If you’re especially motivated by environmental problems, I recommend reading the newly released book by Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World (here’s her TED talk as a trailer).
I’d like to correct something I mentioned in my post—I implied one reason I didn’t find plastic pollution impactful, is that it just doesn’t have an easy fix. I no longer think that’s quite true—Hannah says it actually could be solved tomorrow, if the Western leaders decided to finance waste infrastructure in developing countries. Most of ocean plastic pollution comes from a handful of rivers in Asia. Since we have this kind of infrastructure in Europe and North America, our waste is only responsible for ~5 % of the ocean plastic (Our World in Data). Presumably, such infrastructure would also lay ground for reducing the harms coming from other waste.
I think there are two other reasons for the low attention to waste:
EA is a young do-ocracy—i.e. everybody is trying to spot their “market advantage” that allows them to nudge the world in a way that triggers a positive ripple effect—and so far, everybody’s attention got caught up by problems that seem bigger. While I have identified ~4 possibly important problems that come with waste in my post (diseases, air pollution, heavy metal pollution, animal suffering), if you asked a random person who lives in extreme poverty how to help them, waste probably wouldn’t be on the top of their mind.
Most people are often reminded of the aesthetic harm of waste. Since people’s moral actions are naturally motivated by disgust, I would presume a lot of smart people who do not take much time to reflect on their moral prioritization would already have found a way to trigger the ripple effect in this area—if there was one.
While I think one would do more good if they convinced a politician to target developmental aid at alleviating diseases and extreme poverty, than if they convinced them to run the project suggested by Hannah, perhaps given the bias I mentioned in point 2), it may be that politicians are more willing to provide funding for a project that would have the ambition to eradicate ocean plastic (constituting one of these ripple effects). So if you feel motivated to embark on a similar project, best of luck! :)
(The same potentially goes for the other 2 waste projects I’ve suggested—supporting biogas plants and improving e-waste monitoring/worker equipment)
If you’re especially motivated by environmental problems, I recommend reading the newly released book by Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World (here’s her TED talk as a trailer).
I’d like to correct something I mentioned in my post—I implied one reason I didn’t find plastic pollution impactful, is that it just doesn’t have an easy fix. I no longer think that’s quite true—Hannah says it actually could be solved tomorrow, if the Western leaders decided to finance waste infrastructure in developing countries. Most of ocean plastic pollution comes from a handful of rivers in Asia. Since we have this kind of infrastructure in Europe and North America, our waste is only responsible for ~5 % of the ocean plastic (Our World in Data). Presumably, such infrastructure would also lay ground for reducing the harms coming from other waste.
I think there are two other reasons for the low attention to waste:
EA is a young do-ocracy—i.e. everybody is trying to spot their “market advantage” that allows them to nudge the world in a way that triggers a positive ripple effect—and so far, everybody’s attention got caught up by problems that seem bigger. While I have identified ~4 possibly important problems that come with waste in my post (diseases, air pollution, heavy metal pollution, animal suffering), if you asked a random person who lives in extreme poverty how to help them, waste probably wouldn’t be on the top of their mind.
Most people are often reminded of the aesthetic harm of waste. Since people’s moral actions are naturally motivated by disgust, I would presume a lot of smart people who do not take much time to reflect on their moral prioritization would already have found a way to trigger the ripple effect in this area—if there was one.
While I think one would do more good if they convinced a politician to target developmental aid at alleviating diseases and extreme poverty, than if they convinced them to run the project suggested by Hannah, perhaps given the bias I mentioned in point 2), it may be that politicians are more willing to provide funding for a project that would have the ambition to eradicate ocean plastic (constituting one of these ripple effects). So if you feel motivated to embark on a similar project, best of luck! :)
(The same potentially goes for the other 2 waste projects I’ve suggested—supporting biogas plants and improving e-waste monitoring/worker equipment)