Upgrade (AAG) + permanence (EESG) of virtual offerings
Ryan Stock
Hey everyone,
If you have organized a session for this (or future) Annual Meetings of the AAG, please consider changing your session from an "in-person only" format to a "streamed/hybrid" format. According to conference organizers, there is still time to switch the format of sessions. Simply email mee...@aag.org to make this request.
We believe that making the switch from in-person to hybrid or virtual formats is a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable programming approach. People who are unable to afford to attend exorbitant in-person conferences can view or participate remotely and if you opt in to recording, these sessions can be viewed asynchronously. This has a much lower carbon footprint as well when assuming most conference participants travel vast distances and utilize immense resources for these types of professional development (although digitalization is increasingly carbon-intensive). Ideally, we should be seeking to mitigate ecological impacts and reduce financial, ability-based and temporally-based limitations to participation in all our events. Another perk is demonstrating even more support for this format in future Annual Meetings, which would compel AAG leadership to permanently commit to decarbonization efforts in all future events.
As you may know, our group (Energy & Environment Specialty Group; link) has a deep commitment to climate action and decarbonization, something we take very seriously and strive to institutionalize and operationalize in all processes and programming. On our website, we have an incomplete list (link) of actions we've taken in recent years in line with these values.
Over the past few days, the EESG leadership just had an internal vote on this question, unanimously approving the following motion:
· Beginning March 31st, 2025 (roughly after AAG's Annual Meeting in Detroit), EESG will require all events, gatherings, happenings or meetings to have a virtual option for participation in order to receive our official sponsorship. This would include (but not limited to) virtual streaming, hybrid, with or without an option to have the event recorded for asynchronous viewing and future engagement.
This also includes all events that we host, but we have offered virtual options to attend and participate in our events for years. The context of this conversation and decision was a response to a truly excellent provocation to our group by Emily Yeh (UC-Boulder), requesting we ask organizers to choose virtual formats for climate reasons. This also sparked a robust conversation among the Climate Action Committee. Ryan Stock (EESG Co-Chair) serves on the AAG's Climate Action Committee with Emily, and her brilliant and bold leadership in pushing AAG towards decarbonization has been inspiring and enlightening.
The decision to permanently offer virtual participation options for all events and require the same to receive our group's sponsorship is yet another small way our group is committing to climate action and equity. While we do not claim that this decision is transformative or anything, it was a very easy decision to make and received unanimous support by our leaders. We will continue to update you with new initiatives that match these core values, thank you for your support and patience. Also, we welcome any ideas and feedback you may have also. We'll certainly have some spaces for these conversations (e.g. Power Hour, Business Meeting), and will host additional "Listening Sessions" in the forthcoming months to avail such public discussions. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.
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Empowerment and peace,
Ryan Stock, PhD
(pronouns: he/they)
rys...@nmu.edu
Co-Chair, Energy & Environment Specialty Group
Assistant Professor, Northern Michigan University
Director, Illume Lab
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