I'm guessing you've never been a participant in these conferences – that's a pretty ignorant remark about nothing getting done! This is the way scientists from all different fields associated with  resource economics  & environmental science are  able to meet and learn from each other. Alaska concerns like agriculture, timber, fisheries, coastal changes affecting communities, meteorological, tidal, water current, air and sea changes in different regions of the state and in the Northwest, changes in tundra elevations and in the water retention from the  evaporation or accumulation of water I'm the forms of lake and stream changes that impact the quantity and kind of fishes and water connected mammals, – the scope and detail of the things that are under consideration as climate change is impacting alaska & the  north so rapidly are-extensive, deeply researched & important to how we as Alaskans adjust to the conditions that are changing faster  here than. They aren't office parties!