I recently wrote on my own blog my treatment for the prioritization of global catastrophic risks (GCRs), in an essay called “Major Types of Global Risks”. I’m very confident these priorities are as correct as I’ll get, as their ones which the Future of Life Institute and other GCR/x-risk mitigation orgs have focused on, and Brian Tomasik independently confirmed he believes I got all the facts right.
Let me explain what this has to do with this post.
So why then don’t I recommend this cause to people?
I think there are more targeted and effective ways to reduce poverty—all of the things GiveWell and others typically suggest.
I think there are more targeted and effective ways to reduce the risk of disasters that derail civilization—all of the things that the groups working on global catastrophic risks typically highlight.
It seems crowded rather than neglected.
I see the biggest benefits of research on resource scarcity being two things:
Reducing poverty by making the resources ordinary people need cheaper.
Lowering the probability of a low-likelihood event in which resources suddenly become very scarce and law and order disintegrate. An example could be sudden climate change, or a destructive war. The more abundance and waste we have to start with, the more of a buffer we have in case we are unlucky and disaster strikes.
Between these two points you’ve made, I think you cover the same ground for risks from resource scarcity I covered in my own essay.
Such risks possibly include peak phosphorus, soil erosion, widespread crop failure, scarcity of drinkable water, pollinator decline, and other threats to global food security not related to climate change
Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail:
“Peak phosporus” is a concern similar to peak oil. Phosphorus is an element which is a major component of the most commonly used effective fertilizers, e.g., for growing food. This is a concern I heard about several years ago, and seems relatively neglected in circles related to environmentalism and the global community of those conscietiously concerned with resource management. Unfortunately, I know little about it. It seems, like peak oil, it’s been a source of uncalibrated alarmism, perhaps again by scientists who discount to much the power of human ingenuity, economics, and technological development to solve these sorts of problems. I don’t know (yet) of any information from markets on predictions of when phosphorus production/extraction will ebb or flow. After reading your post, I expect it’s something which won’t be too important, but I want to check that assumption by doing at least a shallow or medium-depth review of the topic. More information from Wikipedia:
Means of phosphorus production – other than mining – are unavailable because of its non-gaseous environmental cycle. The predominant source of phosphorus is phosphate rock and in the past guano. According to some researchers, Earth’s phosphorus reserves are expected to be completely depleted in 50–100 years and peak phosphorus to be reached in approximately 2030. Others suggest that supplies will last for several hundreds of years. The question is not settled and researchers in different fields regularly publish different estimates of the rock phosphate reserves.
Soil erosion is a problem similar to peak phosphorus. That is, the ground from which we grow the crops we eat will become infertile for indefinite periods of time, all across the world. Of course, you cover this above as well.
A lot of soil is being damaged, reducing farm productivity. But we keep breeding ever faster-growing strains of important crops; finding ways to deliver precisely the amount of water plants need at the right time; and many other improvements besides.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture. I also want to do a shallow review of soil erosion and ongoing solutions to it as a risk to figure out how much it should or shouldn’t be prioritized by effective altruism, and environmentalists and humanitarians in general. If soil erosion turned out to be a direly risky catastrophe, more so than we think now, I would rate it as a greater environmental problem than most probable outcomes of climate change.
Crop failure seems something not to majorly prioritize at this point. I’m thinking we need to assess its potential to pose an engineered biosecurity risk. Brian Tomasik recently gave a treatment on how gene drives might impact animals on a wide scale; none of us have explored what impact gene drives might have on plants. This is an oversight I hope to investigate. I don’t want to discuss engineered food security risks too much in public, though, as I believe that may pose a potential information hazard.
Water scarcity obviously relates to the classic concerns of effective altruism with poverty alleviation and the extreme suffering it often entails. However, I’m also concerned with its status as a potential GCR. In particular, I’m afraid water scarcity would be the primary step in a complex catastrophe, resulting into a major war. An example of how this might happen is tension between two nuclear states like Pakistan and India is exacerbated by water scarcity for their respective populations in the region. This is something the Future of Life Institute has on their radar. Water scarcity could be the powder keg which sparks a ‘pink flamingo’. Actually, much of what I fear in terms of resource depletion as a GCR stems from this type of problem. I intend to research this in more detail.
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself. Even if effective altruism were to focus more on these types of GCRs, it appears it may not need to specifically mitigate pollinator decline as others are researching solutions, while scientists are still trying to figure out possible causes. Considering there’s already a scientific focus on it, and it may take them several years to design solutions, it’s not something effective altruism ought focus on in the near future.
I’ve looked into most of these, and generally found them much less spectacular than the headlines suggested.
phosphorus production/extraction will ebb or flow. After reading your post, I expect it’s something which won’t be too important, but I want to check that assumption by doing at least a shallow or medium-depth review of the topic.
“Reserves” refer to the amount assumed recoverable at current market prices and “resources” mean total estimated amounts in the Earth’s crust.[9] Phosphorus comprises 0.1% by mass of the average rock[12] (while, for perspective, its typical concentration in vegetation is 0.03% to 0.2%),[13] and consequently there are quadrillions of tons of phosphorus in Earth’s 3 * 1019 ton crust,[14] albeit at predominantly lower concentration than the deposits counted as reserves from being inventoried and cheaper to extract.
The world phosphate industry has revenue of $45 billion. The agricultural sector accounts for ~$5 trillion of world GDP, ~6% of the total.
So if phosphate really became a dire limiting factor phosphate prices could go up by more than 100x. That provides plenty of room to move to rocks with lower concentrations of phosphorus than current targets. There are also tremendous opportunities for recycling, reduction (higher food prices reallocating production from animal agriculture to human consumption), and so forth.
In a world with cheap energy from solar power and fully automated manufacturing phosphorus supplies would be trivial.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
is tension between two nuclear states like Pakistan and India is exacerbated by water scarcity for their respective populations in the region
Spending on water is small as a portion of GDP, and there are much bigger issues at play, e.g. Kashmir. There is a lot of exaggeration about ‘water wars’ on this issue, although it is nonzero.
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself
Honeybee catastrophe is hugely exaggerated and not a serious threat.
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).
To be clear, bees are dying at high rates (and have been for some time) and this is imposing costs on agriculture, and that could get worse, and addressing that is likely a fine use of resources for agricultural R&D and protection.
But that is very different from posing a major risk of human extinction or civilization collapse via breakdown of the ability of agriculture to produce food (particularly the biggest, wind-pollinated, staple crops). That is the exaggerated threat which I say does not check out.
Well, thanks. I guess this saves me a lot of time in research I thought I might need to do.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
Do you know another, better starting point I can use to learn about food security, then?
I recently wrote on my own blog my treatment for the prioritization of global catastrophic risks (GCRs), in an essay called “Major Types of Global Risks”. I’m very confident these priorities are as correct as I’ll get, as their ones which the Future of Life Institute and other GCR/x-risk mitigation orgs have focused on, and Brian Tomasik independently confirmed he believes I got all the facts right.
Let me explain what this has to do with this post.
Between these two points you’ve made, I think you cover the same ground for risks from resource scarcity I covered in my own essay.
Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail:
“Peak phosporus” is a concern similar to peak oil. Phosphorus is an element which is a major component of the most commonly used effective fertilizers, e.g., for growing food. This is a concern I heard about several years ago, and seems relatively neglected in circles related to environmentalism and the global community of those conscietiously concerned with resource management. Unfortunately, I know little about it. It seems, like peak oil, it’s been a source of uncalibrated alarmism, perhaps again by scientists who discount to much the power of human ingenuity, economics, and technological development to solve these sorts of problems. I don’t know (yet) of any information from markets on predictions of when phosphorus production/extraction will ebb or flow. After reading your post, I expect it’s something which won’t be too important, but I want to check that assumption by doing at least a shallow or medium-depth review of the topic. More information from Wikipedia:
Soil erosion is a problem similar to peak phosphorus. That is, the ground from which we grow the crops we eat will become infertile for indefinite periods of time, all across the world. Of course, you cover this above as well.
Another (set of) improvement(s) or technology(ies) which I believe may hold more potential than the ones you’ve mentioned are vertical greenhouses combined with hydroponic or aeroponic agriculture. I also want to do a shallow review of soil erosion and ongoing solutions to it as a risk to figure out how much it should or shouldn’t be prioritized by effective altruism, and environmentalists and humanitarians in general. If soil erosion turned out to be a direly risky catastrophe, more so than we think now, I would rate it as a greater environmental problem than most probable outcomes of climate change.
Crop failure seems something not to majorly prioritize at this point. I’m thinking we need to assess its potential to pose an engineered biosecurity risk. Brian Tomasik recently gave a treatment on how gene drives might impact animals on a wide scale; none of us have explored what impact gene drives might have on plants. This is an oversight I hope to investigate. I don’t want to discuss engineered food security risks too much in public, though, as I believe that may pose a potential information hazard.
Water scarcity obviously relates to the classic concerns of effective altruism with poverty alleviation and the extreme suffering it often entails. However, I’m also concerned with its status as a potential GCR. In particular, I’m afraid water scarcity would be the primary step in a complex catastrophe, resulting into a major war. An example of how this might happen is tension between two nuclear states like Pakistan and India is exacerbated by water scarcity for their respective populations in the region. This is something the Future of Life Institute has on their radar. Water scarcity could be the powder keg which sparks a ‘pink flamingo’. Actually, much of what I fear in terms of resource depletion as a GCR stems from this type of problem. I intend to research this in more detail.
Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself. Even if effective altruism were to focus more on these types of GCRs, it appears it may not need to specifically mitigate pollinator decline as others are researching solutions, while scientists are still trying to figure out possible causes. Considering there’s already a scientific focus on it, and it may take them several years to design solutions, it’s not something effective altruism ought focus on in the near future.
I’ve looked into most of these, and generally found them much less spectacular than the headlines suggested.
Also from wikipedia:
Phosphate rock may have concentrations as ~20%.
The world phosphate industry has revenue of $45 billion. The agricultural sector accounts for ~$5 trillion of world GDP, ~6% of the total.
So if phosphate really became a dire limiting factor phosphate prices could go up by more than 100x. That provides plenty of room to move to rocks with lower concentrations of phosphorus than current targets. There are also tremendous opportunities for recycling, reduction (higher food prices reallocating production from animal agriculture to human consumption), and so forth.
In a world with cheap energy from solar power and fully automated manufacturing phosphorus supplies would be trivial.
The thermodynamics make this nonsensical for staple crops.
Spending on water is small as a portion of GDP, and there are much bigger issues at play, e.g. Kashmir. There is a lot of exaggeration about ‘water wars’ on this issue, although it is nonzero.
Honeybee catastrophe is hugely exaggerated and not a serious threat.
Hi Carl,
Have you or Open Phil shared the investigations somewhere?
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).
To be clear, bees are dying at high rates (and have been for some time) and this is imposing costs on agriculture, and that could get worse, and addressing that is likely a fine use of resources for agricultural R&D and protection.
But that is very different from posing a major risk of human extinction or civilization collapse via breakdown of the ability of agriculture to produce food (particularly the biggest, wind-pollinated, staple crops). That is the exaggerated threat which I say does not check out.
.
Well, thanks. I guess this saves me a lot of time in research I thought I might need to do.
Do you know another, better starting point I can use to learn about food security, then?