Discussions at work

A couple of my colleagues (Sofie, Miguel, Johana) and I had the idea of starting some discussion rounds at work. After some contemplation, we figured that we wanted to have it only internally before allowing people from outside our group in. So, we were to have a trial. All under the name Inde-Conversation, a pun blending our abbreviated lab name IndEcol with something referring to such discussion rounds.

And what better theme could we have had for our first session than COP26 that is still running until end of this week. We selected a range of topics that we thought could be worthwhile to discuss with our colleagues: Inequality and climate negotiations, direct and indirect implications of recent COP26 pledges and agreements, Article 6, and a few more. We knew that we wouldn't be able to talk about all this. I mean, our political leaders are discussing these matters for more than two weeks, so how could we... But we wanted to use these topcis as some sort of red thread throughout our debate.

Overall, our first Inde-Conversation went surprisingly well. About 20 people showed up, mainly other PhD students with great interest in climate topics, and we had lively discussions where each one of us could contribute with his/her view on these matters, shaped by their own experiences. Another piece of evidencs for how nice it is to have the chance of working in such a multicultural team 🙃

Since this was such a great start of our initiative, I do hope that there will be more of these events. We already have some ideas floating around. Maybe the next Inde-Conversation is on plastics, or on bioenergy, or on degrowth. We'll see and I'm looking forwards to it!