[OSGeo-Discuss] Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023

Wed Jan 12 18:14:51 PST 2022

Hi Everyone,

I would like to start this email with the caveat, statement, and admission
that "*I am an idiot*" to ensure all are provided with the requisite
informed context.

The environmental concerns of holding a conference are immense, that we
would be reticent not to consider. I for one love this planet, as I happen
to be living on it and I quite like living. Living involves whiskey, dim
sum and chocolate. In short, I don't want to stop living because I doubt
those things will be in it.

To tell a story. I cried in an airport on 31 December. I had seen my
parents for the first time in a long time and was heading back 'home' to
NYC. I was listening to my very good friend Steven talk to my other good
friend Ivan on "The Politics of Geo
<https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/ivan-sanchez-the-politics-of-geo/id1500132553?i=1000545491911>".
The emotion of hearing Ivan discuss the transitive relationships within the
nexus of economy, philosophy and geography provided an emotional crescendo
that I am sure made a few people quite uncomfortable. We are social beings
and we would be irresponsible not to take our community to where it can
have the maximum impact. I suspect we, in our own way, have had these
moments during these very challenging times over the past two years.

Through our work, we provide humanity with the very tools which will
provide its salvation. For example, through the efforts of FOSS4G in Dar es
Salaam (which was a privilege to co-chair with Msiliakle) from bringing the
largest (yet!) number of travel grant awardees to directly supporting an
FGM charity with resources to combat the horrid practice, we managed to
achieve something that would have simply been impossible virtually. It is
with pride that I note that one of our FOSS4G TGP awardees went on to
Keynote in Argentina. I write this as a past FOSS4G chair because of the
mentorship of our community. Others will come through our networking and
will go on to achieve more and drive more than we could have ever imagined.

We must undertake efforts to make sure that there is geographically
equitable representation to inspire and foster the next generation. We have
no choice but to do this in person, not due to exacting mental health costs
on us imposed by our current challenges, but to inspire the next and
undertake every effort to ensure that all are capable of participating. The
past two years have demonstrated the hard limit of our virtual world and we
do not have the time to wait for the next 5 billion to come and join us -
we must go out to meet them and embrace them where they are, not where we
are. To me, the question is not the environmental cost of convening a
FOSS4G, it would be the cost to humanity of not convening one.

But, then again, this is my personal opinion and I am an idiot.

Best,

Mark

On Wed, 12 Jan 2022 at 16:51, Jonathan Moules via Discuss <
discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> The problem with the social interaction arguments is the massive
> environmental cost.
>
> It's about 22,000 km round trip from either NW USA or West Europe to
> Buenos Aires, Argentina for example.
> Depending on the calculator you use, that's about 4 tonnes of CO2 for the
> round trip. The world target by 2030 is 2.1 tonnes per capita (Page XXV -
> UN Environment Programme report -
> https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34426/EGR20.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
> ). So that's about two-person years of CO2 emissions for a ~4 day
> conference.
>
> This is why I ask what actual benefits "networking" provides. It's not
> part of an anti-social crusade, it's because "business as usual" for us
> means "our grandparents screwed everything up for us" in a few generations.
> Jetting around the planet has a real-world cost even if it's one that's
> invisible to most of us right now.
>
> We take our ability to jet around the globe by air for granted but forget
> that just 90 years ago it was impossible. Literally. The (turbo) jet hadn't
> been invented. And even today, the vast vast majority (> 90%, probably much
> higher) of the world's population never fly in a given year (
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-much-worlds-population-has-flown-airplane-180957719/
> ).
>
>
> > I think if a group of individuals[1], or several groups, want to put
> forward proposals for the conference to be located in "Cyberspace"[2] then
> that should not be disallowed, and then its up to the conference committee
> to consider it fairly according to the criteria for selection.
>
> On the surface, this is a good idea, but unfortunately it has a
> fundamental problem:
> There are no "criteria for selection" of the conference beyond "the
> committee members voted for this proposal". There's zero transparency in
> the process.
>
> It strikes me that there is another advantage to the online setup, one
> that solves a very real recurring problem of the in-person conferences:
> Repeatability.
> Currently every conference starts from scratch; the new LOC has to figure
> everything out for themselves and all the knowledge from the old LOC is
> lost (although they do usually try to help with the transition). However,
> with an online conference, once the tooling is setup for the first one it
> would seem the burden to create the later ones would be much lower, and
> you'd benefit from possibly having some LOC members do it multiple times
> allowing the transfer for institutional knowledge.
>
> (And no, for a whole host of reasons, I'm not the person to put forth any
> formal proposal)
>
>
> On 2022-01-12 15:52, Barry Rowlingson via Discuss wrote:
>
> I think if a group of individuals[1], or several groups, want to put
> forward proposals for the conference to be located in "Cyberspace"[2] then
> that should not be disallowed, and then its up to the conference committee
> to consider it fairly according to the criteria for selection.
>
> Barry
>
> [1] Not me
> [2] But not "the metaverse". Just No.
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 3:45 PM Michael Smith via Discuss <
> discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>> This email originated outside the University. Check before clicking links
>> or attachments.
>>
>> I would say that its probably best to think about Hybrid, as this is what
>> is happening for 2022. Essentially you are both right, there are pluses and
>> minuses to each. And we want to support both going forward as there isn’t
>> going to be an approach that works for everyone. Future FOSS4Gs will
>> probably all part virtual and in-person.
>>
>> Note this is my personal opinion.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Michael Smith
>> US Army Corps / Remote Sensing GIS Center
>>
>>
>>
>> On 1/12/22, 10:28 AM, "Discuss on behalf of Iván Sánchez Ortega via
>> Discuss" <discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of
>> discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>>
>>     El miércoles, 12 de enero de 2022 15:26:05 (CET) Jonathan Moules via
>> Discuss
>>     escribió:
>>     >  > we really hope that FOSS4G2023 can be safely
>>     >  > organized in physical format.
>>     >
>>     > Why?
>>
>>     Because we humans are social animals; and people like me, who are
>> almost
>>     completely burnt out by not having been outside of their houses for
>> nearly two
>>     years, could really use an in-person event to see their friends and
>> their
>>     personal heroes.
>>
>>     I'm not gonna attack Jonathan's points (or even reply to them,
>> risking an
>>     episode of sealioning to erode my patience), but I want to make one
>> of my own:
>>
>>     It's good for our collective mental health. We *want* an in person
>> event, we
>>     *hope* for it; which for me is a sign our brains have some demand for
>> it, even
>>     if it's intangible.
>>
>>
>>     --
>>     Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es>
>> https://ivan.sanchezortega.es
>>
>>
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