[At-Large] ICANN blog : ICANN Carbon footprint

[Evan Leibovitch]

Of course the irony ought not lost on an organization whose primary role
regards the functioning of *the Internet*.

ICANN meetings have always had this air of Americans and Europeans flying
around the world so that they can pretend that they're globally aware. It's
my own pet belief that this has been quite deliberate, to make ICANN's
power centres inaccessible to all except the subsidized and those whose
business interests justified the expense. Online meetings could have been a
great equalizer long ago, but the ICANN-meeting-as-exotic-getaway culture
(often attributed exclusively to At-Large) is pervasive throughout.

The expenses that could be saved (let alone just the carbon one) from
making almost all meetings virtual would be substantial to both ICANN and
participants. But those who benefit from physical accessibility have
nothing to gain and much to lose by being treated as equals online. So it
won't happen without external disruption.

- Evan


On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 14:11, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

>
> 28 *million* air miles works out to nearly 77,000 air miles *per day*!
>
> And 1840 nights in hotel rooms cumulates to over five years, just for
> the board of directors alone (not counting staff or "funded travelers").
>
> When comparing this 1% lifestyle of resource consumption against the
> actual work product created the following phrase comes to mind:
>
>    "parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus" ("The mountain labored and
> brought forth a mouse.")
>
>                 --karl--
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