Disenangling “nature.”
It is my favorite thing, but I want to know its actual value.
Is it replaceable. Is it useful. Is it morally repugnant. Is it our responsibility. Is it valuable.
“I asked my questions. And then I discovered a whole world I never knew. That’s my trouble with questions. I still don’t know how to take them back.”
Tandena Wagner
Karma: 553
I don’t know anything about music and am not a math virtuoso, but I love this. Wonderful content, wonderful writing.
Exciting resource, and well presented! I’m digging into the insecticide section now. Some of the research into numbers of individuals, prevalence of insecticides, biggest actors, and off target effects is also useful for grounding biodiversity impact estimations. Thanks to all the researchers for their hard work on this project.
Hi, I’m trying to understand your call to action.
I’m confused why donors “should not give to Founder’s Pledge or Giving Green’s climate fund until charities that engage in nuclear advocacy are no longer part of their recommended charities lists.” It sounds like you are mainly saying that nuclear is ineffective. You also believe funding nuclear efforts might worsen outcomes by displacing renewables. Are you saying it a significant enough backfire so as to to negate the effectiveness of the rest of the fund? Or is this just a way to say that “it would be more effective to customize your donations to avoid nuclear advocacy.”
If 5% of Giving Green’s climate fund is being mis-allocated, why should one still not donate to their overall portfolio?
While EA is not fully at the table yet, EcoResilience Initiative is an EA group trying to answer exactly those questions:
“What are the problems we’re trying to solve?” “What are the most neglected aspects of those problems?” and “What is the most cost-effective way to address those neglected areas?”
So far we’re 1) maintaining a big list of biodiversity interventions (not just protecting land!), 2) investigating which of these are the most effective types of interventions, 3) identifying ways people can donate to projects working on those highly effective interventions, 4) developing conservation philosophy (ex: prioritizing coverage of the entire evolutionary tree and the long-term value of biodiversity (coming in a couple weeks)).
EcoResilience Initiative keeps getting requests from EA members that the EA movement provide some guidance on how to improve environmental strategies! So its more getting organized and working towards the goal than a total lack of desire from EA.
We (ERI) are a very small team, but we are looking to grow. We hope our work will provide the first steps towards influencing program managers, NGOs and the funding you talk about in this post.
As was posted in some other comments: there is also the new biodiversity recommendation from Giving Green coming in February, Effective Environmentalism’s community building work, and Conservation X Labs as an example of tactical conservation impact. Outside of EA there is Conservation Evidence, which is making research on effectiveness digestible. EDGE which is prioritizing global conservation with better a methodology. The Earth Biogenome Project is coordinating the genetic sequencing of all life on earth. And many others working on improving conservation with their specific approach, on in their specific corner of the world.
Hi, I really appreciate your independent thinking. I strongly suspect that the main reason people are not choosing to have more kids is because of the raising kids portion, not the pregnancy portion. At least that’s my reason for not having more kids. If this (the difficulty of raising kids, rather than birthing them) is the main bottleneck for most families, then I suspect the best ways to boost fertility would be mostly policy things along the lines of:
Less strict zoning laws --> more abundant, cheaper housing so young couples can more easily afford to live in larger houses, sooner.
Reducing the large amount of redistribution we currently do towards seniors (they are some of the richest demographics in world history!) and directing more towards young people—better yet targeted towards encouraging children (childcare subsidies, more and better schools, direct “baby bonus” payments, weird income incentives like they do in Hungary, etc)
Especially for places like Korea, trying reduce spending more and more on individual children (eg by hiring private tutors, making kids study 24⁄7 as part of a stressful, intense competition to get into the best schools)
Random little ways of making life more amenable for families with children, eg less-strict car seat laws, passing free-range-child laws to reduce false-positive CPS investigations and other sources of hostility towards child-rearing, etc.
For more on these kinds of things, Zvi Moshowitz’s has a good series of posts on fertility-related policy issues
I think it’s also possible that the very best lever for increasing fertility would be to boost marriages rather than the birth rate among married couples, since there is some good evidence toward this conclusion.
On artificial wombs as a technology: I do not have any information unfortunately (other than anecdotes). I would also suggest checking outside academia if you have not done so yet. And if anyone is doing this “for pets” as a way to make progress faster before transitioning to people.
Out of personal interest, though, I am highly interested in knowing what the main bottlenecks and timelines are for artificial wombs. This is because it would contribute towards reversing species extinction, and I would inform my estimates to how far away that technology is. Please share what you learn, I would appreciate it!
In general if you are seeing an obvious lack of rigor everywhere you look, then you can greatly improve the information environment by doing your own shallow research and sharing what you find. I think this itself would be a great service. (even without doing a full delphi forecast)
Hi, thank you for voicing this concern. I read your recent post, “Rewilding Is Extremely Bad.”
Personally, I doubt that most wild animals have negative lives. (informed by analogy to most of our own history of subsistence-level survival, and my doubt that they would consider their lives to have not been worth living). I also don’t believe that total hedonic utilitarianism is a complete frame for thinking about this. I think it is important to factor in people’s and animals’ preferences for continued existence. Mostly I think we just don’t know much about this question overall. I do think we should care about this fundamental question and certainly do what is in our power to improve the lives of other beings.I think you may have gotten the wrong impression from my use of “biodiversity.” It would be understandable to assume that I want to maximize Earth’s total biomass / total natural land area / number of wild animals, or something like that. I’m actually mostly interested in preserving the diversity of life that has evolved on Earth, such as by avoiding species extinctions. I think there are several good reasons to do this, such as to provide the far future with valuable information that would otherwise be lost, potentially fulfill uplift-style moral obligations we may have towards nonhuman animals, and generally keep our options open.
Preserving natural land tends to be a tractable, robust, large scale way to prevent species extinctions. But there are other biodiversity interventions that work with very small numbers of individuals, like seed banks or analogous “insect zoo”, or even zero individuals, like biobanking tissue samples with the aim of de-extinction in a utopian future world.
Perhaps we could both celebrate something like a well-designed insect zoo—where we care for many small populations of insects, work toward better understanding their many different desires, elevate the value of their lives for more to see, and preserve a wide variety of life forms into the future. There are probably also a variety of biodiversity-enhancing measures that would simultaneously boost animal welfare. Unfortunately which interventions are good depend a lot on figuring out the proper value of complex vs simple animals and how far into positive or net-negative territory different animals are. I hope to write up a list of these types of mutually beneficial interventions.
and I refuse to elaborate further
This was well written and informative. I’m interested in improving government performance to allow coordination and combat the problems that come with corruption, so thank you for linking away to those solutions as well.
Besides being a local node, I think the incidental translation of EA concepts to Estonian is potentially quite valuable.
Thank you for writing this post—I like to keep a mental list of ways conservation and wild animal welfare can work together. Somehow I forgot this fit the criteria.
This is interesting to me as well. It seems like more of a philosophical question to me, but I have not given it though consideration to say. If you don’t mind sharing, how would empirical anchors inform this?
I found the linked Case for Insect Consciousness really compelling. This is the sort of mindset I want conducting this kind of research. Reading the honest skepticism combined with careful self examination greatly boosted my respect for the project. I’m keen to learn more.
We’re working on it! A quick synopsis of the more fleshed-out argument I’m hoping to post soon on the foundational philosophy: It seems oddly universal that people to care about nature. For another it seems like the sort of scarce resource (like historical artifacts) that future humans will value. I think we will place great value on it after we reach takeoff, post-scarcity, etc. Furthermore I think that a variety of experiences existing is better than a world full of similar experiences.
A portion of the philosophical basis you are looking for was recently posted on the EA forum (it was one of the winners of the Essays on Longtermism competition!). The essay illustrates the value of “now-or-never” preservation and explores to what degree information is valuable to future generations. The essay suggests that preservation of species themselves is valuable but not practical compared to documentation. I think there are practical actions we can take to preserve species, but our second recommended intervention was biobanking for the reasoning given in the essay. The essay also touches on the concern of arbitrariness.For context, we’ve never said that extinction is an x-risk or otherwise a top-priority cause area. But I’m a believer in big-tent EA. In my view lots of things like improving housing policy or etc are good, even if not maximally good compared to the most-important cause. I certainly don’t want to take people off of x-risk work, but I think this still falls under the Effective Altruism umbrella.
There’s lots of environmental conservation money being spent. People value something they label “nature”, and it seems good for people to get more of what they want without being confused, counterproductive, economically destructive, etc, as so much of the environmental movement is. I also think its important to work on clarifying what exactly they/we are valuing. I hope to contribute on that front as well.
So, yes, very important, and we’re working on it!
High-impact projects fighting biodiversity loss
Hi Ben, thank you very much for the comment!
Excellent link, I need to carefully consider it.
-- My main thought is that alt-proteins need to be “normal” before we will know if people are willing to adopt them. My assumption is that once they are “just another foodstuff” it will depend on PTC. But right now they are new (aka scary and weird) - which would dominate the survey results. (This somewhat contradicts the increase in taste preference from informed tasting...) I like the example in the dining hall the best because it is in an environment where the alt-protein option was “out in the open” and eating it was a community activity. I think this would normalize the meal faster than most other situations. I’m not sure how long would be long enough for me to agree that adoption had stabilized at its total reach. I’d probably say 3-10 years, but two generations to really know...Food (including taste) is very cultural.
I also think that once the PTC factors are equivalent and alt protein is normal, that “not harming animals” will be a huge factor in people’s choices. And it would spill over into pushing other people to adopt alt proteins. This is just my feeling, not verified or researched in any way. I am new to the domain of alt-proteins, and need to ground myself more!
So taking a step back. Yes, I very much agree it is not at all certain that alt proteins will be widely adopted and I do not think it is wise to assume that once alt proteins reach PTC, “they will come.” I felt comfortable reaching the conclusion that it is a top biodiversity intervention based on 20% of total meat consumption. This feels within reason, and would still make a very large difference for global biodiversity extinction risk. The dining hall example had 26% adoption in 10 weeks, woo!
To be honest, I’m not familiar with other meat reduction strategies. Please catch me up to speed?
With encouraging vegetarianism: My impression is that changing beliefs (done gradually with intermediate steps) is making headway, but more slowly than “purchase options.”
Thanks for mentioning the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, I hadn’t heard of it!
On first glance I am skeptical of the perpetual endowments. Its not that perpetual endowments aren’t great setups. Most broadly, I’m concerned that legal structures without willful populations of people behind them will eventually fall to the active desires of the time. That’s important because, even if that were a temporary reversal, it might negate the benefits to biodiversity (habitat, extinction etc). I don’t have a particular scenario in mind for how this would play out, and I need to game it out more completely to have confidence in my position.More specifically, a lot of the areas most desirable to protect exist with poor government coordination and high levels of corruption. Perpetual endowments I don’t think can withstand those conditions. So I consider perpetual endowments to be “a useful tool when implemented in places with durable government structure, given that they are initiated with care.”
edit: Oops I forgot your last paragraph.
Thanks for giving us some grace that it’s unwieldy to write out an ethical framework lol. I’m painfully aware that its a huge gap, and it’s been weighing on me ever since it was pointed out here. I fully intend to write down a more thorough “philosophy of biodiversity.” It needs some clarity and delimitation, and all the flaws to be opened up to discussion.
Quantifying the cost-effectiveness of the top biodiversity interventions
The research process of EcoResilience Initiative
Hi Dave,
I just posted a list of biodiversity interventions today (working on that rigorous dive!). I’ll add the ones you’ve listed here and would like your suggestions for further additions to the list. I care about biodiversity for some of the reasons you stated, and wonder if you can elaborate on why you think these are promising interventions for biodiversity conservation?
For example: I’m not sure how to think about using resources from wilderness for livelihoods. I would assume that this would both increase people’s desire for protection of wilderness, and also increase people’s desire to convert wilderness to farming of those natural resources. Do you know anything about the rate that livelihoods based on wild-sourced products have/do not have adverse outcomes for biodiversity?
Local health clinics: I am not sure if I know what you mean by this. How are they increasing appreciation for indigenous populations/wildlife? Can you describe it further?
Do you have any comments on the IUCN GreenList of “ongoing successful conservation for people and nature in a fair and effective way”?
I’m really pleased to see so many people coalescing around this post. I’m enormously blessed to be amongst people thinking about the big problems with such openness, passion, and energy.
Int/a correctly identifies that EA has imperfections. But the proposals, replacing specificity with multidimensionality, putting process over goals, substituting metrics with sensing, don’t fix those imperfections. They mostly obfuscate them by disallowing comparison and avoid failure by never choosing between options. I think the main problem int/a has with EA is not an EA problem but an imperfect-world problem.
EA’s singleminded focus on specificity, measurability, and goal-orientedness is the painful, imperfect method that turns values and caring and messy big problems into singular choices and actions. Yes, the metrics are always flawed. Yes, you cut off possibilities when you commit to a direction. That’s the cost of actually acting in the world, and I don’t think int/a has provided a better path forward.
I may be being ungenerous, but my aim is to cut through to my biggest concern and look for correction. What int/a offers is staying in the ideation phase. More intuition, more holism, more systems thinking, more openness, more frames. Every single recommendation is widening, sourcing, and uncontroversial. These are a vital part of the opening process. But as far as I can tell, int/a does not move past enriching understanding, and does not seem concerned with what that is giving up. At some point the unpleasant part has to come: splitting apart, letting go of options, committing to something that might be wrong. EA isn’t limiting itself to specificity and comparison out of compulsion. It sees these as necessary stages. Pleading for more modalities does not get you to a tradeoff-free world! At some point you have to demonstrate a better outcome.
The complexity science and metacrisis communities have said “see the whole system, keep entanglements, don’t reduce” and then hit the entirely predictable problem of being unable to make much headway. They have produced real analytical tools, but the endpoint actions remain sparse. Is EA’s predisposition towards action more harmful than int/a’s moving at the speed of wisdom? I genuinely think EA’s greater bias toward action has produced more good than harm. But I can see arguing for change.
What int/a does do well, and EA should listen to, is their unearthing root problems, catching incomplete definitions, calls for opening up, and providing more frames. Int/a can teach us greater things to get narrowed toward. I don’t think its best seen as a competing method. It needs to be handed off to EA-style problem-solving, and should be resurfaced periodically too.