Note:l my ambition to blog each day fizzled like a Portland (OR) rainstorm. We'll try to add some additional reports from the meeting in the coming days.
For me, the most memorable part of the meeting was being invited to do a press conference--something I've never done before. I was invited to give a regular science talk in a session on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to talk about some calculations I've done characterizing the carbon footprint of whaling (see this earlier post). AGU, one of the societies that was running the meeting, thought the news media would be interested in this topic.
The hardest part was deciding to do it. Since I hadn't presented my calculations to many other scientists, I was worried that there was something I was overlooking. Visions of cold fusion were dancing in my head. In the end, I decided to go for it. To prepare, I organized a mock press conference at GMRI, with my colleagues acting as journalists. This was extremely helpful. At the conference, I spoke for about 15 min:
and then took questions. In addition to the reporters in the room, there were a couple joining on the phone. I then spoke with several reporters one-on-one, including the BBC:
The BBC story was online by 11PM (PST) last night, and by this morning, it had been translated into Hungarian, Slovenian, and Italian (I didn't know I was fluent in Italian). Here are some links to a few of the stories, if you're interested in reading more. All in all, a really fun experience.
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