Thanks for the helpful answer; this gives me some insight into the vote in this case!
To share my thoughts on this point with you:
The claim that it is âfar from neglectedâ is also not in line with survey evidence and qualitative research on societal elites, which shows that itâs quite often far down on the priority list for many people.
If you compare global annual spending on climate change to global annual spending on things like risks from AI, nuclear risk, or farmed animal welfare, it definitely seems to me like climate change is relatively extremely crowded.
This doesnât mean that there arenât any interventions on climate change that may be of similar cost-effectiveness to the most cost-effective interventions in these other cause areas, but on the scale of billions of dollars that Bezos want to spend on climate change I think it is a good reason to believe that the average cost-effectiveness will be significantly worse than what Bezos could do by making grants in other areas.
Your claim about climate change being not neglected be true but my guess is that many users of this forum disagree with it.
Thus I guessed that the downvoting of Geoffreyâs commwnt was good faith disagreeing that climate change was nonneglected and worth steering Bezos away from. I.e. people who support more funding for climate stuff.
Good point. I assumed it was good faith disagreement, but surprising disagreement nonetheless. But perhaps I shouldnât be too surprised. If I recall correctly, the EA Survey consistently finds that a significant minority of EAs rate climate change as a high priority, and with so many new comers and the popularity of climate change as an issue among people who want to have a social impact in general, I suspect youâre right there are a significant number of Forum users who think climate change is neglected and a top or near-top priority.
Let me say that straight away that Iâm very much in favor of work on nuclear risk, animal welfare, poverty reduction etc (on AI I struggle to see an established mechanism between the work that is being done and the desired outcome, but Iâm very open that I may be wrong on that one).
Just to expand a bit on spending and cost-effectiveness on climate change vs. other causes: It all depends what you mean. Climate change is not one single issue, given that itâs about our whole way of production and consumption. Reducing animal agriculture is also very important for fighting climate change, for example, not just for animal welfare. But if we break it down to different domains, we still see a lack of funding in many areas:
renewablesânot to mention nuclear energy, which I love! - still gets much less investment and funding than fossil fuels. Collecting data on this is not easy, of course. But one of the most thorough reports I know of is for funding and financing in the Netherlands, one of the greenest countries on earth. It revealed that fossil fuels received much more funding than renewables Financing of fossil fuels vs renewables by Dutch FIs EGW 211022_FIN (eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl)
So seen in comparison to fossil fuelsâwhich is the cause of climate change of courseâthe fight against climate change is heavily underfunded. So I think there is not much doubt that spending additional money can be useful in the fight against climate change.
The issue of cost effectiveness nevertheless remains. How much can one additional dollar do in the fight against climate change, compared to one additional dollar on other causes? The honest answer is that I donât know. But neither do others, I would argue. I think these things are very difficult to quantify. How much have the dollars spent on avoiding nuclear catastrophe aided against the nuclear danger we are now facing in Russia/âUkraine? I have no idea. How much will the dollars spent on AI safety help down the road? I donât think anybody knows.
If I am to make a qualified guess, it is that the most cost-effective money to spend on climate change right now is to pour money into funding green activism, grass roots movements and civil resistance. If you look at the political right in the US, a major factor in their success has been various grassroots groupsâNRA, Christian churches, pro life centers etc, Tea Party, etcâwhich have been heavily funded. There is no comparable funding for green grassroots movements. Additional millions here will probably be of great benefit down the road. I doubt that this is the direction Jeff Bezos will take in his funding, I was a benevolent super rich funder who was concerned with climate change, my first instinct right now would be to fund green activists and social groups.
This is not strongly related to the main topic of your post, though :)
This is not strongly related to the main topic of your post, though :)
Itâs fine; this post left the front page in about an hour so I expect new people joining will be limited. I will refrain from responding to your comment at length due to not wanting to stray far off topic, but know that I did read it, and my one sentence response is that I think the amount of money Bezos pledged toward climate change (not mentioning the far greater amount of money that has already been spent on it (Edit: >$300 billion annually) is more than an order of magnitude more money than the total amount of money that has ever been spent on AI safety (Edit: $10 million annually, same source), so Iâm not very persuaded by your comparison of some areas of climate change to fossil fuel spending.
Thanks for the helpful answer; this gives me some insight into the vote in this case!
To share my thoughts on this point with you:
If you compare global annual spending on climate change to global annual spending on things like risks from AI, nuclear risk, or farmed animal welfare, it definitely seems to me like climate change is relatively extremely crowded.
This doesnât mean that there arenât any interventions on climate change that may be of similar cost-effectiveness to the most cost-effective interventions in these other cause areas, but on the scale of billions of dollars that Bezos want to spend on climate change I think it is a good reason to believe that the average cost-effectiveness will be significantly worse than what Bezos could do by making grants in other areas.
Your claim about climate change being not neglected be true but my guess is that many users of this forum disagree with it.
Thus I guessed that the downvoting of Geoffreyâs commwnt was good faith disagreeing that climate change was nonneglected and worth steering Bezos away from. I.e. people who support more funding for climate stuff.
Good point. I assumed it was good faith disagreement, but surprising disagreement nonetheless. But perhaps I shouldnât be too surprised. If I recall correctly, the EA Survey consistently finds that a significant minority of EAs rate climate change as a high priority, and with so many new comers and the popularity of climate change as an issue among people who want to have a social impact in general, I suspect youâre right there are a significant number of Forum users who think climate change is neglected and a top or near-top priority.
Thanks, thatâs a thoughtful response!
Let me say that straight away that Iâm very much in favor of work on nuclear risk, animal welfare, poverty reduction etc (on AI I struggle to see an established mechanism between the work that is being done and the desired outcome, but Iâm very open that I may be wrong on that one).
Just to expand a bit on spending and cost-effectiveness on climate change vs. other causes: It all depends what you mean. Climate change is not one single issue, given that itâs about our whole way of production and consumption. Reducing animal agriculture is also very important for fighting climate change, for example, not just for animal welfare. But if we break it down to different domains, we still see a lack of funding in many areas:
renewablesânot to mention nuclear energy, which I love! - still gets much less investment and funding than fossil fuels. Collecting data on this is not easy, of course. But one of the most thorough reports I know of is for funding and financing in the Netherlands, one of the greenest countries on earth. It revealed that fossil fuels received much more funding than renewables Financing of fossil fuels vs renewables by Dutch FIs EGW 211022_FIN (eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl)
Fossil fuel companies have spent enormous amounts of money on lobbying. There is no comparable funding for climate change lobbying, not even close Fossil Fuel Industry Has Spent Nearly $2 Billion on Lobbying to Kill Climate LawsâOil Change International (priceofoil.org)
Fossil fuel companies have spent enormous amounts of money on advertising. There is no comparable funding for climate change advertising. Fossil Fuel Trade Associations Spent $1.4 Billion on Ads in Past Decade (therealnews.com)
Concerning activism and political fights, fossil fuel companies generally donate a whole lot to PACs and politicians etc, and there is no comparable funding for green politicians. Fossil fuel political giving outdistances renewables 13 to one Âť Yale Climate Connections
So seen in comparison to fossil fuelsâwhich is the cause of climate change of courseâthe fight against climate change is heavily underfunded. So I think there is not much doubt that spending additional money can be useful in the fight against climate change.
The issue of cost effectiveness nevertheless remains. How much can one additional dollar do in the fight against climate change, compared to one additional dollar on other causes? The honest answer is that I donât know. But neither do others, I would argue. I think these things are very difficult to quantify. How much have the dollars spent on avoiding nuclear catastrophe aided against the nuclear danger we are now facing in Russia/âUkraine? I have no idea. How much will the dollars spent on AI safety help down the road? I donât think anybody knows.
If I am to make a qualified guess, it is that the most cost-effective money to spend on climate change right now is to pour money into funding green activism, grass roots movements and civil resistance. If you look at the political right in the US, a major factor in their success has been various grassroots groupsâNRA, Christian churches, pro life centers etc, Tea Party, etcâwhich have been heavily funded. There is no comparable funding for green grassroots movements. Additional millions here will probably be of great benefit down the road. I doubt that this is the direction Jeff Bezos will take in his funding, I was a benevolent super rich funder who was concerned with climate change, my first instinct right now would be to fund green activists and social groups.
This is not strongly related to the main topic of your post, though :)
Itâs fine; this post left the front page in about an hour so I expect new people joining will be limited. I will refrain from responding to your comment at length due to not wanting to stray far off topic, but know that I did read it, and my one sentence response is that I think the amount of money Bezos pledged toward climate change (not mentioning the far greater amount of money that has already been spent on it (Edit: >$300 billion annually) is more than an order of magnitude more money than the total amount of money that has ever been spent on AI safety (Edit: $10 million annually, same source), so Iâm not very persuaded by your comparison of some areas of climate change to fossil fuel spending.