The climate change scenarios that EAs are most worried about are tail-risks of extreme warming, in comparison to GiveDirectly’s effects which seem slightly positive in most worlds. And while the best climate change interventions might be robustly not-bad, that’s not true for the entire space. Given the relatively modest damage in the median forecasts (e.g. 10% counterfactual GDP, greatly outweighed by economic growth) many proposals, like banning all air travel, or anti-natalism, would do far more harm than good. Will suggests that climate change policies are robustly good for the very long term growth rate (not just level), but I don’t understand why—virtually all very long-term growth will not take place on this planet.
The climate change scenarios that EAs are most worried about are tail-risks of extreme warming, in comparison to GiveDirectly’s effects which seem slightly positive in most worlds. And while the best climate change interventions might be robustly not-bad, that’s not true for the entire space. Given the relatively modest damage in the median forecasts (e.g. 10% counterfactual GDP, greatly outweighed by economic growth) many proposals, like banning all air travel, or anti-natalism, would do far more harm than good. Will suggests that climate change policies are robustly good for the very long term growth rate (not just level), but I don’t understand why—virtually all very long-term growth will not take place on this planet.