I’m in fact shocked on many levels by the contraception section.
a. as you said you guestimated the average lifetime carbon impact. In doing so you underestimated or silenced the immense difference between countries and “classes”: basically your “target” population for contraception (super-sic) has a carbon footprint that is 100 times lower than, say people in the UK. Indeed, if you check there, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita and take the per capita emissions of UK and Papua New Guinea between 1980 and 2014, an average british person born in 1980 will have emitted approximately 300 tons of CO2, while an average Papuan will have emitted approximately 25 tons of CO2. This is “per country”, and thus doesn’t discriminate between richer and poorer classes ⇒ to put it simply, a person who takes the plane 10 times / year will have a much higher impact that one who doesn’t. So even in Papua New guinea, the poorest and most marginalized—whom you want to target for contraception—will have a much lower impact than the national average. So basically, an “effective altruism” would more effective in highly emitting countries such as… the UK, the US, Canada… or Qatar, Kuwait...
b. obviously you see where I’m getting at: this section on contraception is ethically very dubious, as contraception is a matter of health and human rights, not a matter of strategically deciding which poor people would be better of not being born so that rich people can continue polluting but call it “effective altruism”.
I’m in fact shocked on many levels by the contraception section.
a. as you said you guestimated the average lifetime carbon impact. In doing so you underestimated or silenced the immense difference between countries and “classes”: basically your “target” population for contraception (super-sic) has a carbon footprint that is 100 times lower than, say people in the UK. Indeed, if you check there, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita and take the per capita emissions of UK and Papua New Guinea between 1980 and 2014, an average british person born in 1980 will have emitted approximately 300 tons of CO2, while an average Papuan will have emitted approximately 25 tons of CO2. This is “per country”, and thus doesn’t discriminate between richer and poorer classes ⇒ to put it simply, a person who takes the plane 10 times / year will have a much higher impact that one who doesn’t. So even in Papua New guinea, the poorest and most marginalized—whom you want to target for contraception—will have a much lower impact than the national average. So basically, an “effective altruism” would more effective in highly emitting countries such as… the UK, the US, Canada… or Qatar, Kuwait...
b. obviously you see where I’m getting at: this section on contraception is ethically very dubious, as contraception is a matter of health and human rights, not a matter of strategically deciding which poor people would be better of not being born so that rich people can continue polluting but call it “effective altruism”.