Thanks for this post, agree with other comments that it’s very well written and clear, and on first reading I agree with the core message even if some of the specific points/evidence offered may be debatable (e.g. discussions in the comments re: Lynas). Upvoted!
I want to draw attention to one major issue with the analysis that also permeates the dicsussion about climate change as an x-risk both elsewhere and in the discussion here in the comments.
‘Following, e.g., Halstead, it is instructive to split the question of climate change damages into three numbered questions’
‘This reduces damages from anthropogenic Earth system change to global warming only, which is far from ideal but sufficient for the purposes of this post.’
The reduction of the climate, environmental and ecological crises to only GHG and warming is a major issue within existing sustainability literature, public discourse and governmental policies. These crises and in particular their risks & risk transmission pathways go far beyond this narrow focus on GHG and warming, and ignoring the other ways in which compound human activity is stressing various life-critical earth systems prevents us from having a clear understanding of how our physical environment relates to x-risk and GCRs.
What are we talking about here?
If we want only to understand whether warming could lead to x-risk, then that is an entirely different question to whether or not current human activity and its sum consequences on the natural world (could) present an x-risk/GCR. I would argue that the former is an interesting question, but it ignores that the crises we’re facing are not only limited to warming, but involve unprecedented changes (in speed) and pressures across a number of life-critical systems.
We’re at risk here of not seeing the whole board, and thats a big problem when we’re talking about how far we should prioritise these crises within EA.
Some of the various other dynamics that are not included in discussions limited to warming include eutrophication & arable land loss, biodiversity loss & ecosystem degredation, fresh water use & scarcity, air pollution.
And that’s not including the various social challenges that are fundamentally linked to these crises.
A second point—you’ve focused on importance here. I would argue that there is a major case to be made for neglectedness too in terms of targeting the most important/potentially impactful ‘solutions’ or interventions we can make to address these crises.
An example: It’s often estimated that around 95% of carbon offsets are avoidance credits, which do nothing to offset scope 1 & 2 emissions. We need that money to flow into removal credits instead, but the initial investment is not there yet to make removal technologies competitive and scalable enough to be sold in the offset market (this is beginning to change, but too slowly).
A second example: Taking some of the IPCC mitigation options as starting points, the shift to bikes and e-bikes & electric light and heavy vehicles have the potential to reduce emissions by 0.2 and 0.8 GtCO2eq/year, compared to 1.1 for energy efficiency improvements and 2.9 for ecosystem restoration, but they recieved 2.9bn and 12bn respectively in VC funding over 24 months compared to just 0.7bn and 0.2bn for energy efficiency and restoration over the same period.
Sustainability is full of misallocated funding and a lack of evidence-driven intervention… it is not guaranteed that socieities at large (governments, publics and markets) will effectively address and solve this challenge, EA could have a role to play here.
A note: I see a lot of interesting discussion about economic modelling in the comments—based on experience in my current role working with investors and transitions experts to create scenarios based on these kinds of models, my impression so far is that they are not comprehensive in accounting for the full scope of expected impacts across socio-ecological-technological systems (something that investors themselves consistently report and are looking to rectify), but I will spend some time reading the originial papers and models before responding to those comments specifically.
Thanks for this post, agree with other comments that it’s very well written and clear, and on first reading I agree with the core message even if some of the specific points/evidence offered may be debatable (e.g. discussions in the comments re: Lynas). Upvoted!
I want to draw attention to one major issue with the analysis that also permeates the dicsussion about climate change as an x-risk both elsewhere and in the discussion here in the comments.
‘Following, e.g., Halstead, it is instructive to split the question of climate change damages into three numbered questions’
‘This reduces damages from anthropogenic Earth system change to global warming only, which is far from ideal but sufficient for the purposes of this post.’
The reduction of the climate, environmental and ecological crises to only GHG and warming is a major issue within existing sustainability literature, public discourse and governmental policies. These crises and in particular their risks & risk transmission pathways go far beyond this narrow focus on GHG and warming, and ignoring the other ways in which compound human activity is stressing various life-critical earth systems prevents us from having a clear understanding of how our physical environment relates to x-risk and GCRs.
What are we talking about here?
If we want only to understand whether warming could lead to x-risk, then that is an entirely different question to whether or not current human activity and its sum consequences on the natural world (could) present an x-risk/GCR. I would argue that the former is an interesting question, but it ignores that the crises we’re facing are not only limited to warming, but involve unprecedented changes (in speed) and pressures across a number of life-critical systems.
We’re at risk here of not seeing the whole board, and thats a big problem when we’re talking about how far we should prioritise these crises within EA.
Some of the various other dynamics that are not included in discussions limited to warming include eutrophication & arable land loss, biodiversity loss & ecosystem degredation, fresh water use & scarcity, air pollution.
And that’s not including the various social challenges that are fundamentally linked to these crises.
A second point—you’ve focused on importance here. I would argue that there is a major case to be made for neglectedness too in terms of targeting the most important/potentially impactful ‘solutions’ or interventions we can make to address these crises.
An example: It’s often estimated that around 95% of carbon offsets are avoidance credits, which do nothing to offset scope 1 & 2 emissions. We need that money to flow into removal credits instead, but the initial investment is not there yet to make removal technologies competitive and scalable enough to be sold in the offset market (this is beginning to change, but too slowly).
A second example: Taking some of the IPCC mitigation options as starting points, the shift to bikes and e-bikes & electric light and heavy vehicles have the potential to reduce emissions by 0.2 and 0.8 GtCO2eq/year, compared to 1.1 for energy efficiency improvements and 2.9 for ecosystem restoration, but they recieved 2.9bn and 12bn respectively in VC funding over 24 months compared to just 0.7bn and 0.2bn for energy efficiency and restoration over the same period.
Sustainability is full of misallocated funding and a lack of evidence-driven intervention… it is not guaranteed that socieities at large (governments, publics and markets) will effectively address and solve this challenge, EA could have a role to play here.
A note: I see a lot of interesting discussion about economic modelling in the comments—based on experience in my current role working with investors and transitions experts to create scenarios based on these kinds of models, my impression so far is that they are not comprehensive in accounting for the full scope of expected impacts across socio-ecological-technological systems (something that investors themselves consistently report and are looking to rectify), but I will spend some time reading the originial papers and models before responding to those comments specifically.
Thanks for these great points! I agree that these are both things that should be looked at further.