Carbon Footprint, or How to Spot Other People's Garbage

Interesting comments. But leaving aside the validity of the discussion cf carbon footprints themselves, a little less reactionary rigour on your part would have done you credit.
You list 12 conferences. Of these:
-two were within a short distance of her office.
-two were within the UK, accessible by simple mass transport (coach or train)
-six were foreign trips made well before the Climate Change issue had been openly publically raised (eg 1995/1997), or had reached the consciousness of most, and when debate even over its existance was continuing in many circles (2000, 2000, 2001, 2002).
This leaves only two others- 2005 and 2006, likely booked in some years in advance.
Of these, only one was before Fiona seems to have 'taken the issue aboard and published'.
This leaves one. Perhaps, indeed, she should have cancelled this. However, the publicity surrounding climate change has only pushed the agenda high onto peoples agendas in recent months in the UK. This may yet to have happened in much of the US.

Reasoned research and discussion is to be encouraged. To date, personal attack, whilst ignoring the real issues beneath, seem an unhelpful diversion.

HM

Hugh, you state that six of the trips were made "well before the Climate Change issue had been openly publically raised." As a matter of fact, Dr Godlee felt the issue deserved enough attention to write the following in the British Medical Journal back in 1996:

"Global warming can no longer be dismissed as a catastrophe theory dreamt up by scaremongers. In the past few months two reports from internationally renowned organisations have offered grave warnings of the threat that climate change poses, within current lifetimes, to humans and ecosystems; and last week, in the face of frantic lobbying from the fossil fuel industry, 134 nations, including the United States, agreed to work towards 'quantified legally binding' cuts in emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide." (BMJ 1996;313:184)

Do note that she considered global warming to be a settled enough issue to write about it in a medical journal. Eleven years ago she was under the impression that climatology journals have settled the matter and reminded us of "grave warnings of the threat that climate change poses, within current lifetimes, to humans and ecosystems". And yet she chose to take those flights.

And she chose to own two cars, one of which she only recently considered getting rid of:
"And I've resolved to sell the car. Well, one of them at least." - June , 2006
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7554/DC1

Counting her personal carbon footprint in the same post she calculates it as 10.5 tonnes per year. "And if you add in my travel by train and plane for work (22 tonnes), my tonnage is 32.5." And this is after more than a decade of "grave" concern. As one of her resolutions considering all this she decides: "I'm putting climate change on the agenda for the next International Committee of Medical Journal Editors meeting because we've got to get the Americans on board somehow."
The tonnage for an average American is 7.2

Sorry Mr Montgomery for not including the load of circumstantial evidence in the case, but the fact is that Dr Godlee is a hypocrite.

I'm afraid you give me too much credit. I first wrote about climate change in the BMJ not in 1996 but in 1991 (Health implications of climatic change. BMJ. 1991 Nov 16;303(6812):1254-6). And my business travel is rather more extensive than you have so far managed to document; indeed were it not so I might be charged with failing to do my job. But I'm grateful to you for taking the trouble to track my carbon footprint and for keeping me on my toes about this. If I can help with further information, please let me know. To your charge of hypocrisy I am tempted to hold my hand up and say that this is a fair cop. But on the basis of what I have written I don't think the charge stands. In our recent editorial, Ian Roberts and I said:
1. Climate change is important
2. Air travel contributes to it
3. Much air travel is unnecessary
4. We should try to reduce it and some are already doing so.
You don't argue with any of these substantive points. Of course I fully acknowledge the need for anyone writing about climate change to lead by personal example. Individual behaviour change is one of the four elements of the newly formed Health Climate Council's strategy (see What can we do about climate change? BMJ 2006;333:983-984). I have a long way to go to meaningfully reduce my own contribution, but I'm working on it and doing what I can to encourage others in the same direction. Inspired by your intervention I'll update my climate blog on bmj.com so anyone interested can judge how well or badly I'm doing. The BMJ Group is also taking seriously the need to lead on this, with increased investment in online conferencing and online learning (the highly successful BMJ Masterclasses you mention are currently UK based and do not entail significant air travel).
So now I have some questions for you. Who are you? Who funds you? How are you all as individuals doing on your own carbon footprints? I could find no answers to these questions on your site. And perhaps most importantly of all given the fact that you are a technology site, what practical advice can you give publishers and others in health care about how they can most effectively transform an entrenched medical culture built on face to face meetings and global interaction? I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
With all best wishes, Fiona Godlee

From what I have seen of this controversy, Dr. Godlee does need to do some travel and it is unfortunate that air travel does contribute something to global warming but it is by no means a primary offender, let's get those coal fired power plants shut down first shall we? It is not hypocritical to be trying to reduce carbon emissions while still existing within a larger social system that makes carbon emissions necessary for ordinary life and in this case necessary to spread the word. I think Medgadget has overstepped its bounds greatly and unfairly maligned Dr. Godlee when what Medgadget really needs to do is examine their own carbon footprint and remain professional in what they do -- and attacking Dr. Godlee in the way you have is not very professional.