Quiet Here Busy Elsewhere
I’ve Been Busy
I moved states, started a new job, and have been reading tons of new (and old) approaches to managing our planet. I wish I could write it all down but I simply can’t cram it all into a post.
Instead I have a few projects to reveal: EcoResilience Via Biodiversity is a group for effective altruists interested in biodiversity and environmental issues to share what we know, work together, and do what we can to improve conservation and restoration.
This is our temporary website where we share most of the interesting articles, podcasts, and events we are discussing. We also have a telegram chat where we strategize, work on projects together, and relax and have fun. Its about 12 people from all over the world and I am so grateful to have met everyone in our group.
We are going to a few different EA conferences together, specifically EAG Bay Area, EAGxCambridge, and EAGxNordic.
It has been a wild ride and most of my energy has been going into developing the group as well as researching lots of things. You can see some of it on the website. Some of it on my twitter. And some of it has been reading and summarizing what I find on biodiversity credits and indigenous methods of living with the land. Hopefully I will be able to make a post or write a report about those at some point.
I also have been continuing to try and build a picture of possible future worlds. I read this story by Karl Schroeder a year ago. With chatGPT I am thinking about it being more realistic sooner than I thought. Karl Schroeder is a brilliant near future author who is both realistic and optimistic. Quite a rarity. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about his work in later posts. As I try to imagine a high tech desirable ecological future I keep coming back to it as the only realistic example I have. The Desire Lines
I also want to highlight this recent discussion about the repurcussions of putting a montary value on nature. It was a respectful disagreement between two very intelligent people who hold wildly different positions for very good reasons. I have been struggling with this very dilemna for awhile now.
6th mass extinction
And lastly, I was going to write an entire post on the 6th Mass Extinction, but I was saved by this tweet which says all there is to say.
As percentage of species extinct, we are nowhere near a mass extinction. As speed of species extinction, we are heading towards one. But it will take several centuries at current extinction rates to be realised. See https://t.co/PqSLYl4Edt.
— Henrique Pereira (@hmlfpereira) January 5, 2023