I could get on board with “Climate change is not neglected, but humanity is still terrible at dealing with it with pretty severe consequences, so it makes sense for EAs who are interested or have a comparative advantage to work on it”. I’m not sure if I understand the focus on Canadian policy and voters, either. I think it’s because there’s a lot of pieces of the puzzle between voters caring about climate change (and I think most of them do!) and humans being good at reversing climate change. For example, what does good policy look like? Does it exist already or does it need to be made? How can a voter tell what is good? And then zooming out from that: Are the proper industry supports in place to fully reap the benefits of good policy? Are the proper technological research, R&D, entrepreneurial energy, removal of red tape for building things, and investment dollars there to flesh out the industry?
I could get on board with “Climate change is not neglected, but humanity is still terrible at dealing with it with pretty severe consequences, so it makes sense for EAs who are interested or have a comparative advantage to work on it”. I’m not sure if I understand the focus on Canadian policy and voters, either. I think it’s because there’s a lot of pieces of the puzzle between voters caring about climate change (and I think most of them do!) and humans being good at reversing climate change. For example, what does good policy look like? Does it exist already or does it need to be made? How can a voter tell what is good? And then zooming out from that: Are the proper industry supports in place to fully reap the benefits of good policy? Are the proper technological research, R&D, entrepreneurial energy, removal of red tape for building things, and investment dollars there to flesh out the industry?