My notes on what I liked about the post, from the announcement:
It’s not often that I hear about a potential EA cause area that I’d literally never thought about before, but kbog’s post on coal seam fires gave me — and, I expect, many other readers — that rare experience.
Some especially good features of the post:
Provides strong evidence for the claim that coal seam fires are neglected: they’ve never been mentioned by the EA research organizations that do the most work on climate change, and they receive relatively little funding from outside of EA.
Includes enough analysis to show that the intervention is plausibly more efficient than other means of emissions reduction, without trying to argue that it is, say, the “best” climate-related intervention.
Ends with a causal story for why the cause might be neglected. If you encounter an important idea that no one else seems to have picked up on, it’s good to go a step further and think: “Wait — how did this happen? Why hasn’t someone picked up the $20 bill already?”
Philanthropy is far from an efficient market, of course, but it’s still worth thinking about why a promising intervention in a hugely popular cause area might be overlooked.
This post was awarded an EA Forum Prize; see the prize announcement for more details.
My notes on what I liked about the post, from the announcement: