Thanks a lot for this. This is good and detailed work. From my point of view it’s a clear improvement on what I’ve seen from other EA orgs on climate change previously! Keep it up :)
Regarding “key questions you are unsure about”: I think the main weakness in this text and your assessment is your lack of critical engagement with the IPCC reports. You state higher up that “nothing in the IPCC’s report suggests that civilisation will be destroyed”. This is correct, but it does not follow from this that IPCC suggests that civilisation will NOT be destroyed, or that IPCC reports can be used to argue that point. There are two main reasons:
There is actually almost no research which has looked into the danger climate change may pose to civilisation. IPCC only synthesizes existing research, and when there is on research to start with, it doesn’t include it. Why is there no research on the possible end of civilisation due to climate change? Probably many reasons, but one reason may be that this is something that is inherently difficult to quantify. Or that researchers are afraid of being labelled as alarmist. You are probably aware of this article already, but Luke Kemp et. al. cover this well in this article, which documents the lack of research on “climate endgames”: Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios | PNAS
It has been documented that both IPCC reports and many climate scientists have consistently “erred on the side of least drama”—i.e. one has preferred to to be conservative in one’s estimates, rather than risk being wrong in the other direction. You are probably aware of this as well, but still saying it. This is the classic article on this, but it still stands: Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? - ScienceDirect The basic finding has been confirmed in later articles, such as this one: Evolution of 21st Century Sea Level Rise Projections—Garner − 2018 - Earth’s Future—Wiley Online Library This may also have to do with the fact that IPCC’s conclusions are consensus based. The latter article says on sea level rise, for example: “Upper projections of SLR from individual studies are generally higher than upper projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, potentially due to differing percentile bounds or a predisposition of consensus-based approaches toward relatively conservative outcomes”.
My prior is therefore that outcomes will almost certainly not be better than what IPCC predicts, but that there is a very good chance that outcomes will be worse. This prior is supported by the fact that the “surprises” in the climate system seem to be in one direction only—things consistently appear worse than researchers have commonly assumed (40 degrees in London, ice melt which appears to move much faster than researchers have modelled, etc). I cannot be completely sure about this, of course, but so far I have found very little evidence which points in the other direction, and cannot see strong reasons to update these priors (even though I would sleep better at night if things weren’t as bas as I fear).
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Then, regarding what to do. You ask towards the end on things you are unsure about: “Which areas within climate work (e.g. extreme risks, links to other risks, or specific kinds of green tech) are most neglected relative to their impact?”
This is an important question, and I think you slightly miss the mark in your actual recommendations. Regarding green tech and renewable energy etc, there is actually no lack of research or engagement at all. There are LOTS of people doing research on this. One reason is that this is potentially very lucrative, so people want to be in on it. There could arguably be more research on nuclear power, which unfortunately hasn’t been favored by policy makers, but here as well there are already many people doing important work.
Where there is NOT a lot of research or money or engagement is in two other areas:
Lifestyle change or cultural change
Activism, and the impact of activism
On the first point: If we want to reduce emissions from long distance aviation, one alternative is to come up with new fuels which don’t pollute as much. But another alternative is simply to reduce long distance aviation. On the first alternative there is already a lot of well-funded research. Of course the airline companies are interested in keeping going or increasing the number of flights. On the second alternative there is very little research. How would an international transport system with less long-distance flights look like, and more importantly, how do we achieve this, politically and socially? We don’t know much about this. There is some research, but not a lot. (see this recent article for example: Banning super short-haul flights: Environmental evidence or political turbulence? - ScienceDirect)
This also applies to other issues—like achieving just transitions for workers in fossil-based industries, driving less, moving away from meat, etc. The reason is probably that there are few funding bodies which have clear interests in lifestyle change—but there are many funding bodies which have an interest in continuing as we do today, only with less emissions.
On the meat issue there is already lots of EA engagement of course—but similar engagement could also be applied to the issue on lifestyle changes in other domains, in developed countries at least. Your comment that focusing on one’s carbon footprint “is a distraction” is almost certainly wrong, by the way. There is by now much research which shows that carbon footprint has a huge signaling effect: People simply trust climate advocates more when we focus on our own carbon footprint. Here is one such article, but there are many more: Climate change communicators’ carbon footprints affect their audience’s policy support | SpringerLink
Within EA circles one is well aware of the importance of signaling. This applies just as much to climate change as to other issues.
Following up on that, there is also an argument for actually supporting and engaging directly in the kind of activism that we have reason to think may work—non-violent civil disobedience, advocacy groups who work towards lifestyle change, etc. Green advocacy groups are massively underfunded compared to fossil fuel interests, and could well use some influx of smart EAs.
Ok, that’s it for this comment. Thanks again for working on the issue.
Thanks a lot for this. This is good and detailed work. From my point of view it’s a clear improvement on what I’ve seen from other EA orgs on climate change previously! Keep it up :)
Regarding “key questions you are unsure about”: I think the main weakness in this text and your assessment is your lack of critical engagement with the IPCC reports. You state higher up that “nothing in the IPCC’s report suggests that civilisation will be destroyed”. This is correct, but it does not follow from this that IPCC suggests that civilisation will NOT be destroyed, or that IPCC reports can be used to argue that point. There are two main reasons:
There is actually almost no research which has looked into the danger climate change may pose to civilisation. IPCC only synthesizes existing research, and when there is on research to start with, it doesn’t include it. Why is there no research on the possible end of civilisation due to climate change? Probably many reasons, but one reason may be that this is something that is inherently difficult to quantify. Or that researchers are afraid of being labelled as alarmist. You are probably aware of this article already, but Luke Kemp et. al. cover this well in this article, which documents the lack of research on “climate endgames”: Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios | PNAS
It has been documented that both IPCC reports and many climate scientists have consistently “erred on the side of least drama”—i.e. one has preferred to to be conservative in one’s estimates, rather than risk being wrong in the other direction. You are probably aware of this as well, but still saying it. This is the classic article on this, but it still stands: Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? - ScienceDirect The basic finding has been confirmed in later articles, such as this one: Evolution of 21st Century Sea Level Rise Projections—Garner − 2018 - Earth’s Future—Wiley Online Library This may also have to do with the fact that IPCC’s conclusions are consensus based. The latter article says on sea level rise, for example: “Upper projections of SLR from individual studies are generally higher than upper projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, potentially due to differing percentile bounds or a predisposition of consensus-based approaches toward relatively conservative outcomes”.
My prior is therefore that outcomes will almost certainly not be better than what IPCC predicts, but that there is a very good chance that outcomes will be worse. This prior is supported by the fact that the “surprises” in the climate system seem to be in one direction only—things consistently appear worse than researchers have commonly assumed (40 degrees in London, ice melt which appears to move much faster than researchers have modelled, etc). I cannot be completely sure about this, of course, but so far I have found very little evidence which points in the other direction, and cannot see strong reasons to update these priors (even though I would sleep better at night if things weren’t as bas as I fear).
---
Then, regarding what to do. You ask towards the end on things you are unsure about: “Which areas within climate work (e.g. extreme risks, links to other risks, or specific kinds of green tech) are most neglected relative to their impact?”
This is an important question, and I think you slightly miss the mark in your actual recommendations. Regarding green tech and renewable energy etc, there is actually no lack of research or engagement at all. There are LOTS of people doing research on this. One reason is that this is potentially very lucrative, so people want to be in on it. There could arguably be more research on nuclear power, which unfortunately hasn’t been favored by policy makers, but here as well there are already many people doing important work.
Where there is NOT a lot of research or money or engagement is in two other areas:
Lifestyle change or cultural change
Activism, and the impact of activism
On the first point: If we want to reduce emissions from long distance aviation, one alternative is to come up with new fuels which don’t pollute as much. But another alternative is simply to reduce long distance aviation. On the first alternative there is already a lot of well-funded research. Of course the airline companies are interested in keeping going or increasing the number of flights. On the second alternative there is very little research. How would an international transport system with less long-distance flights look like, and more importantly, how do we achieve this, politically and socially? We don’t know much about this. There is some research, but not a lot. (see this recent article for example: Banning super short-haul flights: Environmental evidence or political turbulence? - ScienceDirect)
This also applies to other issues—like achieving just transitions for workers in fossil-based industries, driving less, moving away from meat, etc. The reason is probably that there are few funding bodies which have clear interests in lifestyle change—but there are many funding bodies which have an interest in continuing as we do today, only with less emissions.
On the meat issue there is already lots of EA engagement of course—but similar engagement could also be applied to the issue on lifestyle changes in other domains, in developed countries at least. Your comment that focusing on one’s carbon footprint “is a distraction” is almost certainly wrong, by the way. There is by now much research which shows that carbon footprint has a huge signaling effect: People simply trust climate advocates more when we focus on our own carbon footprint. Here is one such article, but there are many more: Climate change communicators’ carbon footprints affect their audience’s policy support | SpringerLink
Within EA circles one is well aware of the importance of signaling. This applies just as much to climate change as to other issues.
The second point regarding activism and impact is also important. We actually know very little on how to change things regarding climate change. What activism actually works? EA James Ozden is one of the few who actually does research on this. Radical tactics can increase support for more moderate groups—EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org)
Following up on that, there is also an argument for actually supporting and engaging directly in the kind of activism that we have reason to think may work—non-violent civil disobedience, advocacy groups who work towards lifestyle change, etc. Green advocacy groups are massively underfunded compared to fossil fuel interests, and could well use some influx of smart EAs.
Ok, that’s it for this comment. Thanks again for working on the issue.