It is much more worth the time to measure direct impact—how many people were prevented from falling ill. And indirect impacts—families who didn’t fall into poverty or economic hardship due to paying for treatment/lose of work earnings. Contributions in these areas imply an increase to well-being.
There are many areas that would be worth measuring well-being increases more explicitly though. Violence against women and girls is definitely one of them.
Thanks for the write up Akhil, one aspect of this cause area you may also like to be aware of is fear/feelings of safety in women. Beyond direct victimisation, fear of violence (which doesn’t require someone to be a victim although it is a primary factor influencing the duration and intensity of fear) also adds to the case for this being a cause area.
95% of women and girls in Delhi surveyed by the UN said they felt unsafe in public spaces.
I couldn’t find the study but this number sits around 60%+ in Europe’s larger cities (70%+ in London as I recall).
Correspondingly, there is a widespread impact. Fear will influence someone’s pattern of life which will have various health, economic, and social costs. Interventions which also reduce fear in women could therefore also be worth exploring.
I understand you probably haven’t had much chance to delve into interventions and root causes as you are focusing on building this as a worth-while cause area for investment but I would be interested to understand more on what are the cause/sources of violence (is it street crime, violence by male partners, etc.) .
On point one:
you’ve calculated the capital cost but how much energy does it take to run this system? Does this significantly increase the cost? I imagine this would be a major question for end-users.
could the usage of UVC bulbs conflict with any building fire regulations in any form from the heat generated (I imagine this is proportionate to the effect)?
If there were 12°C of warming, a majority of land where humans currently live would be too hot for humans to survive at least a few days a year.[17] An increase of 13°C would make working outdoors impossible for most of the year in the tropics, and around half the year in currently temperate regions.
But even with the cloud feedback loop, it would take decades for global temperatures to reach this level, and it seems very likely that we could adapt to avoid extinction (for example, by building better buildings and widespread air conditioning, as well as building more in the cooler areas of the Earth).
I thought (direct) X-Risks includes any risk which leads to humanity being permanently compromised? Wouldn’t this scenario make it potentially extremely difficult for humanity to make any meaningful technological progress due to impacts on agriculture, population growth, etc. etc.
I want to highlight one area of diplomacy which I think is particularly relevant to EA is Science Diplomacy—briefly touched upon at the start of the post. Would be curious to hear the OPs’ views.
“Science diplomacy refers to the role science can play in international relations, or how diplomatic efforts support international science.” (source)
I see a number of key areas here that EA aligned Diplomats could be influence:
Good and bad scientific co-operation: these outcomes can be both good and bad e.g. Democratic Country R and Country S co-operate to provide knowledge on pandemic prevention vs Authoritarian Country X and Country Y co-operate to exchange nuclear power expertise which could be misused for proliferation reasons.
Developmental assistance in engineering: diplomats facilitate engineering experts from their country help to provide new power, utilities, transport, infrastructure for a developing economy to help it ‘level up’.
Using science and engineering to inform foreign policy-making: e.g. understanding the risks of A.I. integrated into weapons systems informs foreign policy objectives.
A note for UK people: seems that the main route into a diplomacy career is only the UK Governments Civil Service Graduate Scheme—there does not appear to be a direct inroad into diplomacy where you are able to go through a robust training program. I think this is dissapointing.
Interesting post but not sure I agree with some of your definitions.
“Aesthetics determine how beautiful a thing is, which is simply a specific way of saying how interesting it is. ”
Bence Nanay describes Aesthetics in his work as:
“Aesthetics is about some special and unusual ways of experiencing the world. Not just artworks, but also nature and ordinary objects. ”
So aesthetics is less about a coherent style and more about the reaction to it. In the same sense we can’t claim Christianity has a ‘richer’ aesthetic because some people may react differently based on their culture, experiences, and knowledge about what they see.
I think EA’s aesthetic is already emerging in terms of its influence by 20 to 40 year olds who know how to build a functional and well-made website!
Hi Tereza, I currently work in a well known engineering consultancy in security analysis and urban resilience. But I am looking to transfer into Landscape Architecture. I currently have an offer to join Penn’s LArch masters. I’ve struggled to get funding to help me pursue this path but its great to see interest in the potential of architects from EA.
I think one area to look at could be the ‘Architect as Developer’ approach for implementing human and nature centric design in urban development. Currently, we all answer to developers who are primarily profit driven. the AaD approach provides more control to the designers who are generally more concerned with maximising user-centric outputs. Perhaps this is a reflection of what Charter Cities could be but at via a piece-meal approach.
I see one major vehicle of impact to be a new design movement, similar to the New Urbanist movement, that is EA aligned and prioritises altruistic outcomes in the most cost efficient manner. Perhaps Landscape Urbanism is a beginning point?
Would love to hear your thoughts given the tension between Architects and Landscape Architects.
Great post Richard, I can tell some hard work went into this. I found this particularly interesting because I was accepted to Penn’s Landscape Architecture Grad program (though I may not take this up due to lack of funding) - have you thought about connecting with some of the faculty? They’ve produced some interesting work such as this ‘World National Park’ concept.
I wonder if one solution is removing the bounding of just ‘climate change’ and instead expand things to Earth Systems Health/Integrity more broadly, perhaps using the Planetary Boundaries framework? https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html
My understanding is biodiversity losses, freshwater exhaustion, and land system changes are all interrelated anyway. And one of the underlying issues, in my humble opinion, is a dysfunction in humanity’s relationship with nature. As abstract as that sounds, valuing and feeling more connected with nature/environment more broadly may set strong values for preserving environmental/planetary integrity and increasing chances of flourishing—including on other planets should humanity become space-faring species and colonise habitable planets.
I didn’t immediately think of this but that’s a great thought.
There is quite a lot of interest (anecdotally speaking—I don’t have the numbers) of integrating nature into the urban realm. Depending on country, planning rules will require a ecological impact assessment.
At a larger scale—some thinkers push to the notion that the way to go is to find how we can recraft cities into a nature/urban hybrid so both humans, animals, plants, and other organisms can all thrive together.
If you’re interested in this topic, the New Landscape Declaration—a declaration written by Landscape Architects with a collection of essays has more ideas on the value of this area: https://www.lafoundation.org/resources/2017/11/new-landscape-declaration-book
Hey All, Akhil there is a good report which delves into the some of the topics highlighted here but it is focused on London. It also discusses how this specific sub-set of women’s safety relates to the domestic setting: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/urban-lab/sites/urban-lab/files/scoping_study-_londons_participation_in_un_womens_safer_cities_and_safe_public_spaces_programme.pdf
Caveat: one peeve I have with this report is that it omits the fact there is also high levels of urban fear in men also (for example on public transport this is 10% lower than women which seems to suggest high levels of fear in both sexes and therefore a bigger problem at play). None the less, extreme vast majority of sexual harassment/assaults on public transit occur against women.