens and policymakers should play in defining their research agendas. How do you think this question should be addressed?

K.S.: I think most researchers welcome an openness to citizens and policymakers. Of course, this should not be set up in such a way that the independence, freedom and trustworthiness of science and research is compromised.

 

Q.: You are Professor of Public Management at Uppsala University.  Could you tell us about your main research interests?

K.S.: I have studied various aspects of organizing and governing public sector organizations. My interest has mainly concerned organizational reforms, the global expansion and circulation of management ideas and developments of global standards and regulations. I am also interested in public – private relations and in the social responsibility of corporations. More recently I have largely focused my research interest on the governing and organizing of higher education and research.

 

Q.: What is the latest project you have been working on?

K.S.: I currently conduct an international comparative study on collegiality in the governance and organizing of higher education and research.

 

Cover Picture Credit: Shutterstock

ALLEA President at the Black Sea University Network (BSUN) Congress

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On 13-15 October 2021, ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno delivered a virtual keynote at this years’ Black Sea University Network (BSUN) Congress, hosted in a hybrid format by the American University of Armenia (AUA).

 

Professor Antonio Loprieno delivers a virtual keynote at the 2021 Black Sea University Network (BSUN) Congress.

This year, the conference was held under the theme ‘Universities’ Role in Solving Complex Challenges.’  Professor Loprieno delivered a keynote speech on the topic ‘Transformation of Universities’ Role in Society: Historical Tendencies and Future Prospects’, which was followed by a panel discussion with experts from within the BSUN network.

Other keynote speakers included Dr. Daron Acemoglu, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Dr. John Holmberg, professor of physical resource theory, and UNESCO chair in education for sustainable development at Chalmers University; Professor Line Gordon, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, among others. Experts discussed the universities’ leadership role for integration and transformation, public-private-university partnerships, establishing solution-driven university alliances, and strategies for addressing complex challenges in society.

The BSUN 2021 Congress, which is a part of the BSUN initiative, was held in hybrid mode, realizing larger attendance of participants both virtually and in person. The Congress kicked off with a welcome reception on October 13, bringing together local and global university leaders for the official opening of the Congress.

BSUN comprises more than 120 member universities from all 12 member states of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Serbia.

ALLEA Responds to European Commission Consultation on New Genomic Techniques

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On 21 October 2021, ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, responded to the European Commission’s public consultation on ‘legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs)’. 

 

ALLEA has a long-standing interest in providing independent scientific advice to European policymakers and society. In this context, it has engaged in several activities that explore the potential applications and risks of genome editing for crop improvement. In its statement, ALLEA stresses that maintaining the status quo is not an option and welcomes the European Commission’s request for feedback on its initiative to develop new legislation for plants produced by NGTs, such as the CRISPR-Cas technology for genome editing. 

“[T]he increasing global demands (both in quality and quantity) on our food systems, as well as the challenges imposed on the agriculture sector by climate change, are huge and it seems unreasonable to exclude possible solutions that may allow opposing these challenges.” 

The response to the European Commission’s consultation summarises key elements from the ALLEA report “Genome Editing for Crop Improvement”, which is based on expert discussions during the joint ALLEA and Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB) symposium on the topic in November 2019. Building on this report, ALLEA is currently participating as a knowledge partner in the cross-disciplinary Task Force on “Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation“, led by the European think-tank Re-Imagine Europa. The consultation response lists the desired attributes of an ideal regulatory system together with possible directions for future legislation, as described in detail in the task force’s recent White Paper on the Regulation of Genome Editing in Agriculture.  

ALLEA urges “NGTs to be considered an important tool for delivering on the goals of the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy, whilst maintaining high health and environmental standards”, and emphasises the need to engage in constructive dialogue with stakeholders and European citizens on this contested topic. 

ALLEA’s full response to the European Commission’s consultation can be found here.

Dare to Know! ALLEA at the Berlin Science Week

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ALLEA is proud to be part of the Berlin Science Week for a second year. The science festival provides international scientists and science driven organisations with a stage to share insights into current topics, discuss grand challenges and envision the future together.

Under this year’s theme “Dare to Know” and in the spirit of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), three events dedicated to climate change and the energy transition will take place under the auspices of ALLEA and its projects.

On 2 November (17:00 CEST), the PERITIA lecture “Why is Climate Action So Hard?” by Philosopher of Science Philip Kitcher will take place digitally and open to all by Zoom registration. This talk will address why climate action has been sporadic, and far too slow.

On 6 November (12:00 CEST), ALLEA will celebrate the Madame de Staël Prize Lecture in a hybrid format. This year’s laureate, Professor Helen Keller, will deliver a lecture titled ‘Climate Change in Human Rights Courts: Overcoming Procedural Hurdles in Transboundary Environmental Cases’. A panel discussion will be held after Professor Keller’s lecture, followed by a Q&A session and a reception with a flying buffet.

SAPEA will also join this festival with a hybrid event Time travel and climate: changing the past to fix the future. Experts and participants will address the question: How could a time machine help us reinvent our energy system?

The Berlin Science Week takes place with in-person or hybrid events at many locations across Berlin, from 1 to 10 November. The festival seeks to foster debates and knowledge exchange in an open and interdisciplinary spirit.

This year’s theme encompasses major topics such as ‘Planetary Health & Sustainability’, ‘Health & Wellbeing’, ‘Tech & Engineering Innovations’, ‘Future of Life & Work’, ‘Societal Trends and Transformations’, ‘Discovering Earth & Space’ and ‘Art & Science’. Registration is open to all.

“A Transition to Climate Sustainability Requires a Change in Culture in Science”

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Astrid Eichhorn is chairing the ALLEA Working Group on Climate Sustainability in the Academic System. Credit: Sebastian Neumann/Latest Thinking

 

Climate sustainability in academia is emerging as a pending, urgent task for all research institutions and individuals. How can science reduce its own emissions without compromising excellence and international collaboration? Can the academia travel culture be re-examined and transformed into a more sustainable model?

Astrid Eichhorn is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology (Denmark) and junior researcher at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). Her day-to-day research focuses on quantum gravity and dark matter, but beyond the world of physics and astronomy, she has recently led several initiatives in Germany tackling key questions for reducing the scientific system’s carbon footprint.

As the Speaker of the Die Junge Akademie Board, she is now chairing the ALLEA Working Group on Climate Sustainability in the Academic System, which brings together researchers and stakeholders from across Europe to develop a proposal for a sustainable transformation of academia. In this interview, she addresses some of the fundamental trade-offs for making our scientific systems more sustainable.

 

The climate impact of academia cannot be ignored. We must engage with the topic.

 

Question: Scientists have felt alone in their warnings about the climate crisis and its unprecedented impact on humanity. It is not widely known how science itself has contributed to climate change. Why do you think it is timely to talk about this now?

Astrid Eichhorn: The last reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have made it crystal clear how severe the climate crisis is. Now there is still time to react and introduce swift changes across all sectors of society and that includes science. I see several reasons for science to transition to a climate-sustainable mode of operations.

First, the climate impact of science (which I will use in the broader sense of the word to include social sciences and humanities) may be small compared to the largest global sources of emissions – but that is, I think, not the relevant comparison. The climate impact is not so small when you consider the emissions per researcher. For instance, the greenhouse gas emissions for a single conference trip can be as large as the annual per capita emissions in a developing country (See source).

Second, now the academic community has the opportunity to determine their own path towards net zero and do so in a balanced and deliberated way without harming research quality and international collaboration. If instead we continue with “business as usual”, there may come a moment when policymakers decide to impose strict rules, across-the-board regulations, prohibitions and bans. I think it is better for the academic community to be proactive and to steer and determine the transformation towards climate sustainable academia themselves.

Third, I think there may be a connection to the impact of scientific policy advice and science communication. I have been wondering why during the Covid pandemic scientists are being listened to very carefully in their scientific advice for policy making in so many countries, in contrast to the scientific advice on the climate crisis. One difference between the two is, that scientists themselves were following the scientific advice on Covid: For instance, universities and research institutes went into lockdown alongside other sectors in society. The academic community showed that they are taking both the Covid pandemic and their own advice how to combat it, seriously. Analogously, I think we can make the urgency of the crisis even clearer and increase the impact of scientific policy advice, if we become a sector of society that leads in reducing its climate impact.

 

Q.: You are a physicist working on quantum gravity and its interplay with matter. Why did you become interested in working and researching about climate sustainability in academia?

A. E.: My research questions on the quantum nature of gravity and its interplay with matter are rather far removed from everyday life and from most people’s experiences. However, to me this does not mean that it is legitimate to close my eyes to the real-world impacts of my work, including its climate impact. In my work, conference travel is the main source of emissions. I became very concerned with the climate impact of my own work, when I compared the emissions caused by my intercontinental flights to international conferences and workshops with the “available emissions budget” that were calculated in 1.5-2 ° warming scenarios. These budgets are only about 1-2 t per person per year until 2050. A few years ago, my emissions from conference travel were significantly higher than that.  At that time, I was a junior group leader on a non-permanent position and I heard from many senior researchers, how crucial these conferences are for my academic career (both for the list of invited talks in the CV and for the networking) and so I accepted the invitations – in hindsight, I am second-guessing this decision. As a compromise and provisional solution at that time I instead bought CO2-compensation for all flights that I (and the members of my research team) undertook. However, it was very obvious to me that such individual attempts to reduce the climate impact of science are insufficient and must be accompanied by structural changes. This led me into a project in the German Young Academy (Die Junge Akademie) and later ALLEA.

 

Q.: One of the key questions addressed in the ALLEA Climate Sustainability in Academia project is the assessment of the climate impact of academia. Could you provide some figures or examples of academia’s carbon footprint?

A. E.: The climate impact of science as a whole is actually not very well investigated and documented. Keeping track of greenhouse gas emissions is only now starting to be more common among universities and research institutes and is not yet very widespread. Further – as in other sectors of society – it is challenging to keep track of all emissions, in particular the so-called scope 3 emissions, which include all emissions from purchased goods (e.g., research equipment), food production and transportation (e.g., for university canteens) and travel (e.g., commuting to university as well as conference travel). Many of these are not yet included in universities’ climate reports and many universities only include business travel in their scope 3 emissions. Climate reports from universities therefore typically constitute a low estimate of the full emissions. On average, this results in an estimate of roughly 20000 to 70000 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions per year for a “typical” European university.

In addition, there is alarming data, e.g., from the Max-Planck-institute for Astronomy in Germany that has recently calculated the emissions of each of their researchers (See source). They found that the work-related emissions per researcher at their institute are 60 % higher than those of the average person in Germany. To me, this per-capita comparison is one example that shows that the climate impact of academia cannot be ignored and that we must engage with the topic.

 

The greenhouse gas emissions for a single conference trip can be as large as the annual per capita emissions in a developing country.

 

Q.: What are some of the most relevant trade-offs to consider when making our scientific systems and practices more sustainable?

A. E.: This is probably the key question to discuss in this context. There are several areas in which careful deliberation is required to bring climate sustainability together with the needs of a well-functioning research community.

One of those areas is physical mobility. Science thrives on global exchange and international collaboration. Conferences can be key places of networking, exchange of ideas and inspiration. Thus, physical mobility cannot simply cease in science, and not all trips can be undertaken without air travel. However, physical mobility can be complemented by, and in many – although of course not all – cases substituted, by virtual mobility. Thus, it is about finding the right balance, and factoring in not just economical, but also ecological costs, when planning trips.

In addition, I think it is also relevant to consider co-benefits that arise from a transition to virtual formats. For instance, those workshops and conferences which are hybrid or fully online, are much more inclusive. In-person meetings often (unintentionally) exclude researchers from the so-called Global South (because of lack of travel budgets and cost and complications of visa applications) and researchers who cannot travel for health reasons or because they have family or care obligations. Thus, making workshop and conference formats more climate sustainable at the same time makes them more (globally) inclusive, which in my view is a huge benefit. As a personal example, at virtual workshops last year I have seen a surge of participation of research groups from countries like Brazil and India, with graduate students who were telling me excitedly that this is the first international workshop they participated in and that they would not have been able to attend, had this been an in-person workshop.

Mobility hence provides one example of how, in thinking about climate sustainable academia, we should remember both the challenges as well as the opportunities.

 

Making workshop and conference formats more climate sustainable at the same time makes them more (globally) inclusive.

 

Shutterstock

 

Q.: We all have lived through the sudden transition to a digital work life due to the ongoing pandemic. What positive and negative lessons have researchers learnt from the impact of Covid-19 on their working modes?

A. E.: I think that is has been a positive and empowering experience to see, how swiftly the academic community can adapt to sudden disruptions. We managed to continue teaching our students, collaborate internationally and conduct research – not always perfectly, of course, but still! I think this shows how resilient and creative the research community actually is. This makes me very optimistic that the research community has the capacity, creativity and ability to adapt to a climate sustainable mode of operations, and do so swiftly.

A negative lesson to me has been that we do not have robust and high-capacity systems in place to deal with mental health challenges. The added challenges of working life during a pandemic have exacerbated the stress and immense pressure many researchers are under.

First, this affected early-career researchers who often work on short-term contracts and are under huge pressure to be mobile and move, not just countries but even continents, when they change jobs – which has definitely been made more challenging in the insecure situation of the pandemic, with often unclear funding situations and closed borders.

Second, this also affected more senior researchers, on whom an added burden was placed, namely, to act as mentors for students who were struggling with the pandemic and were dealing with associated mental-health challenges. Acting as a mentor is not something that a researcher is typically educated in. The academic system so far has often relied on researchers figuring this task out as they go – with mixed results!

Thus, the pandemic has also served as a reminder of aspects that do not function so well in our current academic system and which should be improved.

 

A negative lesson (of the Covid-19 pandemic) to me has been that we do not have robust and high-capacity systems in place to deal with mental health challenges.

 

Q.: What stakeholders or sectors are you targeting to include in the Climate Sustainability in Academia project’s discussion?

A. E.: Our selection of stakeholders is determined by the conviction that a transition to climate sustainability requires a change in culture in science, because some of our habits and behaviours have to change or adapt. In turn, a change in culture requires two things: First, it requires a change in individual behaviour – for instance, considering the climate impact of various decisions we make. Second, it requires a change in the framework conditions and the system of incentives.

To provide two examples: i) when universities install competence centres with expert staff and state-of-the-art-equipment to support virtual/hybrid meetings, it becomes easier for each individual researcher to consider virtual/hybrid formats as an option; ii) when the number of invited conference talks is not considered as a measure of impact by grant agencies and reviewers, it becomes much easier for (early-career) researchers to accept only invitations to those conferences which they actually find scientifically interesting and worthwhile attending.

To also target such framework conditions, we consider not only students and individual researchers, but also universities and research institutes, conference organizers, funding organizations, academies and learned societies and ranking agencies as important stakeholders.

 

Q.: Taking action to make science more sustainable may imply different costs depending on types of researchers or organisations and considering factors such as resources, career stage or location for instance. How are you tackling the unequal footing of actors within the global scientific system?

A. E.: It is critical to be mindful of unintended consequences that generate inequalities. For instance, senior researchers often insist that early-career researchers should get the same opportunities to network that they had during their careers. To address such points adequately, it is crucial to not just talk about early-career researchers, but also with early-career researchers to allow them to make their voices heard. Thus, in the composition of the working group we paid attention to their being a generational balance, and both senior as well as junior researchers are included.

There is also the important point of global inequalities. In discussing the consequences of a transition to climate-sustainable academia, we have to be mindful that we are starting from a deeply unequal system: For instance, resources that researchers in the so-called Global South have access to, are typically much than in the so-called Global North. Thus, in discussing how to adapt the travel culture in academia, it is key to think about ways that decrease, instead of increasing, such inequalities.

 

Q: You are also the Speaker of Die Junge Akademie. Could you give us an example of any of your projects addressing climate sustainability in academia?

A. E.: Die Junge Akademie has first considered its own climate impact in 2019, when we released a statement demanding that CO2-offsets for work-related trips can be covered by public bodies, such as universities or indeed academies. We combined this demand with a voluntary commitment to avoid, if possible, air travel for trips related to our work in the young academy. However, to us this was only a very small first step to engage with the broader issue of climate sustainability in academia. We continued to focus on air travel with a set of recommendations to reduce the amount of travel and substitute physical with virtual mobility. It goes without saying that the team that wrote the recommendations did so without physical meetings – similarly, all meetings of the ALLEA working group to date have been virtual meetings.

With Die Junge Akademie’s inauguration into ALLEA, it was a natural next step to bring together a diverse set of experts from various European countries to engage with climate sustainability in academia in all its various aspects – including, but also going beyond the questions of air travel and physical vs virtual mobility.

 

Credit cover picture: Shutterstock

Presenting PERITIA’s European Student Competition on Youth on Trust

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In collaboration with the Irish Young Philosophers Awards, the EU-funded project PERITIA is organising a special Youth on Trust Awards for 2022. The competition invites students from across Europe to share their views in a forum where their voices can be heard on the topic of trust in our social and political life.

Students, from 13 to 18 years old, are asked to create a project in response to a question or issue they think is most important in relation to the topic of trust in public life. The project can be in the format of an essay, podcast, film, blog post, short story or dialogue. Watch youtuber and climate scientist Adam Levy explain the competition.

There will be three prize categories for students in the following age groups: 13-14 / 15-16 / 17-18. Entries from any of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe are accepted. The winning entries will be published and awarded a trip to the heart of the European Union in Brussels.

Here are some examples of questions related to the topic of public trust for you to consider:

– What is trust?
– Can we trust social media? Why or why not?
– How important is trust for social life?
– Is trust important for democratic societies?
– What does it mean to trust scientific experts?

How to Participate in the Youth on Trust Awards?

The Youth on Trust Awards is a topic-specific award on the theme of public trust. All second level students between the ages of 13-18 who are resident in Europe are eligible to apply. Entries will be accepted in the following languages: Armenian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish. Students can only submit individual entries and only one entry each.

The call is open until 1 March 2022. You can find full details about the competition on our website. For full details, go to the Youth on Trust Awards Website.

Become a patron

As part of the PERITIA consortium, ALLEA is collaborating with European academies and other institutions to organise this pan-European competition across the Council of Europe. If you are an academy or another organisation interested in bringing this competition to your country, contact youthontrust@peritia-trust.eu.

Stellenausschreibung: Mitarbeiter*in für Personal- und Verwaltungsangelegenheiten

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ALLEA, der europäische Dachverband der Wissenschaftsakademien, sucht für die Geschäftsstelle in Berlin zum 1. Januar 2022 als Elternzeitvertretung (Teilzeit) bis zum 30. April 2023 eine/n

 

Mitarbeiter*in für Personal-und Verwaltungsangelegenheiten
(Human Resources and Administration Officer)

 

ALLEA ist eine gemeinnützige internationale Organisation an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft, die sich der koordinierten Zusammenarbeit zwischen über 50 Wissenschaftsakademien aus 40 europäischen Ländern widmet.

Die in Berlin ansässige Geschäftsstelle ist besetzt mit einem interkulturellen und dynamischen Team, das alle anfallenden Verwaltungs-, Koordinations-und Kommunikationsaufgaben betreut und die verschiedenen Aktivitäten des Dachverbandes plant und umsetzt.

Aufgabenbereiche

  • Erste/r Ansprechpartner*in für jede Form von ALLEA-Personalangelegenheiten
  • Personalverwaltung, Koordination von Stellenbesetzungen, Administration von Personalübersichten (Urlaubsplanung, Abwesenheitserfassung, etc.)
  • Kontakt zu Lohnbüros, Versicherungen, Rechtsberatungen und anderen behördlichen Stellen
  • Abwicklung des administrativen und operativen Tagesgeschäftesdes Verbandes, einschließlich Geschäftskorrespondenz Deutsch/Englisch
  • Organisatorische Aufgaben (Kalenderverwaltung, Termin-, Veranstaltungs-, Reiseplanung)
  • Unterstützung von Präsidium und Geschäftsführungbei täglich anfallenden Aufgaben
  • Mitgliederverwaltung und Datenbankpflege
  • Beschaffung von Waren und Dienstleistungen, sowie Verwaltung von Verträgen und Vereinbarungen mit Drittanbietern
  • Administration der IT-Infrastruktur unterstützt durch externe IT-Dienstleister

Voraussetzungen

  • Hochschulabschluss in relevanter Fachrichtung (Business Administration, HR Management, o.ä.) oder abgeschlossene Berufsausbildung im Verwaltungsbereich (Bürokommunikation o.ä.)
  • Mehrjährige einschlägige Berufserfahrung
  • Hervorragende Deutsch-sowie sehr gute Englischkenntnisse in Wort und Schrift (Arbeitssprachen);
  • Sicherer Umgang mit MS-Office und weiterer üblicher Software (Datenbanken o.ä.)
  • Organisationstalent, Teamfähigkeit, sowie selbstständige und strukturierte Arbeitsweise
  • Erfahrung in Personalwesen, Vertragsgestaltung, öffentlicher Beschaffung wünschenswert

Stellenbezogene Informationen

Für eine Übergangszeit von 1. Januar – 28. Februar 2022 handelt es sich um eine Teilzeitstelle im Umfang von 19,5 Stunden wöchentlich zur Einarbeitung. Ab 1. März 2022 beträgt der Arbeitsumfang 30 Stunden wöchentlich.

Die Vergütung erfolgt nach dem Tarif für den Öffentlichen Dienst der Länderin Abhängigkeit von Qualifikation und Erfahrungbis maximal Stufe TV-L 11.

Der Arbeitsalltag kann flexibel im Büro oder von zuhause gestaltet werden. Wir schätzen Vielfaltund begrüßen daher alle Bewerbungen – unabhängig von Alter, Herkunft, Geschlecht, sexueller Identität, Behinderung oder Weltanschauung.

Bewerbungsformalitäten

Bei Interesse bitten wir um Übersendung der vollständigen Bewerbungsunterlagen (Anschreiben, Lebenslauf, Arbeitsnachweise/Referenzen) in einer PDF-Datei mit dem Betreff „Human Resources and Administration Officer” bis spätestens 31. Oktober 2021 an recruitment@allea.org.

Bitte erwähnen Sie dabei, wie Sie auf diese Ausschreibung aufmerksam geworden sind. Bewerbungsgespräche mit den aussichtsreichsten Kandidaten*innen werden in den darauffolgenden Wochen durchgeführt.