This summer, the TCS4F initiative had the honor of being featured in an article of Communications of the ACM (CACM), Doing Something About the Weather. This article was written by Claire Hamlett following an interview with the TCS4F founders.
TCS4F was also presented by Thomas Schwentick in the fascinating panel “Evolution or Revolution? The Future of Conferences in Theoretical Computer Science” at the Online Worldwide Seminar on Logic and Semantics (OWLS).
Other than that, we now have reached 144 individual signers of the pledge, so please continue to spread the word to your colleagues, and encourage your research groups and conferences to sign!
The carbon footprint
of an event is the total increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused as
a result of the event. The same can be defined for any activity,
including your professional or personal activity. To bring it down to a
number, carbon footprints are usually measured in some mass of equivalent carbon dioxide (e.g., 1 ton of CO2e). Of course, this indicator is only relevant to the climate crisis, and should not obscure the many other environmental issues that we currently face.
In terms of research groups and conferences, 3 research groups and 2 conferences (Highlights and STACS) have committed to the 50% carbon reduction objective. We are currently approaching more conferences about the issue and hope to see more signatures soon!
Of course, the environment crisis isn't the main problem on anyone's radar
right now, but the pandemic is in fact a good opportunity to adapt our practices and think about how they will have to evolve in the future. So please consider spreading the word, mentioning the manifesto to your colleagues and collaborators, and advertising your signature of the manifesto with our badges! There are certainly more than 100 climate-conscious researchers in
theoretical computer science on Earth, so we hope to see more signatures in TCS4F's second month of existence!
The question of sustainability in computer science research is also
being investigated by other communities. This is a pointer to the
initiatives that we are aware of.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. If your conference would like
to reduce its carbon footprint, in particular if it has committed to the
TCS4F manifesto, then you need to estimate how much CO2
was released in the atmosphere by holding the conference. This is a
critical step to understand your environmental impact, seeing how it
evolves from one year to the next, and understanding how it varies
depending on location. It also allows organisers, if they wish, to buy carbon offsets to compensate the environmental cost of the event.
