This weekend we are celebrating World Environment Day by exploring how big the risks posed by climate change are and how we might best mitigate these risks.
Please share the questions you have for two esteemed researchers in this field, Johannes Ackva and John Halstead.
How do they think funding the development of alternative proteins might compare to donations to the Clean Air Task Force?
I often get asked from people outside the EA community what is the best place to make a donation to fight climate change.
When I mention the options proposed by Founders Pledge (CATF, Carbon180), they are almost always put off and end up not donating at all. It seems to me like for them the concept of donating to policy advocacy or technology innovation is counterintuitive. Note that these people are usually not willing to invest hours reading about or listening to all the arguments that FP offers.
For those cases, I miss being able to confidently give an alternative that:
I lately mention Eden Reforestation Projects based on this post, but I am not sure how reliable that is study.
I guess I could sum-up my recommendation strategy as follows:
1. Give to the organisations recommended by Founders Pledge
2. Try to convince them of doing so, explaining why it is so effective
3. Give to an alternative organisation that is still pretty effective and easy to understand
What are your thoughts about this situation?
Is there any organisation that could reliably be recommended as second-best and is at the same time easily understandable for non-EAs?
Thanks for the good question, I hope they raise the topic at the event!
It might not be completely satisfactory to what you're looking for, but from what I hear it seems like the work at givinggreen.earth seems to have exactly those people in mind by giving more recommendations than just policy.
I have anecdotal evidence from Swedish donors being happier with BURN Manufacturing as an evidence backed climate intervention with positive effects on the local community, than an option more effective on a co2e/$ basis.
One question we might still want to ask ... (read more)
Thanks for the input, henrith.
This anecdotal evidence from Sweden that you mentioned is what I also noticed when talking to people interested in climate change, but not into the EA-movement.
Regarding Giving Green, there was a very interesting discussion in the forum.
It seems like the differentials between BURN and CATF are more than 10x and could be even 100x, if CATF eventually managed to have an impact of $0.20/ton. This does not seem unrealistic considering that the estimations of $1/ton are conservative.
The study I referenced about Eden Reforestation m... (read more)
Advanced nuclear seems to be a technological solution where many pose a lot of hope. When is it estimated that it could be a mature enough to be implemented at large scale?
Additionally to this: What is the best way to convince green and left political parties (EU view), that have in many cases started and championed anti-nuclear-sentiments, that they should drop their old convictions; and that this is not a betrayal of their ideology?
Edit: And in another extension, their/the electorate that is also to a big part negatively impressed by it?
For John if he checks this: You said that you disagreed with people who said climate change isn't neglected - what are your reasons for that?
Hello!
I agree that climate change is not neglected but I view that as a bit of a weak steer when deciding whether to work on it, for reasons I outline here. Neglectedness is one determinant of how cost-effective it is to work on a problem, but there are many others. Taking the example of AI safety - it is more neglected than climate change, but I have almost no idea how to make progress on this problem, whereas with climate change there is quite a clear path to making a difference. It also might be true that certain solutions within climate are less neglec... (read more)
Clean Air Task Force appear to take the position that, while renewables can dominate the production of electricity over the coming decades, we need some 'firm' clean energy to fill-in during weeks/months of low sun and wind. If we don't do this, they argue that we will need vastly more renewables, which will increase the cost and lead to issues around land use, and ultimately put at risk achieving zero carbon.
My position is roughly the following:
1. I agree with this line of reasoning in the way that CATF presents it, i.e. that while there is a possibility that intermittent renewables alone could be sufficient, this is not particularly like and, crucially, this is not where most climate risk is that we should hedge against.
Of course there is (and CATF acknowledges this) a future where intermittent renewables solve almost the entire decarbonization challenge, but this requires a lot of things to go right including (1) continued cost reductions, (2) solving the ch... (read more)
If we’re expecting low-coordination futures, does that mean that funding advocacy work for policy leadership (e.g. 2008 Climate Change Act in the UK) is less impactful as countries are now less likely to copy one another and we should focus predominately on innovated-focused policy work?
This is one consideration among many, but if low-coordination futures are (a) a significant part of the probability mass (b) and are sufficiently bad (both of which seem plausible) this can be an important consideration in favor of innovation / solutions that work when shit hits the fan.
At FP, we're trying to get a better handle on the quantitative import of this consideration and others to be able to make more informed statements about how the balance shakes out (e.g. hypothetically, what if policy leadership was really neglected and super high... (read more)
How should I integrate the data on climate-related deaths, as they have decreased about 99% since the 1930s and continue to decrease with each decade? In other words, does the trend of actual (not modeled) climate-related deaths matter? Reference: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database; articles by Indur Goklany
What are your book recommendations for layman to learn about Climate Change and understand some of the effective causes that can make a difference for Climate Change? Thanks.
Bill Gates' How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a pretty good introduction to the challenge, very accessible and framing the challenge of climate change in the wider context of a developing world with rising energy needs (something the debate too often forgets).
Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air is somewhat dated now, but a classic and available freely on the internet (https://www.withouthotair.com/).
The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success by Mark Jaccard is also good, although it does not give a full overview in the way the other books mentioned here do.
What are the most promising career pathways or current opportunities for early-career people interested in mitigating risks posed by climate change?
My own thoughts: I have a bias against doing a PhD in climate science (which is generally recommended) and going into research. This is because that by the time you're doing great research and are well-respected (5-10 years), you've lost a lot of time in terms of carbon lock-in and you could've have potentially done some great advocacy work in the mean-time or supported clean-tech work etc.
Some people argue that we not only need to prevent further greenhouse gas emissions, but that it should also be a priority to reduce the current amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Do they share this position, and if so, do they think that it could be more effective to fund the development of greenhouse gas absorbing technologies (which could potentially reduce the current amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) than to fund initiatives to reduce further GHG emissions, which do not share this potential.
Thanks for the input, henrith.
This anecdotal evidence from Sweden that you mentioned is what I also noticed when talking to people interested in climate change, but not into the EA-movement.
Regarding Giving Green, there was a very interesting discussion in the forum.
It seems like the differentials between BURN and CATF are more than 10x and could be even 100x, if CATF eventually managed to have an impact of $0.20/ton. This does not seem unrealistic considering that the estimations of $1/ton are conservative.
The study I referenced about Eden Reforestation mentioned an estimated impact of $0.36/ton. This would actually be in the same order of magnitude as the conservative estimates for the most effective organisation. This is why I mentioned that organisation as a potential alternative.
An additional point to consider is that it might not be the same:
* making a personal recommendation to someone that might probably not donate otherwise.
* recommending it on a website.
If an organisation is recommended on a website, there is the risk that people that would otherwise donate to the most effective organisations will change their donation to those less effective ones, having a relative negative impact. If I remember well, this was one of the arguments Johannes used, which I found fair enough, especially if we are talking about orders of magnitude of difference.
Looking forward to hearing more thoughts on this topic :)