One quick point: global warming is necessary so we can keep using fossil fuels to progress as a species so we can one day help animals. The only viable alternative is nuclear, but thanks to regulations there’s no way it could replace fossil fuels in the short term even if the regulations disappeared overnight. We’d have to build countless nuclear plants overnight in response.
So the only way humans could progress and help wild animals is for fossil fuels or some unforeseen energy tech revolution. Stopping global warming would require mass energy poverty for the world which would obviously slow human progress. Alternative energy sources like solar and wind simply aren’t viable. This isn’t some fringe idea, it’s a known scientific fact about energy that solar and wind face intermittency problems and simply don’t even begin to compete with fossil fuels in most use cases.
I'm assuming here that GHG emissions slow down or reach net-zero within ~100 years and the environment becomes more stable by the end of the millennium, and that means total biomass returns to normal (this is probably the most doubtful assumption). If it does, r-strategists who have disproportionately survived and who have short reproductive cycles can repopulate quickly. A lot of K-strategists would have been driven extinct and it takes a long time for them to diversify again because their reproductive cycles are so slow, so the strategist effect lasts a long time. At least, this is my impression of what we should expect after mass extinction events.
Then the implication of this argument is that we should accelerate climate change drastically to ensure a larger and more permanent biomass reduction? Also seems like an unstable set of calculations to make this case on…
I think the most reasonable conclusion is to expend a lot of resources to prevent further warming, since that avoids all the problems with intentionally destroying wildlife (it’s unpredictable, could inadvertently increase suffering depending on trophic level, might promote speciesist values, I give nonzero credence to causing suffering being worse than letting it occur…) but I suppose there might be a case for accelerationism.
I’m also not really wedded to the argument but I don’t think any of the assumptions is obviously wrong, so I think it’s fairly plausible. But if an ecologist or someone told me it’s wrong I’d probably just believe them.
The worst part of this article is the choice to not capitalize "R."
R-selective animals might have a higher pain tolerance than K-selective species, meaning that, in the service of pain reduction, we should actually maximize global warming, to kill off all the K-selective species.
I don't know what my ethical principle is called, but maybe I would call it something like "intentionalism." It is not good to cause intentional harm, and factory farming is intentional harm. Global warming is not. This then raises the question of what constitutes intentionality. I would suggest a strict definition, something like, "intentionality requires direct certain causation." So if I raise a chicken in a factory farm, I know for certain the chicken will suffer. However, global warming might cause suffering, but it might not, and I am not sure. If it does cause suffering, that's not my intention, but an unfortunate side effect.
I would argue that we have a moral duty to reduce plastic and toxic chemicals in the environment, because we know for certain that it causes pain and suffering for animals. I am not sure what the primary mechanism of die-off for species under the climate change model is -- food deprivation and starvation?
I'll add some other "intentionalist" qualifier, that I think causing an "unnatural" death is worse than a "natural" death. Animals die of starvation without humans, but only humans can cause toxic pollution and the diseases which result. Qualitatively, it seems worse to die of toxic pollution than starvation. This is partially for evolutionary reasons, since animals are "designed" to avoid starvation, and could theoretically compete or migrate to avoid starvation. However, with toxic pollution, they have no inbuilt defenses, so this is "unfair."
Furthermore, I would say that how we treat animals is more relevant when we consider the possible secondary effects on humans. For example, if we torture animals, we are more likely to justify torturing humans, saying things like, "these people are inferior, they are just like animals, so it is ok if we torture them." Similarly, if we pollute animal environments, we are much more likely to also pollute human environments (especially since we share the same environment). However, heating up the environment and causing starvation does not necessarily lead to the same kind of secondary effect on humans. Although I have seen climate change models where the global south starves due to climate change, I think the best way to address this threat is with sub-natalist policies, not by imposing energy regulations.
Cross-posted from EA Forum, as I’m curious to hear what you think:
Brian Tomasik considers more selection toward animals with faster life histories in his piece on the effects of climate change on wild animals (https://reducing-suffering.org/climate-change-and-wild-animals/). He seems to think it‘s not decisive (and ends up concluding that he’s basically 50–50 on the sign of the effects of climate change on overall animal suffering) for ~three reasons (paraphrasing Tomasik):
(1) Some of the animals with slower life histories which get replaced are often carnivorous/omnivorous, which might mean climate change increases invertebrate populations.
(2) Instability might also affect plants, which could lower net primary productivity and hence invertebrate populations.
(3) Many of the “ultimate” life forms with fast life histories will be microorganisms that we don’t put much moral weight in.
I’d be curious for how you think the arguments in the above post should change Tomasik’s view, in light of these considerations.
"Just the ~1.2°C in global warming we’ve observed so far has already contributed to a 73% decline in the population of wild vertebrates since 1970 and the extinction of up to 2.5% of vertebrate species.", using the LPI like this seems remarkably misleading (https://ourworldindata.org/living-planet-index-decline) and (https://ourworldindata.org/living-planet-index-understanding). Also at least when it comes to mammals it's surprising how few people realize that humans have massively inflated their populations (https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass), unfortunately OWID is not Schopenhauer pilled (https://ourworldindata.org//europe-mammal-comeback). I reckon u just encourage more overfishing and habitat loss, like on the margin the effects of doing that seems much better than trying to hijack the global warming doomsday cult, like honestly those long run predictions just seem like nonsense. EFFECTIVE altruism demands looking at the most EFFECTIVE means to end wild animal suffering, this 5 head galaxy brained straussian stuff ain't it.
Global warming is not the only reason (maybe not even the main reason yet) for biodiversity decline. other sorts of polutions and the direct destruction of natural habitats are more likely culprits.
You might think the arguments in my other comment is crazy, but just so you know I think this post is thoughtful. I had thought about the climate change vs. factory farming utility comparison before, but I hadn’t considered this point exactly.
If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, read Alex Epstein’s Substack and his book “Fossil Future.” Bryan Caplan pointed me towards him, and while I was highly skeptical at first and was suspicious it would be poorly argued propaganda due to the right’s reputation on this (Caplan said he felt the same way before reading him), I was legitimately shocked when I saw how well-argued and sophisticated his arguments are. https://energytalkingpoints.com/irrefutable-ff/
Minor quibble in the first paragraph before I get to the main thrust of the post (which I'm very excited about, by the way- fascinating, prime facie implausible claim that I'm intrigued to hear the defence of).
What's weird about thinking the human race might continue elsewhere in the universe? That's the point of trying to colonise other planets, which of course the world's richest man is famously obsessed with, and has been pouring resources into achieving (and making genuinely substantial strides towards). It seems fairly plausible that it can be achieved in the coming decades, even without the slow-moving ecological catastrophe that climate change could represent spurring wider and greater urgency. If climate change *did* eliminate all life on earth, then in the intervening period presumably colonisation would become a much more popular and pressing concern, especially in the most likely scenarios where it causes mass devastation of largely developing global south regions first, and therefore provides ample warning without any great blow to our technological capacity or the like.
As with AI, it seems to depend to a large extent on the speed at which everything accelerates. In "fast takeoff" worlds where climate change suddenly killed us all, I'd agree. In "slow takeoff" worlds where we simply can't undo or prevent the unforeseen runaway effects of the first few degrees of warming, I think we very often make it off Earth before it kills us all.
It's probably moot, because we seem to agree that climate change is very unlikely to do so, given our current understanding. But I challenge the idea that it is somehow incoherent to believe human life will continue, while life on earth will not.
Holy statistics. This reminds me of hanging out with a wildlife biologist buddy of mine at a secret fishing spot chatting over beers, fresh brook trout, drinking the beer thru a bug net, and asking him what up with the population of moose, bear, deer, and turkey. Turkeys are really dumb birds that love to reproduce. They nearly went extinct because they are so easy to find and shoot.
I believe this whole article can be summarized by a comparison between how whales and how cockroaches work. Here is a non-technical story, based on 10 years of being a hired gun (consultant) for the largest lobster processing factory in Maine (now out of business because it was a 10-year plan, 75,000 pounds/day processed, mostly for sale in Europe).
And keeping with the Gulf of Maine theme here. Lobsters are the cockroaches of the sea and they are not doing that well either. But that is a whole different story because we put lobsters in a box (rising temperatures). The west side of the box is dry land. The east side of the box is the abyssal plain. The north side of the box is Newfoundland fisherman. The south side of the box is Massachusetts fisherman, no wait it is the Isle of Shoals now I think. But as a cod would say this is not new news. And now lets throw a red herring into the mix - yup herring is the best lobster bait out there, shrubbers do not have a monopoly on herring just because the Knights Who Say "Ni" say so. I can not tell you how hard a collapse of the herring fishery was on the lobster industry. For a couple of years they actually used a bait fish (can not remember the name) from South America to catch lobsters.
The benefit of all of this is that those in the middle make more money because the supply is limited - even if the cost of bait skyrockets. But do sea farmers poison the well, or do they learn from the mistakes of the cod and herring industries. I know the later is true because I've heard all the stories first hand and read books. In the end all that money they made on that limited duration venture was/is being put to good use. Sea farmers are really smart, they always funnel some of the profits into people and missions (seeds) that preserve the value of the industry. They hate climate change and polluters, why because it is bad for business.
One quick point: global warming is necessary so we can keep using fossil fuels to progress as a species so we can one day help animals. The only viable alternative is nuclear, but thanks to regulations there’s no way it could replace fossil fuels in the short term even if the regulations disappeared overnight. We’d have to build countless nuclear plants overnight in response.
So the only way humans could progress and help wild animals is for fossil fuels or some unforeseen energy tech revolution. Stopping global warming would require mass energy poverty for the world which would obviously slow human progress. Alternative energy sources like solar and wind simply aren’t viable. This isn’t some fringe idea, it’s a known scientific fact about energy that solar and wind face intermittency problems and simply don’t even begin to compete with fossil fuels in most use cases.
Phew, i can stop caring about factory farming as well then
I don't really get why the R-strategist effects would be longer term than the reduction in population sizes.
I'm assuming here that GHG emissions slow down or reach net-zero within ~100 years and the environment becomes more stable by the end of the millennium, and that means total biomass returns to normal (this is probably the most doubtful assumption). If it does, r-strategists who have disproportionately survived and who have short reproductive cycles can repopulate quickly. A lot of K-strategists would have been driven extinct and it takes a long time for them to diversify again because their reproductive cycles are so slow, so the strategist effect lasts a long time. At least, this is my impression of what we should expect after mass extinction events.
Then the implication of this argument is that we should accelerate climate change drastically to ensure a larger and more permanent biomass reduction? Also seems like an unstable set of calculations to make this case on…
I think the most reasonable conclusion is to expend a lot of resources to prevent further warming, since that avoids all the problems with intentionally destroying wildlife (it’s unpredictable, could inadvertently increase suffering depending on trophic level, might promote speciesist values, I give nonzero credence to causing suffering being worse than letting it occur…) but I suppose there might be a case for accelerationism.
I’m also not really wedded to the argument but I don’t think any of the assumptions is obviously wrong, so I think it’s fairly plausible. But if an ecologist or someone told me it’s wrong I’d probably just believe them.
This seems plausible! I'm convinced!
Thought-provoking post. I’m glad to see serious thinking about the experiences of the totality of creatures on our planet.
The worst part of this article is the choice to not capitalize "R."
R-selective animals might have a higher pain tolerance than K-selective species, meaning that, in the service of pain reduction, we should actually maximize global warming, to kill off all the K-selective species.
I don't know what my ethical principle is called, but maybe I would call it something like "intentionalism." It is not good to cause intentional harm, and factory farming is intentional harm. Global warming is not. This then raises the question of what constitutes intentionality. I would suggest a strict definition, something like, "intentionality requires direct certain causation." So if I raise a chicken in a factory farm, I know for certain the chicken will suffer. However, global warming might cause suffering, but it might not, and I am not sure. If it does cause suffering, that's not my intention, but an unfortunate side effect.
I would argue that we have a moral duty to reduce plastic and toxic chemicals in the environment, because we know for certain that it causes pain and suffering for animals. I am not sure what the primary mechanism of die-off for species under the climate change model is -- food deprivation and starvation?
I'll add some other "intentionalist" qualifier, that I think causing an "unnatural" death is worse than a "natural" death. Animals die of starvation without humans, but only humans can cause toxic pollution and the diseases which result. Qualitatively, it seems worse to die of toxic pollution than starvation. This is partially for evolutionary reasons, since animals are "designed" to avoid starvation, and could theoretically compete or migrate to avoid starvation. However, with toxic pollution, they have no inbuilt defenses, so this is "unfair."
Furthermore, I would say that how we treat animals is more relevant when we consider the possible secondary effects on humans. For example, if we torture animals, we are more likely to justify torturing humans, saying things like, "these people are inferior, they are just like animals, so it is ok if we torture them." Similarly, if we pollute animal environments, we are much more likely to also pollute human environments (especially since we share the same environment). However, heating up the environment and causing starvation does not necessarily lead to the same kind of secondary effect on humans. Although I have seen climate change models where the global south starves due to climate change, I think the best way to address this threat is with sub-natalist policies, not by imposing energy regulations.
Good noggin stimulation!
Cross-posted from EA Forum, as I’m curious to hear what you think:
Brian Tomasik considers more selection toward animals with faster life histories in his piece on the effects of climate change on wild animals (https://reducing-suffering.org/climate-change-and-wild-animals/). He seems to think it‘s not decisive (and ends up concluding that he’s basically 50–50 on the sign of the effects of climate change on overall animal suffering) for ~three reasons (paraphrasing Tomasik):
(1) Some of the animals with slower life histories which get replaced are often carnivorous/omnivorous, which might mean climate change increases invertebrate populations.
(2) Instability might also affect plants, which could lower net primary productivity and hence invertebrate populations.
(3) Many of the “ultimate” life forms with fast life histories will be microorganisms that we don’t put much moral weight in.
I’d be curious for how you think the arguments in the above post should change Tomasik’s view, in light of these considerations.
"Just the ~1.2°C in global warming we’ve observed so far has already contributed to a 73% decline in the population of wild vertebrates since 1970 and the extinction of up to 2.5% of vertebrate species.", using the LPI like this seems remarkably misleading (https://ourworldindata.org/living-planet-index-decline) and (https://ourworldindata.org/living-planet-index-understanding). Also at least when it comes to mammals it's surprising how few people realize that humans have massively inflated their populations (https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass), unfortunately OWID is not Schopenhauer pilled (https://ourworldindata.org//europe-mammal-comeback). I reckon u just encourage more overfishing and habitat loss, like on the margin the effects of doing that seems much better than trying to hijack the global warming doomsday cult, like honestly those long run predictions just seem like nonsense. EFFECTIVE altruism demands looking at the most EFFECTIVE means to end wild animal suffering, this 5 head galaxy brained straussian stuff ain't it.
such a dope article
Global warming is not the only reason (maybe not even the main reason yet) for biodiversity decline. other sorts of polutions and the direct destruction of natural habitats are more likely culprits.
You might think the arguments in my other comment is crazy, but just so you know I think this post is thoughtful. I had thought about the climate change vs. factory farming utility comparison before, but I hadn’t considered this point exactly.
If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, read Alex Epstein’s Substack and his book “Fossil Future.” Bryan Caplan pointed me towards him, and while I was highly skeptical at first and was suspicious it would be poorly argued propaganda due to the right’s reputation on this (Caplan said he felt the same way before reading him), I was legitimately shocked when I saw how well-argued and sophisticated his arguments are. https://energytalkingpoints.com/irrefutable-ff/
Minor quibble in the first paragraph before I get to the main thrust of the post (which I'm very excited about, by the way- fascinating, prime facie implausible claim that I'm intrigued to hear the defence of).
What's weird about thinking the human race might continue elsewhere in the universe? That's the point of trying to colonise other planets, which of course the world's richest man is famously obsessed with, and has been pouring resources into achieving (and making genuinely substantial strides towards). It seems fairly plausible that it can be achieved in the coming decades, even without the slow-moving ecological catastrophe that climate change could represent spurring wider and greater urgency. If climate change *did* eliminate all life on earth, then in the intervening period presumably colonisation would become a much more popular and pressing concern, especially in the most likely scenarios where it causes mass devastation of largely developing global south regions first, and therefore provides ample warning without any great blow to our technological capacity or the like.
As with AI, it seems to depend to a large extent on the speed at which everything accelerates. In "fast takeoff" worlds where climate change suddenly killed us all, I'd agree. In "slow takeoff" worlds where we simply can't undo or prevent the unforeseen runaway effects of the first few degrees of warming, I think we very often make it off Earth before it kills us all.
It's probably moot, because we seem to agree that climate change is very unlikely to do so, given our current understanding. But I challenge the idea that it is somehow incoherent to believe human life will continue, while life on earth will not.
Holy statistics. This reminds me of hanging out with a wildlife biologist buddy of mine at a secret fishing spot chatting over beers, fresh brook trout, drinking the beer thru a bug net, and asking him what up with the population of moose, bear, deer, and turkey. Turkeys are really dumb birds that love to reproduce. They nearly went extinct because they are so easy to find and shoot.
I believe this whole article can be summarized by a comparison between how whales and how cockroaches work. Here is a non-technical story, based on 10 years of being a hired gun (consultant) for the largest lobster processing factory in Maine (now out of business because it was a 10-year plan, 75,000 pounds/day processed, mostly for sale in Europe).
And keeping with the Gulf of Maine theme here. Lobsters are the cockroaches of the sea and they are not doing that well either. But that is a whole different story because we put lobsters in a box (rising temperatures). The west side of the box is dry land. The east side of the box is the abyssal plain. The north side of the box is Newfoundland fisherman. The south side of the box is Massachusetts fisherman, no wait it is the Isle of Shoals now I think. But as a cod would say this is not new news. And now lets throw a red herring into the mix - yup herring is the best lobster bait out there, shrubbers do not have a monopoly on herring just because the Knights Who Say "Ni" say so. I can not tell you how hard a collapse of the herring fishery was on the lobster industry. For a couple of years they actually used a bait fish (can not remember the name) from South America to catch lobsters.
The benefit of all of this is that those in the middle make more money because the supply is limited - even if the cost of bait skyrockets. But do sea farmers poison the well, or do they learn from the mistakes of the cod and herring industries. I know the later is true because I've heard all the stories first hand and read books. In the end all that money they made on that limited duration venture was/is being put to good use. Sea farmers are really smart, they always funnel some of the profits into people and missions (seeds) that preserve the value of the industry. They hate climate change and polluters, why because it is bad for business.
Climate change is horseshit.