The Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board takes place in person in Washington DC, starting today. Upwards of 10,000 transportation professionals will convene there.

I should say I have attended it in the past myself though the last time I flew is now 1044 days ago.

Given the unrelenting news about worsening climate change effects I couldn’t help but find myself wondering about this mass gathering.

I assume the vast majority of attendees will fly there. I wonder what proportion of them are doing so conscious of their emissions? I wonder what proportion have paid any offset for their flight? I wonder how many who are conscious of their emissions have had to deal with cognitive dissonance where their concern for climate change is discordant with their behaviour?

As a result of the pandemic, TRB had its 100th Annual Meeting as a virtual event as I understand it. I wonder what lessons were drawn from that very large scale experiment? What were the positives, what were the negatives? What was the reason for moving back to an in person format? Was continued commercial viability of the conference as one reason perhaps? Have steps been taken to give delegates a choice this year to participate virtually or is the only option to be there in person?

I wonder how many papers and sessions will be addressing climate change and decarbonisation?

Are the organisers collecting data on the attitudes and behaviours of their delegates over time to understand what might be changing with a sample of so many thousands of transport professionals? Do we know how many people no longer attend TRB because they are not prepared to fly?

Sorry folks – lots of questions there. I can’t help finding myself wondering if this is really the best poster child for hopes of the public taking experts seriously when such experts are calling for rapid decarbonisation which in turn requires a stark move away from business as usual.

I’ll now duck for cover having probably caused offence to many academic colleagues heading for the conference!

#climatechange#virtualconferences#lowcarbonfuture