The Founders Pledge climate fund’s stated objective is to “sustainably reach net-zero emissions globally”.
A great example of an insidious correlation of this fund: what about funding work which helps people adapt to climate change, instead of mitigating it?
For example, can we invent cheap air conditioning units which anyone in the world can afford to buy, to keep humans and crops cool as they migrate away from current coastal areas?
EDIT: let me try to be more clear, since this answer was downvoted twice—upon seeing the fund, I asked myself, “what belief seems to be shared by all of these investments”? That then lead me to the above thought. This is a much better intuition pump than “what should this fund be uncertain about”? I think that’s the difference between uncertainty and insidious correlation, and I think you’re interpreting insidious correlation as another name for uncertainty.
Hmm, I don’t think I agree.
I think the most powerful form of compounding in the EA movement context is of people and reputation, which are upstream of money and influence. Great people + great reputation → more great people + more great reputation.
Most endeavours over long periods of time have some geometric/compounding aspects, and some arithmetic aspects.
But usually, I think compounding is more important: that’s how you avoid ruin (which isn’t a big deal outside of compounding unless you use log utility which is equivalent to caring about compounding), and that’s how you get really big returns.
Successful countries weren’t built in a day. Successful charities weren’t built in a day. Many things have to go right, and some things must not happen, for a movement to succeed. That’s essentially just compounding.