I think both you and oivavoi would benefit from reading John Halsteadâs report on climate change, or at least the executive summary. I think youâre somewhat understating the tail risks associated with climate change, while I think oivavoi is not giving EAs enough credit for the nuance of their views on the subject (I think the standard EA view, expressed by e.g. Will MacAskill, is that climate change is a serious problem and important to stop, but itâs less neglected than many other similarly-serious or even more serious problems, so is probably not the #1 priority for EA to be working on).
I canât be understating the tail risks, because I made no claims about whether global warming poses existential risks. I wrote only that the IPCCâs latest synthesis report didnât say that it does.
I thought that climate change obviously poses some existential risk, but probably not enough to merit the panic about it. Though Halsteadâs report that you linked explicitly says not just that thereâs no evidence of existential risk, but that his work gives evidence there is insignificant existential risk. I wouldnât conclude âthere is insignificant existential riskâ, but it appears that risk lies more in âwe overlooked somethingâ than in evidence found.
The only thing I was confident of was that some people, including a member of Congress, incited panic by saying global warming was an imminent thread to the survival of humanity, and the citation chain led me back to that IPCC report, and nothing in it supported that claim.
Okay I guess youâre correct, your comment wasnât stating your views, just the contents of the IPCC report.
I 100% agree with your reading of Halsteadâs report -heâs very explicit that thereâs evidence against climate change being an existential risk. I still think your original comment somewhat downplays the tail risk scenarios that are still considered plausible (e.g. from the tipping points section of Halsteadâs report), but I agree that those arenât actually likely extinction risks.
I think in general you and I are probably on the same page overall about climate risk and the extent to which we should be working on it in EA.
I think both you and oivavoi would benefit from reading John Halsteadâs report on climate change, or at least the executive summary. I think youâre somewhat understating the tail risks associated with climate change, while I think oivavoi is not giving EAs enough credit for the nuance of their views on the subject (I think the standard EA view, expressed by e.g. Will MacAskill, is that climate change is a serious problem and important to stop, but itâs less neglected than many other similarly-serious or even more serious problems, so is probably not the #1 priority for EA to be working on).
Thanks for the link to Halsteadâs report!
I canât be understating the tail risks, because I made no claims about whether global warming poses existential risks. I wrote only that the IPCCâs latest synthesis report didnât say that it does.
I thought that climate change obviously poses some existential risk, but probably not enough to merit the panic about it. Though Halsteadâs report that you linked explicitly says not just that thereâs no evidence of existential risk, but that his work gives evidence there is insignificant existential risk. I wouldnât conclude âthere is insignificant existential riskâ, but it appears that risk lies more in âwe overlooked somethingâ than in evidence found.
The only thing I was confident of was that some people, including a member of Congress, incited panic by saying global warming was an imminent thread to the survival of humanity, and the citation chain led me back to that IPCC report, and nothing in it supported that claim.
Okay I guess youâre correct, your comment wasnât stating your views, just the contents of the IPCC report.
I 100% agree with your reading of Halsteadâs report -heâs very explicit that thereâs evidence against climate change being an existential risk. I still think your original comment somewhat downplays the tail risk scenarios that are still considered plausible (e.g. from the tipping points section of Halsteadâs report), but I agree that those arenât actually likely extinction risks.
I think in general you and I are probably on the same page overall about climate risk and the extent to which we should be working on it in EA.