In other words, more and more people are interested in it [wild animal welfare], but thereās no consensus that it constitutes one of the worldās largest problems.
With ālargestā, are you referring to importance, or pressingness (i.e. importance, tractability and neglectedness)? I agree it is unclear whether it is super pressing (although I wouldsaythesame for global health and development, and farmed animal welfare), but think there is consensus within EA that the scale is huge.
Because of that, I could imagine us one day writing about the general idea of wild animal welfare, the philosophical arguments behind it, why some researchers study it, and what the numbers are. This would allow us to introduce more people to it as an āinteresting angleā to add to their worldview. This could look like Max Roserās article āThe future is vast ā what does this mean for our own life?ā.
That would be great! Then you could potentially link to it in your articles about conservation to introduce some nuance.
Thanks for the reply, Ed!
Nice to know! OWID has been one of my go to sources on factory farming. Some suggestions (just in the unlikely case you have not considered them):
Conditions of animals (e.g. fraction of animals of each species being factory-farmed, and fraction of factory-farmed animals which are in cages).
Success of welfare reforms (e.g. cage-free campaigns).
Opinion polls on factory-farming.
More animal species (e.g. shrimp and crustaceans), namely the ones covered here.
Data about time in various types of pain from the Welfare Footprint Project.
With ālargestā, are you referring to importance, or pressingness (i.e. importance, tractability and neglectedness)? I agree it is unclear whether it is super pressing (although I would say the same for global health and development, and farmed animal welfare), but think there is consensus within EA that the scale is huge.
That would be great! Then you could potentially link to it in your articles about conservation to introduce some nuance.