Status: This was a post i’d drafted 4 years ago on climate change in EA. Not sure I stand by all of it, but I thought it might be worth sharing.
let’s make room for climate change
What this post is NOT saying:
* depriortise other cause areas * redirect significant resources fromt other cause areas * the average EA should go into climate change or become a climate scientist/​advocate * the average EA has comparative advantage in climate change
What this post IS saying
* having an EA org or projects related to climate change will be beneficial to EA * certain climate solutions will be more tractable * climate change as a cause area is much less uncertain than other cause areas, and interventions are also less uncertain * get funding for this through funds outside of or adjacent to EA. funds which, counterfactually, would not have gone elsewhere * treat climate change seriously as a GCR/​x-risk multiplier * show that EA has done its homework on climate change (whatever the results of that homework may be) * attract people who are experts in the field to work on these issues (not redirect EA talent towards climate change)
Summary
This post is calling for the EA movement to become more climate change friendly. That is, to create space for potentially new orgs or EA-aligned projects working on climate change. This does not mean redirecting major resoures away, but rathre facilitating the inclusion of climate change in order to redirect non-EA resoures into EA. In the best case scenario, this helps broader norm change in the nonprofit landscape towards funding more evidence-backed and rigorous nonprofits. Potentially, this could also get more funding into different cause areas as donors are exposed to EA ideas (low but not insignificant chance).
While the movement as a whole should focus on the best solution on the margin, there will likely never be enough jobs for everyone, so focusing on other cause areas will help multiply counterfactual impact. Instead of leaving the movement or working outside of it, individuals are still thinking in EA terms and it is possible that people will understand that.
The main reasons for this are because:
· The current likelihood of climate change is
· Climate Change is an x-risk multiplier. It increases the chances of almost all known x-risks. This needs to be modeled by someone better at modeling, but some plausible scenarios.
* Increased chance of civil wars * Increased chance of nuclear wars * Increased chance of biological disasters
· Climate change itself may not cause human extinction, but it could non-negligibly set humanity back by hundreds, if not thousands of years
* destablizing currrent institutions and states * in the event of a large part of the human popuulation being killed, we would lose cultural knowledge and the benefits of a fully globalized economy * it all depends on your time scale. if your time scale is millions of years * also depends on whether you care more about avoiding negative futures or more about 0 humans. difference betweeen centuries of low-quality vs 0 humans forever. low quality definitely seems worse, even if humanity eventually recovers, depending on the intensity of the bad lives post-apocalypse
· Climate Change is not funding constrained. A climate change EA org would be easily able to find funding elsewhere, thus not diverting EA funds and changing the current EA climate. It’s possible that just due to the sheer size of the funding landscape good climate change organizations may be orders of magnitude more effective than other causes. Redirecting those resource will be relatively easy.
· Climate Change is not talent constrained. Current EAs who don’t have experience in climate change will not need to switch career paths. Those who do can make us of their comparrative advantage. I predict if we signal an acceptance of climate change we will attract leading experts in the field due to EA’s track record and the lack of an effectiveness focused climate change org
· Many climate change efforts are exceptionally ineffective, because saying its not neglected doesnt mean its not neglected in the right places
· EA does not have a thorough understanding of climate change, we have based our understandings off of a handful of posts written by people with varying levels of familiarity with the cause. Ben’s post
· However there is a wealth of information and expertise which means that this is one of the few x-risk multipliers we actually have a good sense about
· We are more certain about the potential solutions for climate change than other cause areas, which means that direct work will be focused, quick and efficient.
· Climate change is analogous to EA because it’s
* scientific and evidence based * considers generations beyond our own
· Climate Change is an easy cause to do experiments in to practice leading projects, skill-building and so on because it is well-known and widespread. Even if it is less effective than other interventions, it might be easier to complete and execute such issues
· Climate change has synergies with other EA cause areas like animal advocacy. Both can strengthen the case for the other. Farmed animals are a significant soure of GHG emissions, and this number is projected to rise in developing nations
Status: This was a post i’d drafted 4 years ago on climate change in EA. Not sure I stand by all of it, but I thought it might be worth sharing.
let’s make room for climate change
What this post is NOT saying:
* depriortise other cause areas
* redirect significant resources fromt other cause areas
* the average EA should go into climate change or become a climate scientist/​advocate
* the average EA has comparative advantage in climate change
What this post IS saying
* having an EA org or projects related to climate change will be beneficial to EA
* certain climate solutions will be more tractable
* climate change as a cause area is much less uncertain than other cause areas, and interventions are also less uncertain
* get funding for this through funds outside of or adjacent to EA. funds which, counterfactually, would not have gone elsewhere
* treat climate change seriously as a GCR/​x-risk multiplier
* show that EA has done its homework on climate change (whatever the results of that homework may be)
* attract people who are experts in the field to work on these issues (not redirect EA talent towards climate change)
Summary
This post is calling for the EA movement to become more climate change friendly. That is, to create space for potentially new orgs or EA-aligned projects working on climate change. This does not mean redirecting major resoures away, but rathre facilitating the inclusion of climate change in order to redirect non-EA resoures into EA. In the best case scenario, this helps broader norm change in the nonprofit landscape towards funding more evidence-backed and rigorous nonprofits. Potentially, this could also get more funding into different cause areas as donors are exposed to EA ideas (low but not insignificant chance).
While the movement as a whole should focus on the best solution on the margin, there will likely never be enough jobs for everyone, so focusing on other cause areas will help multiply counterfactual impact. Instead of leaving the movement or working outside of it, individuals are still thinking in EA terms and it is possible that people will understand that.
The main reasons for this are because:
· The current likelihood of climate change is
· Climate Change is an x-risk multiplier. It increases the chances of almost all known x-risks. This needs to be modeled by someone better at modeling, but some plausible scenarios.
* Increased chance of civil wars
* Increased chance of nuclear wars
* Increased chance of biological disasters
· Climate change itself may not cause human extinction, but it could non-negligibly set humanity back by hundreds, if not thousands of years
* destablizing currrent institutions and states
* in the event of a large part of the human popuulation being killed, we would lose cultural knowledge and the benefits of a fully globalized economy
* it all depends on your time scale. if your time scale is millions of years
* also depends on whether you care more about avoiding negative futures or more about 0 humans. difference betweeen centuries of low-quality vs 0 humans forever. low quality definitely seems worse, even if humanity eventually recovers, depending on the intensity of the bad lives post-apocalypse
· Climate Change is not funding constrained. A climate change EA org would be easily able to find funding elsewhere, thus not diverting EA funds and changing the current EA climate. It’s possible that just due to the sheer size of the funding landscape good climate change organizations may be orders of magnitude more effective than other causes. Redirecting those resource will be relatively easy.
· Climate Change is not talent constrained. Current EAs who don’t have experience in climate change will not need to switch career paths. Those who do can make us of their comparrative advantage. I predict if we signal an acceptance of climate change we will attract leading experts in the field due to EA’s track record and the lack of an effectiveness focused climate change org
· Many climate change efforts are exceptionally ineffective, because saying its not neglected doesnt mean its not neglected in the right places
· EA does not have a thorough understanding of climate change, we have based our understandings off of a handful of posts written by people with varying levels of familiarity with the cause. Ben’s post
· However there is a wealth of information and expertise which means that this is one of the few x-risk multipliers we actually have a good sense about
· We are more certain about the potential solutions for climate change than other cause areas, which means that direct work will be focused, quick and efficient.
· Climate change is analogous to EA because it’s
* scientific and evidence based
* considers generations beyond our own
· Climate Change is an easy cause to do experiments in to practice leading projects, skill-building and so on because it is well-known and widespread. Even if it is less effective than other interventions, it might be easier to complete and execute such issues
· Climate change has synergies with other EA cause areas like animal advocacy. Both can strengthen the case for the other. Farmed animals are a significant soure of GHG emissions, and this number is projected to rise in developing nations