Pandemic aside, we are aware that any event that draws people together comes with an environmental cost. Unarguably, travelling hundreds or even thousands of miles to attend an event comes with a carbon cost.
Of course, attending virtually comes with its own carbon costs. Here at art.earth all of our web services are provided by a company whose services run on 100% renewable energy. But for this event we are relying on numerous other providers to make it all happen technically not the least of which is Zoom. Zoom has not yet declared its policy with regard to using renewable energy for their data centres. Read this article on ZDNet for more information on the carbon cost of online events.
If you are coming from afar and plan to fly there are numerous calculators out there who can give you a sense of the carbon cost of your flight. Here is one example.Please bear in mind that air travel may well bring you to London and we are several hundred miles away from London so there will be additional travel too. There is a very good and efficient (if not particularly cheap!) direct rail service between Heathrow Airport and Totnes (just fifteen minutes away from Dartington). You can find information here. There are also bus links from Heathrow and London which is considerably cheaper than the train. The main carrier is National Express although Google may yield other options. Be aware of times! There is one National Express service that will dump you in Totnes at 04.00. Totnes is a small market town and everything is very much asleep at 4am. So avoid that service if you can.
If you’re travelling from Europe (dear EU, we miss you!) there’s a good comparison here about using the train instead of flying.
If you are coming from within the UK please consider travelling by train rather than driving. There’s a handy calculator here.
Ultimately this is of course a personal choice. There are things we would ask you to consider before deciding whether to attend Sentient Performativities in person and there are good arguments to be made about travelling a long distance to an event such as this one. And because of the nature of the work we do and the people who become involved in our events, there is an environmental benefit to attending and gaining new knowledge about our relationship with the planet. And sometimes, we know that attending an event in person can be a richer one that attending online. That said, this will be a genuinely hybrid event and we are putting great effort into making the online experience as close as we can to attending in person.