Han van der Maas | Shaming and blaming do not benefit the UvA’s climate policy
Columnist Han van der Maas has serious reservations about the study into the UvA’s air travel policy. There is a lack of clearly substantiated figures on staff air travel patterns, and he believes the reporting on this issue falls short. He also asks aloud: should we really be flying less when scientific breakthroughs in the field of climate behaviour require intensive international collaboration?
My mixed feelings towards climate researchers with an activist agenda were reignited after reading the article UvA staff want stricter flight policies: “Flight shame doesn’t work”.
I share the deep concerns about climate change: both technological breakthroughs and behavioural changes are necessary. Intensive scientific research is indispensable for both. Technological progress is promising, but in the area of behavioural change, real breakthroughs have yet to materialise.
One possible form of intervention is activism, ranging from chalk drawings on the pavement to blocking motorways. However, its effectiveness is unclear: the climate debate is becoming increasingly politicised and polarised. In virtually all Western countries, a large proportion of the population votes for parties that are either climate-sceptical or remain very reluctant to take action.
Scientific breakthroughs in the field of climate behaviour are essential. This also applies to many other pressing global issues, such as obesity, femicide, organised crime, tobacco addiction, war and racism. Science really needs to step up its game here. This requires substantial investment, the targeted use of energy-intensive AI to accelerate research, and a great deal of intensive international cooperation. A diverse and international community of researchers and students is not a luxury in this regard, but a prerequisite.
All in all, the question is whether we should actually fly less. Naturally, we must avoid unnecessary flights, and there will certainly be some. I myself have made journeys that I have had second thoughts about in hindsight, but also visits that turned out to be unexpectedly valuable. We also want the UvA to be a successful university that contributes to genuine breakthroughs. That requires international exchange and collaboration. It may well mean that more travel is needed. Leading scientists are likely to fly more often.
The Folia article in question states that just 10 per cent of staff who fly are responsible for 44 per cent of emissions. One could imagine less tendentious ways of phrasing this claim, but there are further objections.
Firstly, these figures are far less precise than they appear. They are based on data from the UvA travel agency, an agency that is hardly ever used in my circle. Furthermore, the article refers to a ‘study’, whilst it is unclear whether this refers to a formal scientific publication or to internal calculations without peer review or methodological justification.
Furthermore, it remains unclear whether there is in fact an upward trend in flying behaviour or emissions. This conclusion is suggested, but not backed up by figures. The hard data is therefore lacking, much to the frustration of the researcher himself. In such cases, Folia should be more cautious when presenting hard figures, and the same applies to the article’s title (UvA staff call for stricter flying policy).
It is unclear exactly who is meant by ‘UvA staff’. Does this refer to the researcher in question, or to the survey respondents, 80 per cent of whom reportedly support a stricter air travel policy? This study involved 167 UMC staff members, approximately 1 per cent of the UMC population. Furthermore, the UMC is not synonymous with the entire UvA. This raises questions about representativeness and generalisability. How was this sample selected, and to what extent is it selective? What exactly were the questions asked? And why, once again, does Folia fail to provide a link to the research report for this survey?
As a result, it remains unclear exactly what respondents mean by ‘stricter policy’. Should the UvA, for example, set up a climate committee to assess every conference registration months in advance? And what would the criteria be? I would suggest that your annual air travel budget, measured in kilometres, should be equal to your number of citations per year. And that as our collective scientific impact increases, we should therefore also travel more.
Another scenario: UvA researchers stop travelling, stop using AI because of the environmental impact, and the world goes to ruin because nobody came up with any good solutions. Annoying, of course, but at least we would have set a good example.
Once again, I realise that not all international trips are equally useful. I also believe we should explore alternatives. These include more regional conferences, fewer but longer intercontinental trips (including for early-career researchers with fewer citations) and good old-fashioned Zoom meetings. Shaming and blaming have no place in this.
