Credibility. Two studies by Attari, Krantz, and Weber showed that the credibility of climate scientists and their ability to influence the public is directly related to their own actions. In other words, if climate scientists want to convince people of the seriousness of the climate crisis and motivate the public to act aggressively to stop global warming, climate scientists need to practice what they preach, walk the talk, etc.

I’m not a climate scientist, but I do advocate for aggressive, radical action to stop global warming. What, you may ask, am I doing in my personal life to model behaviors that reflect the seriousness of the climate crisis and convince others to do what I advocate? I’m doing the following, in the order of impact:

• Refuse to participate in or attend conferences, symposia, and other meetings, events, and exhibitions that require or encourage air travel (I last flew to the 2012 CELA Conference in Champaign, IL; I drove to CELA in San Antonio, TX, in March 2023 with my colleague, Kate Benisek)
• Travel by train to visit my family in Nebraska annually, and by train or car to visit family in Boston every other year. Avoid air travel.
• Eat a vegetarian diet (also don’t drink milk or eat yogurt, though I do eat cheese)
• Commute by e-bike to Main (8 miles one-way) and Ambler (17 miles one-way) campuses
• Drive a compact, hybrid car, if I need to drive
• Pay to participate in a local industrial composting service (my family and I live in an apartment)
• Want less, need less, use less. Refuse gifts for birthdays, holidays; only buy what I need, when I need it, if I actually need it
• Single-stream recycling
• Collect and recycle plastic film and walk to nearby grocery to recycle
• I do NOT purchase carbon offsets, which erode support for other, more effective measures, do not alter behaviors or actually prevent CO2 emissions, and may increase emissions overall, in the long term. Why should anyone pay a person of lesser means to diet for them?

I’m trying to use my influence and power to enact change on a larger level in the following:

• my nuclear and extended families
• the courses that I instruct and the students with whom I interact (regarding embodied carbon emissions in materials)
• landscape architecture degree-granting programs at Temple (regarding materials and content in courses)
• Department of Architecture and Environmental Design
• Tyler School of Art and Architecture (by way of the Tyler Climate Action Network)
• Temple University (Decarbonization Campaign)
• American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) (regarding advocacy for hybridized then virtual annual conferences)
• Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) (regarding advocacy for hybridized then virtual annual conferences)

Could I do more at each level? Could I do things differently? Am I encountering resistance? Yes!  I would also like to work at the following levels, but I fear that I am already stretching myself quite thin:

• in my apartment building (this is reasonable and the next level at which I intend to engage)
• in my borough and township
• county, state, and federal level (too many competing interests make progress difficult)

Current Research. While on sabbatical during the 2022-2023 academic year, I worked on three research projects, two of which yielded conference presentations and published manuscripts.

First, I worked with two other authors on a poster presentation at the 2022 Neuroscience Conference, which presented estimations of travel-related greenhouse gas emissions from the 2018 conference and potential emissions reductions from meeting in alternative modes. We produced a poster and 5-minute virtual presentation, which can be found here, https://youtu.be/b9NGQ4rWeFI. Additionally, we submitted a manuscript on this topic to the eNeruo, which was peer reviewed, accepted for publication, and published in September 2023. Please find here the article, which was selected by editors as noteworthy (Featured), https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0476-22.2023.

Second, I estimated travel-related emissions from six past Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and modeled potential emissions reductions from alternative meeting modes. In March 2023, I gave a verbal presentation at the CELA conference in San Antonio. I anticipate a decision regarding the manuscript in late July 2023. Please find a video recording of my presentation here, https://youtu.be/19wwto38UqY. The full manuscript I submitted for peer review in January 2023 was accepted in September 2023 for publication in Landscape Research Record, the proceedings of CELA conferences. Please find the published manuscript here, https://thecela.org/wp-content/uploads/LRR12-TRAVEL-RELATED-EMISSIONS-FROM-PAST-AND-FUTURE-CELA-ANNUAL-CONFERENCES.pdf

Third, I am co-authoring a content analysis of American Society of Landscape Architect (ASLA) conference education sessions between 2011-2023. We are using natural language processing techniques and latent Dirichlet allocation extract topics. Additionally, we are using VOSviewer to visualize relationships between education session presenters and institutions represented. We anticipate completing the manuscript and submitting to Landscape Journal in mid- to late 2024 for peer review and consideration of publication.

Past work. After undergoing peer review by three anonymous, independent referees, Landscape Journal published my policy brief entitled, “Alternatives to in-person American Society of Landscape Architects Conferences on Landscape Architecture”. The manuscript appears in volume 41, issue 1 (2022); a version may be found here: MS_LJ_Pol.Brief.EmissionsASLA2018 2019Meetings REV01 AAM

Two parts comprise the study. First, I estimate carbon dioxide emissions related to the 2018 and 2019 ASLA EXPOs, particularly regarding exhibitor’s travel, event venues, EXPO organization, material use and disassembly; and hotel accommodations. Thereafter, I examine various means of convening annually, within the context of ASLA’s stated commitments to emissions reductions targets associated with the IPCC’s recommendations and Paris Climate Agreement. I conclude with recommendations for convening annually based upon estimated emissions reductions relative to a few meeting methods (i.e., random participants virtual, most distant participants virtual, all virtual). I may share a preprint of the policy brief here when published.

A manuscript entitled “Travel-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions from American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) Annual Meetings” was published in Landscape Journal, after undergoing review by three anonymous referees and a co-editor. The manuscript appears in volume 38, issue 1-2 (2019, though released in June 2020). The Department of Architecture and Environmental Design supported this research by funding the Gold Open Access. Please find the article by visiting this web address: http://lj.uwpress.org/content/38/1-2/105.full.pdf+html or clicking here: Kuper.2020.Travel-Related CO2 Emissions from ASLA Annual Meetings.Land.J.38_1-2_105-127

In the study, we used two web-based carbon calculators, meeting programs, websites, handouts, and ASLA meeting attendance numbers to perform two travel-related carbon emission estimations: for 2,821 education session featured speakers that presented at annual ASLA meetings in 2011, and between 2013 and 2019; and for annual ASLA meeting attendees between 1960 and 2019. By applying findings from scientific literature to our emission estimations we additionally estimated the area of September Arctic sea-ice loss that may be attributed to annual meetings; labor productivity losses in purchasing power parity that may be associated with ASLA meeting emissions; and the quantity of trees that would be needed to remove the meeting-related quantity of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

As an extension of the aforementioned study, I have estimated travel-related carbon dioxide emissions associated with the 2018 and 2019 EXPOs that occurred at the ASLA’s Conferences on Landscape Architecture. Like the study published in Landscape Journal, my current study uses the web-based Carbon Footprint Calculator. Unlike the published study, I also estimated travel-related emissions using the ICAO’s web-based calculator and values from Jungbluth and Meili (2019), which include radiative forcing index factors that provide some indication of the increased global warming potential from aircraft emissions at high altitudes. I may extend this dataset further to estimate the emissions associated with EXPO representatives’ nightly hoteling, direct and indirect fresh water use in liters per day, required land use for hoteling in square meters, and food use in grams per day. I will complete the latter estimations in summer 2021 and submit the manuscript for review and consideration of publication sometime in late summer or fall 2021.

Presentations. In November 2020, I gave a presentation entitled  Green on the Ground but Gray in the Air about travel-related emissions from ASLA’s annual meetings to attendees at the Pennsylvania/Delaware Chapter of the ASLA. The video, while not perfect, demonstrates many possible advantages of pre-recorded conference presentations in comparison to conventional conference presentations that occurred prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that will likely resume when the pandemic subsides.

In addition, Steve Austin, Clinical Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at Washington State University, and I gave a joint presentation entitled Closing the Value-Action Gap: Examining Landscape Architecture in a Zero Carbon Future. Following is a brief summary:

This presentation examines the implications of eliminating fossil fuels from landscape architecture in the next 30 years, and compels attendees to use all available personal and professional resources to immediately change the culture of practice, construction, and academia, and work collectively to ensure professional credibility, relevance, and vitality in the future.

In April 2021, the Lectures and Exhibitions Committee within the Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s Department of Architecture and Environmental Design invited me to give a presentation entitled The Radical Reality of the Future. Generally, I refer to peer-reviewed literature and focus on flattening the curves of CO2 and Covid cases; the limitations of technological solutions in comparison to behavioral solutions; the disparate harm to people of color; the relationship between our personal actions and credibility and the need to model new behaviors and revise or create new norms; personal responsibility and sacrifice; insufficient and radical solutions to the climate crisis; and briefly distinguishing between realistic and unrealistic futures before concluding with an opportunity to keep and extend the behavioral changes Covid-19 has afforded.

Background. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5-degrees Celsius. According to the report, restricting global warming to 1.5-degrees C requires a 45-percent reduction in global carbon emissions by 2030 and the complete elimination of carbon emissions by 2050.

Weeks after the release of the IPCC’s special report, I attended the Annual Meeting and EXPO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in Philadelphia and realized that many registrants traveled by air to attend the meeting and, consequently, emitted many metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Moreover, I began to examine how the conclusions in the IPCC’s report could or would affect landscape architectural research and practice.

Preliminary Estimations
The following two preliminary estimations are based upon conferences that occurred prior to the IPCC’s special report. Each implies that carbon was emitted into the atmosphere as a result of collective actions (i.e., air travel) by landscape architects. Each estimation may contribute to the establishment of a carbon emission baseline related to annual conferences/symposia  of landscape architecture from which future efforts to reduce, and ultimately, eliminate carbon emissions may be gauged.

For an unpublished, non-refereed manuscript that estimates the carbon emissions of the 395 educational session featured speakers at the 2018 ASLA Meeting and EXPO from conference-related travel, please click here: Kuper.R_Carbon Count MS

The ASLA announced in early April 2019 that 2019 Conference registrants will have the option of purchasing carbon offsets for conference-related travel. For an unpublished, non-refereed manuscript that examines the potential effectiveness of carbon offsets within this context, please click here: Kuper.R_Forget Offsets-2019 ASLA Conference

On June 10 and 11, 2016, in Philadelphia, somewhere between 600 and 700 registrants attended the presentation of “declarations” by 69 speakers. See the advertisement above. For an estimation in tabular form of the travel-related carbon emitted by the speakers, please click here: T1n2_Carbon Count-2016 LAF Summit on LA and the Future. The methodology used to compute the carbon emission estimations is the same as that presented in “Carbon Count,” which is available above.

Petition to the ASLA Regarding Conference-Related Carbon Emissions
Steve Austin, Clinical Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, and I started a PETITION to the American Society of Landscape Architects Regarding the CO2 Footprint of Annual Conferences in late March 2019 that demands the ASLA to commit to conference-related carbon emission reductions outlined in the IPCC’s special report. When the Covid-19 pandemic began and continued into fall 2020, ASLA cancelled the 2020 in-person conference that was planned for Miami and instead held a virtual conference, reVISION that contained 25 presentations. I may continue circulating the petition if and when ASLA continues to plan and conduct in-person conferences.