As in Copenhagen, this is a problem of collective action - we can all agree it's a good idea to travel less, but we are reluctant to incur the personal cost in terms of contacts, career advancement, not to mention missing out on the socializing and travel to interesting places.
The academic conference is so deeply institutionalized into the profession, it will be very tough to change. I've used teleconferencing, and you miss out on 90% of the conference experience. Think of all those interesting webinars you never attend, or if on a conference call, how many people are busy surfing the net and looking at facebook? We'll have to evolve more hybrid solutions, local conferences, some tele-solutions, etc David David L. Levy Professor and Chair Department of Management and Marketing University of Massachusetts, Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125, USA http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/ <http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/> Climate Inc. <http://climateinc.org/> - Business and Climate Change Blog
