2021_summary.md (5904B)
1 title: Climate change at EDBT/ICDT 2021 2 3 The [2021 edition of EDBT/ICDT](https://edbticdt2021.cs.ucy.ac.cy/) took place 4 online, and featured a session on climate change, the second one taking place at 5 that conference. I chaired this session, and we had the pleasure of having 6 [Benjamin Pierce](https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/) ([University of 7 Pennsylvania](https://www.upenn.edu/) and [Clowdr 8 CIC](https://clowdr.org/about/)) as an outside guest. 9 10 The session gathered up to 40 participants. It featured a 11 [presentation](https://a3nm.net/work/talks/icdt2021/amarilli2021climate_slides.pdf) 12 that summarized the issue of climate change and the previous climate change 13 session, as well as the 14 [report](https://tcs4f.org/climate-crisis-and-edbticdt) written as a conclusion 15 of that session. Then, we had a discussion featuring members of the community 16 and Benjamin Pierce. Several topics came up during the discussion: 17 18 - The **[TCS4F manifesto](https://tcs4f.org/)**, and whether EDBT/ICDT ought to 19 sign it. 20 - Whether to **require authors to travel** to future conference editions, or 21 make video presentation a guaranteed option. This relates to [Vardi's 22 column](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/1/241717-publish-and-perish/fulltext) 23 in 2020 (and its 24 [followup](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/1/249441-reboot-the-computing-research-publication-systems/fulltext)), 25 and the [two-year experiment by 26 TCRTS](https://sigbed.org/2020/12/22/shaping-the-future-of-real-time-conferences-on-principles-of-transparency-equity-and-inclusivity/) 27 on making all conferences hybrid for two years, allowing remote attendance 28 by paper authors. 29 - The **impact on climate change** that our community can have, in addition to 30 flying less (when it becomes possible again). About this, Benjamin Pierce 31 pointed out the [paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433) outlining how 32 machine learning research can help address climate change issues. 33 - The impact of online conferences on **networking for early-career 34 researchers**. There are no easy answers here, but online conferences also 35 make it possible for more people to attend, including people that would not 36 have otherwise had the funding or the opportunity to travel. There is a 37 [post on the SIGPLAN 38 blog](https://blog.sigplan.org/2021/03/25/conferences-after-covid-an-early-career-perspective/) 39 about the specific topic of early-career researchers. 40 - The **right format to adopt** for conferences in the future, including the 41 options of merging conferences, splitting them up geographically, 42 thematically, etc. About this, there 43 is again a [relevant post on the SIGPLAN 44 blog](https://blog.sigplan.org/2021/03/16/sigplan-and-climate-change-a-look-back-and-a-look-forward/). 45 - The **need for statistics** to understand how people engage with online 46 conferences, including how many participants actually attended sessions etc. 47 - (In follow-up discussion:) the question of **estimating the carbon footprint 48 of trips avoided** thanks to online conference editions. 49 - The challenges in **giving a social aspect** to online conferences, which are 50 the topic of ongoing research, and are being addressed by Benjamin Pierce's 51 [Clowdr](https://clowdr.org/) platform. 52 - The **format of hybrid conferences**, and the fact (pointed out by Benjamin 53 Pierce) that once conferences stop being fully online by necessity then they 54 will have to be hybrid by necessity, for several months if not years. 55 - The question of **timezones** when organizing online conferences. There are no 56 straightforward solutions to this problem, but the switch to online 57 conferences has encouraged experimentation with the format, e.g., having very 58 short days or even a weekly meeting instead of contiguous full days. 59 - The switch at SIGPLAN to the 60 **[PACM](https://www.acm.org/publications/pacm/introducing-pacm) series** 61 for proceedings, to make conference publications more similar to journal 62 publications, and decouple them somewhat from the physical conference. PACM 63 is used by almost all SIGPLAN conferences. 64 65 The session concluded with a poll to gauge the opinion of the audience. At 66 that stage of the session, there were only 16-21 people voting, so this is only 67 informative. We asked: 68 69 - **Do you agree that EDBT/ICDT should adapt its practices (post-COVID) to mitigate climate change?** 70 - 15 answered yes, 4 were unsure, no one answered no 71 - **Do you believe that EDBT/ICDT should commit to the IPCC goals of reducing our emissions by at least 50% before 2030 (relative to pre-2020 levels)?** 72 - 10 answered yes, 6 were unsure, 1 answered no 73 - **Should EDBT/ICDT authors be guaranteed that they do not have to physically travel to the conference (if they cannot or do not want to)?** 74 - 11 answered yes, 3 were unsure, 2 answered no 75 - **Would you personally be ready, in future years, to only physically travel to EDBT/ICDT every other year (and reduce your emissions by 50%)?** 76 - 12 answered yes, 7 were unsure, 2 answered no 77 - **What is your preferred model for EDBT/ICDT in the (post-COVID) future?** 78 - 15 preferred an on-site conference every year but with high-quality remote participation 79 - 3 preferred an online conference every year, but with one or many attractive "hubs" 80 - 2 preferred to alternate between on-site and online 81 - no one wanted to return to business as usual, or to move to "something else" 82 83 I hope that we can continue this discussion about the future of the conference 84 model, so that we can transition to a sustainable model that serves the goals of 85 our community. To discuss the issue of climate change specifically, you can use 86 the [acm-climate](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/acm-climate) 87 mailing-list, and you can also follow to the [TCS4F 88 blog](https://tcs4f.org/blog). 89