I like this question, and obviously we don’t want a Yellow Brick Road, leading to a grand figure with no practical power.
[A quick reply, without references, so please read as illustrative/descriptive rather than definitive. This isn’t a full answer to your question Aaron, but I hope it gives some impressions of how things are developing in our approach.]
Initially we were keen on reaching policymakers, and we still are to a considerable degree, but we’ve discovered the following:
Reaching actual policymakers is a long chain: …. first the science >> then economic justification >> then it has to be affordable in the present policy climate, and no serious political risk >> whatever is proposed has to make it through congress/parliament before the administration changes >> nothing deflects the previous effort or funding after that.
The UN is not able to coordinate globally for a long list of reasons, including that USA and China would do their own thing, with allies/neighbours. The UN, mainly via WFP/FAO and UNHCR/UNICEF, may have a role with the 40-60 LDCs (who are used to getting famine relief or refugess support in the event of local/national/regional disasters) but those four UN agencies too need preparedness for a new approach in a scenario where they would have no food to deliver as emergency relief, once pre-positioned stocks were exhausted.
Preparedness ASAP for a century / millennium of risks is what we want, but thinking on that time scale it isn’t a high priority on electoral cycles or in finance ministries: “no one is expecting the Spanish Inquisition” (ie no one expects to get blamed for not preparing for a GCR/X-risk event) and food security, GCR or disaster preparedness have rarely been an electoral issue, except when disasters are managed badly (as Hurricane Katrina)
In scenario/simulation exercises, both we and WWF/US Navy have found governments are mainly occupied with themselves, with each other and with the media in the crucial initial weeks of a shock/crisis, and they are typically not thinking ahead to failed harvests some months away. I’ve been told by a State Department academic, that historical records and cabinet minutes reflect similar behaviour in real world events.
This increases the relative importance of preparedness over response.…
.… and of financial markets (who do respond fast to emerging media and science), reinsurers (ditto), industry and academics over government.
To a considerable degree, all of these non governing institutions can think longer term, and have a better “institutional memory” than the Oval Office or the Cabinet Office (UK). [An exception is the military, who are typically strong on scenarios and have them stored and accessible, but in democracies they can’t decide priorities outside their own remit.]
If you reflect, this makes perfect sense: few Western / major countries have a living memory of famine (China and Netherlands are among the exceptions, and this is reflected in policy) and governments are by necessity generalists, so one would indeed expect specialists like futures markets, reinsurers, the military, academics, and even some industry players (eg “business continuity” consultants) to be in a better position to focus on this kind of issue, and that is indeed what we have found.
In scenario/sim work, we are finding that major global media have several important roles to play.
So for these and more reasons ALLFED is working:
in London, on financial mechanisms that would enable industry to do preparedness work that doesn’t wait for government either on preparedness or in actual GCRs
with academics, starting with UCL and Bristol volcanologists as they have such a nice clear GCR example, but stretching across to agriculture and supply chain people, in order to present a well formed case for better preparedness, and response systems that are flexible, and a food system recovery strategy that is also flexible
in India, with those already working on district / national scale disasters and on multiple monsoon failure / multiple breadbasket failure, but encouraging them to think “even-worse-case” scenario
on the technologies themselves, open sourcing as far as possible
on expert networking eg at GCF Stockholm, Oxford Martin School, Climate and Security Initiative in the Hague (an annual conference by Clingendaal, the diplomat training school)
with individuals in politics/government/civil service who demonstrate a long term interest in these issues, eg the “Black Sky Lord”, Lord Harris in the UK, and Cabinet Office civil servants who are asking for response protocols as they just don’t have them, or the time to create them: so these are topics of discussion with the volcanologists, who already have channels because of the threat to aviation even with smaller eruptions
etc
Nevertheless, government will almost certainly be important in an event, and getting GCR/X into disaster preparedness (aka “mainstreaming”) would be great.
One way to do this is via NASA into the UN’s Sendai process, and I will working on text for that in later this year.
Overall, policy people do often rely on the seniority of scientists to tell them who to choose to listen to about which risks to take on and how. (Obviously, seniority is not necessarily the best criteria, especially with emerging tech! But that’s the realpolitik, and what we have to work with.) So ALLFED needs a bigger repertoire, more heavyweight policy institutes backing us, and a wider network of academics who have “bought in” to our line on cost effectiveness and duty-of-care (for nations to protect their population).
Academics, like everyone else, can be conservative and scared of ridicule, so ALLFED is emphasising GCR more than X-risk, not because we think X-risk is less important, but because in order to reach policymakers you have to
(a) be able to communicate about things that they can conceive of and grapple with
(b) help them not fear attack in the press for being too sci-fi
(c) give them clear “realistic” justifications for their own finance people.
And again, the volcanic GCR example is very helpful here because we have a clear historical precedent or two (Tambora and Laki) that politicians can relate to. It’s also easy to convince them that another VEI7 (or worse) is certain to happen some day.
We are also working on fall back strategies in case there is a GCR/X-risk event in the next year or two, so that ALLFED is of immediate and practical usefulness to some governments/media and industry.
One area it would be great to have specific funding for, as a self-contained project, is a self-updating GCR/X expert directory. Almost everyone we network with wants one of these, and no one has cash/staff to do it. I’d like to see an India EA project funded to do it.
Thanks Aaron!
“what’s the path to reaching policymakers?”
I like this question, and obviously we don’t want a Yellow Brick Road, leading to a grand figure with no practical power.
[A quick reply, without references, so please read as illustrative/descriptive rather than definitive. This isn’t a full answer to your question Aaron, but I hope it gives some impressions of how things are developing in our approach.]
Initially we were keen on reaching policymakers, and we still are to a considerable degree, but we’ve discovered the following:
Reaching actual policymakers is a long chain: …. first the science >> then economic justification >> then it has to be affordable in the present policy climate, and no serious political risk >> whatever is proposed has to make it through congress/parliament before the administration changes >> nothing deflects the previous effort or funding after that.
The UN is not able to coordinate globally for a long list of reasons, including that USA and China would do their own thing, with allies/neighbours. The UN, mainly via WFP/FAO and UNHCR/UNICEF, may have a role with the 40-60 LDCs (who are used to getting famine relief or refugess support in the event of local/national/regional disasters) but those four UN agencies too need preparedness for a new approach in a scenario where they would have no food to deliver as emergency relief, once pre-positioned stocks were exhausted.
Preparedness ASAP for a century / millennium of risks is what we want, but thinking on that time scale it isn’t a high priority on electoral cycles or in finance ministries: “no one is expecting the Spanish Inquisition” (ie no one expects to get blamed for not preparing for a GCR/X-risk event) and food security, GCR or disaster preparedness have rarely been an electoral issue, except when disasters are managed badly (as Hurricane Katrina)
In scenario/simulation exercises, both we and WWF/US Navy have found governments are mainly occupied with themselves, with each other and with the media in the crucial initial weeks of a shock/crisis, and they are typically not thinking ahead to failed harvests some months away. I’ve been told by a State Department academic, that historical records and cabinet minutes reflect similar behaviour in real world events.
This increases the relative importance of preparedness over response.…
.… and of financial markets (who do respond fast to emerging media and science), reinsurers (ditto), industry and academics over government.
In scenario/sim work, we are finding that major global media have several important roles to play.
So for these and more reasons ALLFED is working:
in London, on financial mechanisms that would enable industry to do preparedness work that doesn’t wait for government either on preparedness or in actual GCRs
with academics, starting with UCL and Bristol volcanologists as they have such a nice clear GCR example, but stretching across to agriculture and supply chain people, in order to present a well formed case for better preparedness, and response systems that are flexible, and a food system recovery strategy that is also flexible
in India, with those already working on district / national scale disasters and on multiple monsoon failure / multiple breadbasket failure, but encouraging them to think “even-worse-case” scenario
on the technologies themselves, open sourcing as far as possible
on expert networking eg at GCF Stockholm, Oxford Martin School, Climate and Security Initiative in the Hague (an annual conference by Clingendaal, the diplomat training school)
with individuals in politics/government/civil service who demonstrate a long term interest in these issues, eg the “Black Sky Lord”, Lord Harris in the UK, and Cabinet Office civil servants who are asking for response protocols as they just don’t have them, or the time to create them: so these are topics of discussion with the volcanologists, who already have channels because of the threat to aviation even with smaller eruptions
etc
Nevertheless, government will almost certainly be important in an event, and getting GCR/X into disaster preparedness (aka “mainstreaming”) would be great.
One way to do this is via NASA into the UN’s Sendai process, and I will working on text for that in
later this year.
Overall, policy people do often rely on the seniority of scientists to tell them who to choose to listen to about which risks to take on and how. (Obviously, seniority is not necessarily the best criteria, especially with emerging tech! But that’s the realpolitik, and what we have to work with.) So ALLFED needs a bigger repertoire, more heavyweight policy institutes backing us, and a wider network of academics who have “bought in” to our line on cost effectiveness and duty-of-care (for nations to protect their population).
Academics, like everyone else, can be conservative and scared of ridicule, so ALLFED is emphasising GCR more than X-risk, not because we think X-risk is less important, but because in order to reach policymakers you have to
(a) be able to communicate about things that they can conceive of and grapple with
(b) help them not fear attack in the press for being too sci-fi
(c) give them clear “realistic” justifications for their own finance people.
And again, the volcanic GCR example is very helpful here because we have a clear historical precedent or two (Tambora and Laki) that politicians can relate to. It’s also easy to convince them that another VEI7 (or worse) is certain to happen some day.
We are also working on fall back strategies in case there is a GCR/X-risk event in the next year or two, so that ALLFED is of immediate and practical usefulness to some governments/media and industry.
One area it would be great to have specific funding for, as a self-contained project, is a self-updating GCR/X expert directory. Almost everyone we network with wants one of these, and no one has cash/staff to do it. I’d like to see an India EA project funded to do it.