A few first impressions of the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting

Was once confronted at a rest stop after parking my full sized 12 passenger van. The other person complained that I was miss-using resources. My response was:
I get over 170 passenger mpg. What do you get?
They had not seen the other 9 people get out of the van.

Louise whines:
December 10, 2013 at 3:58 am
Anthony – when are you going to start reporting on the contents of the AGU sessions/meetings? That is what the blog sponsors who have paid for you to attend expect (rather than just posting some snaps).
When is YOUR side going to start telling the truth instead of all the lies?
Besides ‘what content’? Do they address and answer this: Where’s the heat?

So much face-palm and cringeworthy material here but at least I got a chuckle with this:
“First, my video gear case and tripod:”
That just sums up so much of the climate debate. Hundreds of tax payer funded attendees in contrast to the modest WUWT resources. Luckily truth doesn’t care. Thanks for bringing us your observations Anthony.

On the irony of the “gas sucks” woman using her computer, I feel obligated to point out for those non-Californian types that San Francisco is served by Pacific Gas & Electric, which has one of the greenest (and most expensive) grid mixes in the country for the supply of electric power. Thanks to geography and a myriad of state regulations, over half of PG&E’s electricity comes from nuclear, large hydro, and renewables.
I frequently lament that California is on the ridiculous part of the cost/effectiveness curve. If one accepts that carbon dioxide is a pollutant (which I don’t, with all due respect to SCOTUS) then the economically sound response is to focus energy efficiency and alternative energy efforts in those parts of the country where the grid is coal-fired – i.e., people in California should be paying for the installation of solar panels in Virginia. Of course, that’s when politics rears its head, since a lot of these green energy measures have been touted as job creators in a state where lots of jobs are already leaving.
More info on PG&E’s grid mix here: http://www.pge.com/myhome/edusafety/systemworks/electric/energymix/

Anthony said in the main post,
The thing that struck me most was the sheer size of this convention and the number of people attending…and almost everyone of them is doing it on the taxpayer’s dime.

and

dbstealey on December 9, 2013 at 6:19 pm
Cut off the attendees’ taxpayer funding, and Anthony & John Whitman might be the only ones there! Those other folks need real jobs.

– – – – – – – –
Anthony & dbstealey,
I would characterize differently than you did the way some of the AGU meeting attendees were probably reimbursed to attend.
I think attendees from government labs, institutes, organizations and agencies had their trip costs funded by taxpayers.
The attendees from universities were students and staff (professors). The Profs are subject to pressure to publish research and it is predominantly by government grants, but private research funding though infrequent does still exist. Part of the research grant funds, if allowed by the grant policies, could fund the trip to AGU meeting.
Also, for the Profs I think university endowment plays a part in science conference trip funding. In the case of private universities endowment is predominantly private. For public universities endowment is largely taxpayer funded but significant private endowments also support public universities.
For the many student (undergrad and grad) attendees I saw, I cannot see that taxpayers necessarily funded them.
NOTE: on a similar topic, I attended a talk yesterday here at the AGU meeting given by Marcia McNutt of the AAAS (Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine) that was on her perception of a significant barrier to science advancement caused by the deep government cutbacks and new stringent government rules for conference travel by government employees. She gave an example of how to it is hard but possible to sometimes overcome the stringent travel restrictions, but said in general other ways for scientists to network and collaborate must be used in the future.
John

Teachers hardly ever get paid to go to fun conferences like this. Sucks to be me. 🙂

I am pleased by the “extended” report on the “Ethics Workshop.” Thanks to Anthony Watts and John Whitman.
The Ethics Workshop is a good example of what you find at academic meetings. Most of the activities are of this sort. The content is bland and attendance is low. Things like the Ethics Workshop exist so that someone can have an additional item on his/her resume. Yeah, I know it is sad. There will be some good events. But in each specialty there will be only a handful and they will be packed. The remaining reason for attending is networking. Some journal editor who likes articles on ethics might show up at the Ethics Workshop and you might eventually get a publication out of it. Such are the buttons that you push for success at academic meetings.