We Should Ignore The Environment

     Yes, climate change is a problem and humans are making it worse. But it is not going to kill us all, and it is not even going to kill most of us. Most countries are pushing for greater environmental regulations, and pretty much everyone is now aware of the issues at hand. The solutions are harder to discern, but there are now entire industries devoted to building a more sustainable future. Climate change is a problem, but there are simply more pressing existential risks at hand (AI, nuclear war, chemically engineered pandemics). Using investing terminology, I would say that climate change is overvalued and these others are massively undervalued. If you are passionate about the environment and plan to live your life campaigning and donating for that cause, that is perfectly acceptable. Positive impacts are positive impacts, and you deserve to follow your passion. However, for people with less heavy interest, we should focus our time and effort elsewhere.

    Still, from an effective altruist standpoint, how should we handle environmental issues? In my opinion, every environmental problem is simply an energy problem. Water quality and availability is an energy problem (reverse osmosis, you can use energy to convert bad water to good water). Carbon in the atmosphere is an energy problem (the type of energy you use puts it in, you can use energy to take it out). The world getting warmer or colder is an energy problem (massive amounts of energy can be used to heat and cool things). Thankfully, there is a carbon neutral way to generate massive amounts of energy with minimal waste: nuclear energy. Anyone who claims to care about sustainable energy yet campaigns against nuclear is a legitimate fraud. The existence of so many irrational and regressive people astounds me, and because of my sheer rage at such irrationality I find it hard to even discuss the issue. For context, I have a shirt that says "Go Green, Go Nuclear" and am looking forward to the day when nuclear fusion catapults us forward into a post-scarcity society. 

    Despite my provocative title, we should still care broadly about the environment. We should clean up trash, reduce carbon emissions, and advocate against companies that pollute. Most importantly, we should strongly campaign for nuclear energy and push forward with nuclear fusion research. To me, this is by far the most undervalued aspect of climate change prevention, whereas every other aspect is overvalued. We should do all of these things because we should care about the future of the planet and the future of the human race. Still, we should focus the bulk of our time on more important things.