Soemano Zeijlmans

• Soemano Zeijlmans 1 Apr 2026 13:15 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Trym Braathen🔸’s comment on: An­nounc­ing 8,000,000 Hours: Ca­reer ad­vice for the rest of us

  Thanks Trym. I just added an application link.

An­nounc­ing 8,000,000 Hours: Ca­reer ad­vice for the rest of us

• Soemano Zeijlmans 31 Mar 2026 9:44 UTC

  3 points

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  in reply to: Mo Putera’s comment on: Giv­ing Green Launches New Bio­di­ver­sity Re­search and Top Bio­di­ver­sity Nonprofits

  Couldn’t have summarized it better myself. Thanks, Mo!

  Have you considered incorporating some considerations related to increasing welfare in your research on reducing biodiversity loss?

  I’m sympathetic to the idea that the welfare of wild animals matters for biodiversity work. In the end, we decided to base or prioritization on David’s scores based on multiple biodiversity indicators rather than wild animal welfare, because the latter lens comes with empirical and moral uncertainty. (Such as the population effects that Mo mentioned and which you frequently write about.)

  Nonetheless, I think some interventions we consider, such as alternative proteins, bycatch mitigation, and fish meal reliance can also benefit (wild or farmed) animals, albeit not per se in the most cost-effective way.

Giv­ing Green Launches New Bio­di­ver­sity Re­search and Top Bio­di­ver­sity Nonprofits

• Soemano Zeijlmans 30 Jan 2025 16:11 UTC

  8 points

  1 ∶ 2

  on: Soe­mano Zeijl­mans’s Quick takes

  Which interesting EA-related bluesky accounts do you know of?
  
  I’m not using Twitter anymore since it’s being used to promote hateful views, but Bluesky is quite a cool online space in my opinion.

  I’m making a list of Bluesky accounts of EA-related organisations and key people. If you’re active on Bluesky or some of your favourite EA orgs or key people are, please leave a comment with a link to their profile!

  I’ve also made an EA (GHD+AW+CC) Starter Pack in case you’re interested. Let me know who I should add! Effective Environmentalism also has a pack with effectiveness-oriented climate change accounts.
  
  Some accounts in no particular order:

  @effectiveenvironmentalism.org (my org)

  @hannahritchie.bsky.social

  @alexholst.bsky.social

  @vegardbeyer.bsky.social

  @jamesozden.bsky.social

  @rowanemslie.bksy.social

  @goodfoodinst.bsky.social

  @80000hours.bsky.social

  @ourworldindata.org

  @givinggreen.bsky.social

  @brucefriedrich.bsky.social

  @cleanaircatf.bsky.social

  @ayudaefectiva.bksy.social

  @givingwhatwecan.bsky.social

  @soemanozeijlmans.eu (that’s me)

Soe­mano Zeijl­mans’s Quick takes

• Soemano Zeijlmans 30 Jan 2025 16:01 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AI Au­dit on Costa Rica

  Are you based in Costa Rica? You should totally suggest giving a talk about this at the University for Peace (UPAZ) of the UN in Ciudad Colón! Let me know if you’d like an introduction.

• Soemano Zeijlmans 29 Jan 2025 11:28 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Shakirat Bello ’s comment on: An­nounc­ing Ap­pli­ca­tions for the AIM Re­search Pro­gram April 2025

  Feel free to send me a direct message on the forum with some questions.

• Soemano Zeijlmans 22 Jan 2025 13:28 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Ways the world is get­ting bet­ter—dis­cus­sion thread

  Even though the Trump presidency denies the consensus on and importance of climate change, there could still be ways to make progress: https://​​effectiveenvironmentalism.substack.com/​​p/​​can-we-make-climate-progress-under

• Soemano Zeijlmans 20 Jan 2025 9:02 UTC

  21 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Ways the world is get­ting bet­ter—dis­cus­sion thread

  2024 might have been a global breakout year for geothermal energy. Next generation technologies make it possible to drill for heat in places where this was previously impossible.

• Soemano Zeijlmans 18 Jan 2025 15:34 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Karthik Tadepalli’s comment on: Call for sug­ges­tions: Cli­mate change char­ity ideas with strong co-benefits for hu­mans or animals

  Thank you Karthik, this looks really interesting!

• Soemano Zeijlmans 17 Jan 2025 12:25 UTC

  7 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: An­nounc­ing Ap­pli­ca­tions for the AIM Re­search Pro­gram April 2025

  Hi, I did this program last year and I really enjoyed it. If anyone is considering applying but wants to ask some questions to a former participant to check whether it’s the right fit for them, feel free to send me an email or a forum message!

Call for sug­ges­tions: Cli­mate change char­ity ideas with strong co-benefits for hu­mans or animals

• Soemano Zeijlmans 6 Jan 2025 18:18 UTC

  5 points

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  in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Will a food car­bon tax lead to more an­i­mals be­ing slaugh­tered? A quan­ti­ta­tive model

  You’re right to point out the trade-off between low-carbon production and high welfare standards! Theoretically, it should be possible to adapt the model to weigh the animal welfare impacts on the extensive margin (=number of animals) by the intensity of the suffering of different animals, and to make intensity of suffering in turn a function of the carbon tax. That makes the whole model a bit more wonky but I think it’s important work that needs to be done.

  I would say taxing the negative effects on farmed animals based on the time they spend in pain, as assessed by the Welfare Footprint Project (WFP), is robustly beneficial.

  I agree! I think it will be quite difficult to implement this, though. Will policymakers like to implement a tax based on ‘suffering units’ with quite some uncertainty? I wonder if we can find a decent proxy that is easier for taxation.

• Soemano Zeijlmans 6 Jan 2025 18:09 UTC

  4 points

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  in reply to: geoffrey’s comment on: Will a food car­bon tax lead to more an­i­mals be­ing slaugh­tered? A quan­ti­ta­tive model

  Thank you for the kind words and the useful feedback!

  • My understanding is that calibration is picking numbers for parameters in a otherwise pre-defined model to make it match the real world, and what you’re describing I think of as estimation rather than calibration. I’ll add a footnote to make my use of the word a little clearer!

  • You’re right on the validity of the Bouyssou et al. (2024) paper. There are quite some differences in the measured elasticity estimates in the literature, unfortunately. I’m more worried about the own-price elasticity of supply, though, as the literature is much more scarce and old.

Will a food car­bon tax lead to more an­i­mals be­ing slaugh­tered? A quan­ti­ta­tive model

• Soemano Zeijlmans 19 Nov 2024 9:07 UTC

  10 points

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  on: Cli­mate Giv­ing as an Individual

  I think one factor that adds uncertainty to climate giving is that effective climate action requires systems change and innovation breakthroughs, and that you can’t simply put a price tag on these two because advocacy and innovation can fail. A more bednet-style approach to climate giving, such as forest protection and reforestation, seems promising because it offers high certainty and hardly any political opposition. Even then, these direct interventions have all kinds of uncertainty related to permanence (will the forest be cut down again?), additionality (would the forest have regrown naturally?), and leakage (will people just cut down different trees?). Unlike in global health and development, directly tackling emissions in one place can increase it somewhere else.

  Personally, I’ve come to terms with the idea that climate action is inherently uncertain. I can never pin down how my actions reduced global emissions because there’s a high chance of failure. But if we pool the probability of the efforts of thousands of people, we can collectively say that we very likely made a big dent in emissions because we can spread the risk over many donors, activists, and professionals.

  My intuition is the situation is different for larger organizations and donors who can afford to spread their bets and can do more to single-handedly galvanize an area of research or policy.

  How would you feel about donating to a high-impact grantmaking funds that spreads their climate bets and works to advance entire areas or research and policies? If you donate to the Founders Pledge climate fund or the Giving Green fund, for example, your donations are pooled with those of hundreds to thousands of other people who collectively can spread their bets and build new areas or research and policy.

  (PS. Setting up donations to funds instead of individual charities has some additional benefits. It helps to allocate funding to charities when they need it most, they can make grants to individual projects that don’t need continuous funding, and funds can change their recipients if other charities become more effective. See the EE website.)

• Soemano Zeijlmans 18 Nov 2024 10:00 UTC

  0 points

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  in reply to: Trym Braathen🔸’s comment on: Effec­tive En­vi­ron­men­tal­ism has re-launched! (And we’re look­ing for fund­ing)

  Thank you Trym!

• Soemano Zeijlmans 14 Nov 2024 22:35 UTC

  9 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: How would your pro­ject use ex­tra fund­ing? (Marginal Fund­ing Week 2024)

  We’re looking for seed funding for Effective Environmentalism, a field-building initiative.

  Link to stand-alone post: Effective Environmentalism has re-launched! (And we’re looking for funding)

  Effective Environmentalism is currently not funded, and we’d be able to use seed funding to devote time to spread EA ideas in the environmental movement and grow an effective environmentalism community!

  Name of the project: Effective Environmentalism

  My role: Co-director

  How we would use extra donations: We would use a seed grant to devote time to the project, particularly for community-building, providing introductory resources and information to environmental professionals, and outreach to the environmental community.

  Marginal funding: This would be our first funding since the re-launch.

Effec­tive En­vi­ron­men­tal­ism has re-launched! (And we’re look­ing for fund­ing)