The Nonlinear Library EA - Resilience to Nuclear & Volcanic Winter by Stan Pinsent
Jul 9, 2024
07:11
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Resilience to Nuclear & Volcanic Winter, published by Stan Pinsent on July 9, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This is a summary. The full CEARCH report can be found here.
Key points
Policy advocacy, targeted at a few key countries, is the most promising way to increase resilience to global agricultural crises. Advocacy should focus on increasing the degree to which governments respond with effective food distribution measures, continued trade, and adaptations to the agricultural sector.
We
estimate that an advocacy campaign costing ~$1million would avert 6,000 deaths in expectation. Incorporating the full mortality, morbidity and economic effects, the intervention would provide a marginal expected value of 24,000 DALYs per $100,000. This is around 30x the cost-effectiveness of a typical GiveWell-recommended charity.
Compared to other interventions addressing Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR), the evidence is unusually robust:
We know that the threat is real: volcanic cooling is confirmed by the historical and geological record.
We know this is neglected: current food resilience policy focuses on protecting farmers and consumers from price changes, regional agricultural shortfalls or from small global shocks. There is very little being done to prepare for a significant global agricultural shortfall.
We are uncertain about the effect size: we have significant uncertainty about the extent to which governments and the international community would step up to the challenge of a global agricultural shortfall. There is little evidence on the scale of the effect that a policy breakthrough would have on the human response.
GCR policy experts were broadly optimistic about the value of further work in this area. On average, they estimated that a two-person, five-year advocacy effort would have a 25% probability of triggering a significant policy breakthrough in one country. Experts emphasized the importance of multi-year funding to enable policy advocates to build strategic relationships.
Some experts suggested that food resilience is a better framing than ASRS (cooling catastrophe) resilience for policies that protect against global agricultural shortfall.
We identify two main sources of downside risk. (1) Increasing resilience to nuclear winter could reduce countries' reluctance to use nuclear weapons. (2) nuclear winter resilience efforts could be seen by other nuclear-armed states as preparation for war, thereby increasing tensions. However, these risks are unlikely to apply to broader food resilience efforts.
Executive Summary
This report addresses Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios (ASRSs) - catastrophic global cooling events triggered by large volcanic eruptions or nuclear conflicts - and interventions that may increase global resilience to such catastrophes. Cooling catastrophes can severely disrupt agricultural production worldwide, potentially leading to devastating famines.
We evaluate the probability of such events, model their expected impacts under various response scenarios, and identify the most promising interventions to increase global resilience.
Volcanoes are the main source of risk according to our model, although we expect nuclear cooling events to be more damaging.
We estimate that the
annual probability of an ASRS causing at least 1°C of average cooling over land is around 1 in 400, or a 20% per-century risk. Most of the threat comes from large volcanic eruptions injecting sun-blocking particles into the upper atmosphere. While the probability of a severe "nuclear winter" scenario is lower, such an event could potentially comprise a substantial portion of the expected overall burden.
This is due to the compounding effects of nuclear conflict undermining the international cooperation and social stability required for an effective humanitarian response...
This is a summary. The full CEARCH report can be found here.
Key points
Policy advocacy, targeted at a few key countries, is the most promising way to increase resilience to global agricultural crises. Advocacy should focus on increasing the degree to which governments respond with effective food distribution measures, continued trade, and adaptations to the agricultural sector.
We
estimate that an advocacy campaign costing ~$1million would avert 6,000 deaths in expectation. Incorporating the full mortality, morbidity and economic effects, the intervention would provide a marginal expected value of 24,000 DALYs per $100,000. This is around 30x the cost-effectiveness of a typical GiveWell-recommended charity.
Compared to other interventions addressing Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR), the evidence is unusually robust:
We know that the threat is real: volcanic cooling is confirmed by the historical and geological record.
We know this is neglected: current food resilience policy focuses on protecting farmers and consumers from price changes, regional agricultural shortfalls or from small global shocks. There is very little being done to prepare for a significant global agricultural shortfall.
We are uncertain about the effect size: we have significant uncertainty about the extent to which governments and the international community would step up to the challenge of a global agricultural shortfall. There is little evidence on the scale of the effect that a policy breakthrough would have on the human response.
GCR policy experts were broadly optimistic about the value of further work in this area. On average, they estimated that a two-person, five-year advocacy effort would have a 25% probability of triggering a significant policy breakthrough in one country. Experts emphasized the importance of multi-year funding to enable policy advocates to build strategic relationships.
Some experts suggested that food resilience is a better framing than ASRS (cooling catastrophe) resilience for policies that protect against global agricultural shortfall.
We identify two main sources of downside risk. (1) Increasing resilience to nuclear winter could reduce countries' reluctance to use nuclear weapons. (2) nuclear winter resilience efforts could be seen by other nuclear-armed states as preparation for war, thereby increasing tensions. However, these risks are unlikely to apply to broader food resilience efforts.
Executive Summary
This report addresses Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios (ASRSs) - catastrophic global cooling events triggered by large volcanic eruptions or nuclear conflicts - and interventions that may increase global resilience to such catastrophes. Cooling catastrophes can severely disrupt agricultural production worldwide, potentially leading to devastating famines.
We evaluate the probability of such events, model their expected impacts under various response scenarios, and identify the most promising interventions to increase global resilience.
Volcanoes are the main source of risk according to our model, although we expect nuclear cooling events to be more damaging.
We estimate that the
annual probability of an ASRS causing at least 1°C of average cooling over land is around 1 in 400, or a 20% per-century risk. Most of the threat comes from large volcanic eruptions injecting sun-blocking particles into the upper atmosphere. While the probability of a severe "nuclear winter" scenario is lower, such an event could potentially comprise a substantial portion of the expected overall burden.
This is due to the compounding effects of nuclear conflict undermining the international cooperation and social stability required for an effective humanitarian response...