Re: [Manycouches] Daniel presentation @ 113

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

Eliot, *:

I think it would be prudent to stick to planning for manycouches for the goals
of creating better work result for the IETF and a better IETF experience for
its participants. And not go beyond.

Once we go into broader goals such as "save the planet", we can not escape comparing
any ideas we have with other ideas to see how relevant our ideas are in absolute
or even relative terms to make decisions about them.

For example: Should i save energy by flying less. Sure ? maybe ? But how about
looking at overpopulation as the root cause of the presuamble appropriate per-head
exhaustion levels and then distinguishing between people who do contribute to
 overpopulation and those who don't, and give the latter carbon credit.

I'd hope we would want to any such discussions at best only over a beer (if at all), but
not in scope of any actual work. And as soon as we expand our scope beyond what i proposed,
but into the realms that you propose, i think it would brecome very hard to not run
into these type of comparison issues to vet any ideas we come up with.

And of course even the much simpler considerations such as "most carbon offset
mechanisms suck" are way beyond our realm.

A lot of those broader issues will already be forced into our limited scope by
participants constraints through economic means / company regulations and the like,
so we will inherit them, but do not really need to try to have educated opinions
about them ourselves (IMHO).

Cheers
    Toerless

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 04:32:30PM +0200, Eliot Lear wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Some time ago, I wrote the IETF about how I was embarrassed by my kid about
> how I was wrecking the future for the next generation by doing so much
> flying to meetings.  This turned into a draft called
> draft-lear-we-gotta-stop-meeting-like-this.  That draft just asked for us,
> primarily the LLC to begin to study the problem.  Jay has worked on that and
> looked at carbon offsets, amongst other things, and also sought to quantify
> the impact.
> 
> That's all goodness.
> 
> I support reduction of in-person meetings, and for reasons I will outline
> below.  I won't propose a specific course of action in this message, but I
> think my preference is pretty clear.
> 
> I listened to the recording of the shmoo meeting regarding Daniel's
> analysis, and I took from it several points. The points I took away were
> these:
> 
>  * By some models on average, individuals that attend three meetings
>    per year create as much emissions as an average German in one year.
>  * There was a question of whether the recommendation should be from 3
>    meetings per year to 3 meetings every two years or 1 meeting per year.
> 
> I want to to express the same skepticism that Ted Lemon expressed about
> carbon offsets.  Carbon offsets are market-based approaches that attempt to
> hold constant or reduce overall carbon output. These are very useful when
> there is no alternative for the emitter.  A good example would be a steel
> producer.  Our society needs steel.
> 
> When there are alternatives, the analysis is quite a bit more complex.  By
> the people voluntarily buying offsets, it makes a commodity of them, and
> creates a price, raising that price as their demand increases.  Those who
> have a choice are thus competing with those who don't have a choice, raising
> the latter's cost of goods and services, and discouraging those producers
> from participating voluntarily – and/or causing those who previously didn't
> participate in the market to do so, with the idea of increasing available
> inventory.  This invites a certain amount of gaming to take place,
> particularly if you as a producer know you are already going to reduce your
> emissions, perhaps due to slacking demand.  There are also potential moral
> hazards associated with establishing baselines; and additional challenges
> when viewing those baselines over time, such as whether they should reduce
> annually, thus reducing their availability and further increasing their
> price.
> 
> I am *not* saying that carbon offsets should never be considered, but I
> don't think they should be considered a simple "Go To".  This ties to the
> point several people aligned to, that somehow we oughtn't do our part
> because we are a drop in a bucket.  This we may be, but the argument has led
> entire countries, such as the United States to not do their part, because
> they point to China in particular, and claim a competitive disadvantage.  We
> have no such excuse, really, even if we accept it as an excuse, which we
> shouldn't.
> 
> As to Martin's point, while I might agree that WebRTC has a beneficial
> impact on the environment, when used as an alternative to meet in person,
> what we do not know is whether WebRTC would have even been delayed by
> holding only one in-person meeting per year.
> 
> This leaves open the question of whether reducing to one meeting per year or
> three meetings every two years would make a difference. *Of course* it
> would.  You may debate the model that Daniel used, but certainly there is a
> cost, and it is not a pittance.  The question is whether we can function as
> well as a community if we maintain a lower tempo of in-person meetings.  I
> would argue that we have the opportunity to work *better*. IETF meeting time
> always comes at a premium, and working groups receive at most 3 hours time. 
> While that time may be necessary, it is rarely sufficient.  Interims for any
> active group are a requirement.  Virtual interims, in most cases.
> 
> I am not saying that hallway wg meetings are not important. There is value
> there, but I don't know how to quantify it.
> 
> In fact all of this is, of course, my opinion; and not backed with a whole
> lot of data.  Daniel has provided some.  As a practical matter, I don't
> think we have a choice, *but* to reduce our plans for the number of
> in-person meetings.  Companies are not going to put up with the previous
> level of travel, and many individuals do not feel comfortable traveling. 
> Maybe that will change, but as we have seen, hybrid meetings themselves have
> their challenges.
> 
> There are other benefits to virtual plenary meetings that are not related to
> the environment, but we can debate those in other messages.
> 
> Eliot
> 






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