The Travelling Scientist's Itinerary

Flying is great for academia. It is of importance for individual academics: to conduct research, to establish networks, and to pursue a career. You are not just a scientist – you are a travelling scientist. Flying is of even greater importance for Earth’s atmosphere: for life forms, for weather patterns, for global warming. You are not just a scholar – you are a carbon-intensive scholar. Flying is of greatest importance for telling this story about how academics took part in the beginning of a new epoch in Earth’s history. The plane you are boarding lifts off from the Holocene only to land somewhere else in the Anthropocene. The word Itinerary [I-tin-uh-ru-ri] stems from the Late Latin itinerarium, “account of a journey”. In the nineteenth century, it referred also to “sketches for a planned route”. Fellow traveller, the purpose of this itinerary is to provide you as scientist, scholar, and academic with some sketches for thinking, feeling, and conversing about the future routes of travelling. Our point of departure is to begin asking an increasingly pressing question, namely: what does it mean to be a travelling scientist?QC 20190527