The "effective altruism" movement seeks to apply logical & empirical rigor to philanthropic giving, to maximize its impact. How do effective altruists view climate giving? What's the best, most impactful way to help on climate change? To find out, I talked with one of the leading voices in field.
As far as advocacy, I just finished emailing Senators Romney, Collins and Murkowski, describing the basics of the Build Back Better bill. I hope that they read the email and change their minds.
Advocacy is uncertain, and yet corporations pour millions and millions into advocacy and lobbying and for their efforts they regularly see a 10x, a 30x, or a 100x return on that investment. The uncertainty is there, but the returns are so great that corporations keep giving.
I think of advocacy as a strategic activity that fossil fuel companies undertook for decades, described in Frontline's recent "Power of Big Oil" series and covered in documentaries like "Merchants of Doubt" While I consider their advocacy to be a form of racketeering with its mix of money motive and harm, there's no doubt their investment paid enormous dividends. It worked.
So it goes with many kinds of strategic action. You can't launch into it knowing its results in advance and you can't point to it in hindsight as causing the intended outcome. And you wouldn't want to.
As far as advocacy, I just finished emailing Senators Romney, Collins and Murkowski, describing the basics of the Build Back Better bill. I hope that they read the email and change their minds.
Advocacy is uncertain, and yet corporations pour millions and millions into advocacy and lobbying and for their efforts they regularly see a 10x, a 30x, or a 100x return on that investment. The uncertainty is there, but the returns are so great that corporations keep giving.
I think of advocacy as a strategic activity that fossil fuel companies undertook for decades, described in Frontline's recent "Power of Big Oil" series and covered in documentaries like "Merchants of Doubt" While I consider their advocacy to be a form of racketeering with its mix of money motive and harm, there's no doubt their investment paid enormous dividends. It worked.
So it goes with many kinds of strategic action. You can't launch into it knowing its results in advance and you can't point to it in hindsight as causing the intended outcome. And you wouldn't want to.