ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 recounts how I studied a cultural practice and then worked at rewriting it for a better future. At issue is the practice of air transportation, specifically all the flying that academics like me do as part of our jobs. Astonishingly, this accounts for a third of the carbon footprint for the campus where I teach (55 million pounds of CO2 or equivalent gases every year). My idea was a simple one: make a study of the traditional academic conference and the cultural role that it serves and then write a new version of it into being that would not only be more environmentally sound, but also more accessible and egalitarian. At the time of this writing, we have now conducted five such events, which all had carbon footprints less than 1 percent of traditional conferences.
