Thanks for your comment! I agree with Alex on his points and—apparently, a lot with you as well :) -- but adding some clarifications on questions/assumptions in your comment re FP research on this: (1) whether or not FP would research TSM or other similar interventions (absolutely!), (2) additional reasons why CATF is a robust rec and TSM is not (3) where credence in CATF comes from.
1. Would FP or similar orgs exclude TSM because of low measurability? I don’t really know where this idea originated, but the answer is clearly that we would not exclude an org like TSM because of low measurability. We would absolutely examine TSM or other similar orgs if we had reasons to believe to find something high impact in this space.
Yes, TSM is very uncertain and the path is a bit more indirect than with CATF or similar, but this is a gradual difference, not a qualitative one—there are clear quantitative ways in which one could think about TSM; indeed reading the GG work on TSM and the discussion here has already given some indications on how this would look like.
As I wrote in another reply, we constantly evaluate and recommend uncertain hit-based opportunities.
The reason for not investigating TSM more deeply at FP right now is that from GG’s analysis and this forum discussion it is pretty clear that this is not a particularly high-impact option -- (a) it’s clearly not neglected, (b) there is a lot of downside risk, and (c) there isn’t a strong marginal case—nothing that would leave us to expect that giving more money to TSM would lead to much stronger TSM, let alone a much better world.
(I) Given that it takes 120+ hours to vet a funding opportunity, (II) the goodness of existing climate recs with remaining funding gaps and (III) the vast impact differentials between excellent and average opportunities (easily 100x), at FP we believe that this time is better spent at finding things that have a plausible chance of being really high impact.
I think the most plausible case for this to be a grassroots movement would be outside the US, because a lot of the downside risk for TSM comes from features specific to its partisan nature and the structure of the American political system. If in the US, my best guess would be Republican pro-climate grassroots.
2. There are a least 4 additional reasons beyond those you outline why we should expect CATF to be very robust and TSM not to be. I discuss those in the second part of this comment:
The TL,DR of it is as follows:
1. There is a lot of expert support for the CATF recommendation and there is a lot more uncertainty regarding TSM.
2. CATF looks very good on the theory of change/frame most relevant to effective climate action—maximizing global decarbonization benefit—and the argument for TSM on that frame is not made.
3. Charity evaluation methodology is our friend and allows us to draw useful inferences even in highly uncertain situations.
4. The length and depth of engagement that led to the CATF and similar recommendations should itself be a reason for confidence, more so than the GG comment suggests.
3. Our current credence in CATF as a top-recommendation does not build primarily on the 2018 report which “discovered” CATF but in multiple re-evaluations of CATF as well as additional evaluations by other orgs. I summarize this here (emphasis new):
CATF looks very good on a theory of change focused on maximized global decarbonization impact when taking into account some of the most important stylized facts about the climate challenge (widely recognized as median views in the respective expert communities):
1. Global energy demand will grow and restricting energy demand growth is very problematic from a humanitarian perspective.
2. Effective global decarbonization requires a much larger set of technologies than those currently available. Most of those technologies are not on track and many necessary technologies are in early stages.
You can then combine this with two CATF-specific features:
5. CATF is a strong organization that translates money into effective advocacy. This is not controversial within the EA community, something GG agrees on. It was first established in the FP 2018 report and it appears that at least 4 EA orgs had multiple calls with CATF, often dozens, that reaffirmed this conclusion (FP, Legacies Now, SoGive, Giving Green).
6. CATF has very productive funding margins, projects that are currently unfunded and that make a lot of sense from the above stylized facts and the theory of change.
This is all you need to come to CATF as a likely local optimum in effective climate philanthropy.
None of this is controversial and – indeed – each of the claims above about the world in general (1-4) follow directly from median expert views on those respective topics and the CATF-specific claims (5-6) are even entirely uncontroversial across the EA community.
In contrast, motivating TSM as a top-choice requires a lot of controversial claims, such as (a) that we are sure that the impact of marginal TSM donations is not negative in expectation and (b) that additional effort can lead to significant change beyond what is already baked in despite the approach of Sunrise being partisan and thereby, quite plausibly, limited in its ultimate potential given the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with Alex on his points and—apparently, a lot with you as well :) -- but adding some clarifications on questions/assumptions in your comment re FP research on this: (1) whether or not FP would research TSM or other similar interventions (absolutely!), (2) additional reasons why CATF is a robust rec and TSM is not (3) where credence in CATF comes from.
1. Would FP or similar orgs exclude TSM because of low measurability?
I don’t really know where this idea originated, but the answer is clearly that we would not exclude an org like TSM because of low measurability. We would absolutely examine TSM or other similar orgs if we had reasons to believe to find something high impact in this space.
Yes, TSM is very uncertain and the path is a bit more indirect than with CATF or similar, but this is a gradual difference, not a qualitative one—there are clear quantitative ways in which one could think about TSM; indeed reading the GG work on TSM and the discussion here has already given some indications on how this would look like.
As I wrote in another reply, we constantly evaluate and recommend uncertain hit-based opportunities.
The reason for not investigating TSM more deeply at FP right now is that from GG’s analysis and this forum discussion it is pretty clear that this is not a particularly high-impact option -- (a) it’s clearly not neglected, (b) there is a lot of downside risk, and (c) there isn’t a strong marginal case—nothing that would leave us to expect that giving more money to TSM would lead to much stronger TSM, let alone a much better world.
(I) Given that it takes 120+ hours to vet a funding opportunity, (II) the goodness of existing climate recs with remaining funding gaps and (III) the vast impact differentials between excellent and average opportunities (easily 100x), at FP we believe that this time is better spent at finding things that have a plausible chance of being really high impact.
I think the most plausible case for this to be a grassroots movement would be outside the US, because a lot of the downside risk for TSM comes from features specific to its partisan nature and the structure of the American political system. If in the US, my best guess would be Republican pro-climate grassroots.
2. There are a least 4 additional reasons beyond those you outline why we should expect CATF to be very robust and TSM not to be. I discuss those in the second part of this comment:
3. Our current credence in CATF as a top-recommendation does not build primarily on the 2018 report which “discovered” CATF but in multiple re-evaluations of CATF as well as additional evaluations by other orgs. I summarize this here (emphasis new):