Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • CAREER FEATURE

Why a climate researcher pushed the limits of low-carbon travel — and his employer’s patience

A refusal to fly to Papua New Guinea for fieldwork took Gianluca Grimalda the long way across 22,000 kilometres and 12 countries.
  1. Christine Ro

    1. Christine Ro is a freelance journalist in London.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Find a new job
Dr Grimalda takes a selfie with a cargo ship in the background

On his return trip to Europe, Gianluca Grimalda travelled by cargo ship between two regions of Papua New Guinea, one of many modes of transport he has favoured to avoid taking flights. Credit: Gianluca Grimalda

Gianluca Grimalda spent seven months in Papua New Guinea this year, but experienced plenty of adventures before he even reached the islands. He took an extraordinarily circuitous route as part of a fieldwork trip to Bougainville, an autonomous region of the country. Grimalda, who studies the social impacts of climate change, visited 30 villages in Bougainville to study the effects of climate disasters and natural hazards on social cohesion in small-scale traditional societies.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 624, 215-216 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03496-3

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links