Has anyone done a calculation of the (wild) animal welfare effects of climate change? Or is this so ungodly intractable that no one has dared attempt it.
Has anyone done a calculation of the (wild) animal welfare effects of climate change? Or is this so ungodly intractable that no one has dared attempt it.
I am not aware of estimates of the impact of climate change on wild animal welfare. However, Brian Tomasik discussed many relevant factors qualitatively, and summarised his positition as follows. “On balance, I’m extremely uncertain about the net impact of climate change on wild-animal suffering; my probabilities are basically 50% net good vs. 50% net bad when just considering animal suffering on Earth in the next few centuries (ignoring side effects on humanity’s very long-term future)”.
Brian alsohasmany estimates of the years of wild animal lives affected by changing land use (e.g. a change from rainforest to crops). These can be converted to human years using welfare ranges, but then there is the super hard question about what is the level of welfare of wild animals relative to their welfare range. I have calculated the impact of saving lives on wild animal welfare assuming the lives of wild insects are as intense as those of broilers relative to their respective welfare ranges. “All in all, I can see the impact on wild animals being anything from negligible to all that matters in the nearterm”. Despite this, I believe there is lots of uncertainty about whether wild animal welfare is positive or negative, so I did not include impacts on wild animals in my post.
In any case, if one thinks the impacts of climate change on humans may well be dominated by those on wild animals, interventions to help these will look better than ones to decrease GHG emissions. Likewise, if one thinks the impacts of saving human lives may be dominated by impacts on farmed animals, interventions to help these will look better than ones to decrease GHG emissions. So I believe interventions to help animals are better than ones to decrease GHG emissions under any worldview.
Love a good cost-effectiveness calculation.
Has anyone done a calculation of the (wild) animal welfare effects of climate change? Or is this so ungodly intractable that no one has dared attempt it.
Thanks! Me too.
I am not aware of estimates of the impact of climate change on wild animal welfare. However, Brian Tomasik discussed many relevant factors qualitatively, and summarised his positition as follows. “On balance, I’m extremely uncertain about the net impact of climate change on wild-animal suffering; my probabilities are basically 50% net good vs. 50% net bad when just considering animal suffering on Earth in the next few centuries (ignoring side effects on humanity’s very long-term future)”.
Brian also has many estimates of the years of wild animal lives affected by changing land use (e.g. a change from rainforest to crops). These can be converted to human years using welfare ranges, but then there is the super hard question about what is the level of welfare of wild animals relative to their welfare range. I have calculated the impact of saving lives on wild animal welfare assuming the lives of wild insects are as intense as those of broilers relative to their respective welfare ranges. “All in all, I can see the impact on wild animals being anything from negligible to all that matters in the nearterm”. Despite this, I believe there is lots of uncertainty about whether wild animal welfare is positive or negative, so I did not include impacts on wild animals in my post.
In any case, if one thinks the impacts of climate change on humans may well be dominated by those on wild animals, interventions to help these will look better than ones to decrease GHG emissions. Likewise, if one thinks the impacts of saving human lives may be dominated by impacts on farmed animals, interventions to help these will look better than ones to decrease GHG emissions. So I believe interventions to help animals are better than ones to decrease GHG emissions under any worldview.