Deep Green Ethics from EA , AI, and exobiology researcher Andrea Owe
Why do we want to avoid catastrophic events? What future are we trying to achieve? These questions ask us to understand what we value, and why. For Andrea, it is our planetary ecosystem - planet Earth itself and its unique story of life - that holds the greatest moral value and compels us to prevent catastrophic risk. In this talk, Andrea presents why she believes in this moral framework, and how we can apply it to catastrophic risks. Drawing on her work on AI and outer space colonization, Andrea will develop concrete examples of how her perspective can create effective solutions to serious problems, and what EA might be able to learn from alternatives to utilitarianism. Andrea Owe is currently a Research Associate at the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, where she focuses on Ethics of Global Catastrophic Risk, Ethics of AI, Ethics of Nonhumans, Ethics of Space Exploration, and Ethics of the Long-Term Future.Deep Green Ethics and Planetary Wellbeing by Andrea Owe
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Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse Insects are essential for life as we know it. As they become more scarce, our world will slowly grind to a halt; we simply cannot function without them. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime's study, Dave Goulson reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades, with potentially catastrophic consequences. He passionately argues that we must all learn to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends. Eye-opening, inspiring and riveting, Silent Earth is part love letter to the insect world, part elegy, part rousing manifesto for a greener planet. It is a call to arms for profound change at every level - in government policy, agriculture, industry and in our own homes and gardens. Although time is running out, it is not yet too late for insect populations to recover. We may feel helpless in the face of many of the environmental issues that loom on our horizon, but Goulson shows us that we can all take simple steps to encourage insects and counter their destruction. World Wildlife Foundation has put together a 9 part series on AI and wildlife conservation. (The last two seminars are still upcoming if you want to attend them live.)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has left the lab and now affects many aspects of our lives - from our smart phones automatically categorizing the photos we take to automated resume readers which sort us into viable and non-viable job candidates. Conservation organizations like WWF have long used AI to monitor the health of wildlife, forests, and other ecosystems, and just like everywhere else, new applications of AI are accelerating our ability to understand the world around us. The series will focus on how AI is being used to support conservation efforts. The series will discuss the past, present and future of how these technologies advance sustainability, with a focus on the future, and an eye on both the upsides and the risks of these technologies in a conservation context. Doconomy explores ways to connect spending with carbon footprints. Your spending is essentially restricted when you attempt to spend beyond the amount that your daily carbon footprint amount will allow. Some of this I realize is highly contentious and may feel a bit too restricting, but it at least inspires some further thinking (I hope). Anyway, it’s just a share and I am on the lookout for other initiatives. Right now also looking at the Olio app which connects restaurants to people, serving free food to people instead of throwing out food that’s about to expire. I found this inspiring as well!
SciStarter is a great way to find citizen science projects to get involved in. There are subjects with everything from Ecology, Climate, Insects and Oceanography to Astronomy and Disaster Response.
For those of you interested in partaking in research, SciStarter is a platform that serves as a directory for matching people with citizen science projects all over the world, both online and in person. There are tons of citizen science projects on this website dealing with biodiversity that I reckon it could be the easiest way forward for many of you in this group.
Grown for centuries by indigenous farmers in rural Mexico, this incredibly rare corn can self-fertilise. In episode three of 'Planet Fix', we explore how this wonder crop could help tackle world hunger, and even end farming's toxic reliance on chemical fertilisers for good!
Twenty-five grants of $3000 each are available to researchers from/based in the ‘Global South’ who have undertaken original empirical research and wish to write this up. Applications should include a short abstract (300 words), a profile of the applicant(s) (300 words), two names of references, in English (We will also accept some applications in Spanish and French). These should be submitted as one document to [email protected] by 31 May 2023.
The ANdinA 5 day retreat is happening in Chile in 2024 on February 19-23. It is the 6th of several international conferences for ecologists, especially early career ecologists. The purpose is to get more ecology researchers to orient their work towards making a difference in conservation. The conference will involve walking through Conguillio National Park while reflecting on your role as a socially responsible ecologist. Cost is $600-1,400 and covers airfare, food, and lodging. Traditionally, the role of ecological science has been to avoid policy-making and activism. It is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the ecological crisis we are facing and the political decisions leading to it. In public health and medicine, it is the role of the physician to publicly speak up if political decisions are made against scientific recommendations with harmful impacts to society, yet ecologists often maintain a professional detachment from public issues. As ecological researchers, we are largely funded by society and our funding agencies have expectations for their investment. Like any other members of society, we are prone to biases and opinions based on our own social and political opinions. We make mistakes; however we have poorly developed systems to manage this or to remediate problems.
This leads to questions such as: How can we be more effective in preventing further deterioration of the natural world in light of the ecological knowledge our discipline has gathered? What should our role as ecological researchers be? Is it sufficient to only engage in research and effective communication, or should we be taking a more disruptive role in driving change? How should professional ecological societies challenge the traditional roles of their members and their collective voice in decision-making? How can we work more effectively with other stakeholders? MongaBay has several promising topics as part of their Conservation Effectiveness initiative. Conservationists need to make decisions. Easily accessing the available evidence on what has worked and where is crucial - just as it is important to be able to see what has not worked so well. Conservation Effectiveness is an ongoing science-journalism initiative focused on investigating which conservation strategies work or not, and under what circumstances.
Their interactive dashboard cites scientific papers "for" and "against" each area as well as the geographic location of the paper's research. |