The purpose of my question was to examine the carbon impact on our global environment by holding this meeting in Berlin, which (by my estimation) is quite a ways off from the point of "least cumulative distance" that could have been achieved for at least the mandatory attendees. All of that additional jet fuel and hotel consumption (laundered sheets, poor recycling standards, etc.) is something to consider if the polar ice melts and floods San Francisco one day, thanks to CO2-accelerated warming. A shorter-haul Boeing 737 flight burns about 200 pounds of fuel per passenger. I can only imagine that a trans-continental flight, plus a trans-Atlantic leg to Berlin, is likely burning at least 400 pounds of fuel per passenger. Return trip makes that 800 pounds of fuel. I hope each of the San Francisco-based attendees feel comfortable that their burning of 800 pounds of jet fuel (about 114 gallons) in order to attend the conference in Berlin (a conference that, as far as I can tell, had zero "dial-in" conferencing options offered) was justified?
I get the impression that there is a corporate culture afoot at the Wikimedia Foundation that stifles any attempts to optimize meetings and conferences in ways that might be more economical and environmentally friendly, with innovations such as Skype and video-teleconferencing. My sense is that "interesting" and "exotic" places are chosen instead... San Francisco, the Netherlands, Berlin, Taipei, Alexandria (Egypt, not Virginia), Buenos Aires, etc. I suspect it's part of the corporate culture to get the "backwater" taste of St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) out of everyone's mouth, to select all of these far-flung, non-English-speaking locales for a Board that consists mostly of North Americans who speak English, and who are funded mostly by U.S. dollars. I know that regarding a recent trade conference that was only 124 miles from our headquarters, my Fortune 100 employer sent down an edict that only one of the 3 people from our team of 14 personnel who were interested in going, could actually attend. Certainly, this was more of an economic decision than a "green" decision, but frankly, the two are often hand-in-hand outcomes. Is the Wikimedia Foundation very "green" in its governance practices? I know that Wikia, Inc. touts its dedication to "Green", but what about the WMF? Here's a 100-gallon aquarium: *http://tinyurl.com/100-gallon-tank* Imagine it full of jet fuel, then setting a match to it, sucking oxygen out of the air, and replacing it with carbon-laden molecules. That's what each of the North American board members did to enable travel to Berlin to hold their meeting which seems to have exhausted most of the attendees. -- Gregory Kohs _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
