system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Can we find an ecological alternative to conferences?

I was quantifying my CO2 emissions for the year. I've been responsible for about:

* 1.3 tons for heat and electricity of my home.
* 0.9 tons for transportation
* about 1.5 tons for food and miscellanea
* A guesstimate of 0.3 tons for the electricity that my academic pc-based job uses

That's about 4 tons of CO2.

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Then I went to 2 conferences this year (1 in the same continent, 1 with an intercontinental flight). That's about 4.5 tons of CO2. To meet a bunch of people for 4 days each. I mean... the networking I do and the things I learn are extremely important for my career. But the environmental impact is completely unjustified. It's totally against both my coscience but also logic to emit more CO2 for a 4 day thing that for heating a home for a year.

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What do you think about it?
gpt
Speaking as a neuroscientist who regularly attends SFN, at least half the reason for going is to get a picture of in-progress research before it hits the journals.  The other half is to reconnect with old colleagues and network with potential new ones. 

The poster sessions and talks could be replaced with online versions, so long as we can treat preliminary research online the same as we treat it at the conference. 

The networking, on the other hand, is irreplaceable -- there's no other way you'll ever get this sort of group in the same place together. 

I've come to the conclusion that attending every year is unnecessary -- skipping at least once every three years makes more sense. Aside from that, there aren't many good solutions that don't involve the US building a world-class high speed rail network.