I just got an email about the heatwave alert in London, that also talked about NIME being the largest ever. NIME has developed a great environmental statement and resources, and has a strong environmental committee, and unlike many conferences continues to support remote participation.
Still, I anticipate that very many participants will be flying long-haul for a short visit to London. There is still academic pressure to do so, which I feel NIME hasn’t succeeded in countering, perhaps breaking its own environmental policies. I say this not wanting to flight shame – I think blaming individuals is counterproductive[1]. But, I think we should encourage each other to collectively do better. There are no easy answers to mitigating the ecocidal impact of our work in a way that is fair and productive, but I feel the current academic model for sharing our research is a form of soft climate change denial, and completely unsustainable.
So while enjoying the conference, I think we should reflect on what will likely be the hottest London June day in recorded history, as part of an astonishing trend of broken records. I know the time for presentations is short, and the financial and environmental cost of coming together very high. However, I suggest we each spend half a minute at the start of our presentations and performances acknowledging the environmental emergencies, and stating that we support NIME committees in exploring radical ways to fairly and productively reduce the impact of the conference.
As an extremely tech-savvy, imaginative and resourceful community I think we are in a great place to enact change, as an example to larger conferences – with positive impacts far beyond our own community. I understand that discussions for what that change should be have already/are already taking place by the NIME committees, and so here simply propose that we take a moment to support that change.
I also understand that mitigating environmental damage through consumer choice like ‘carbon offsetting’ doesn’t work and is entirely discredited. We need to take collective action. ↩︎