EA - 2022 ALLFED highlights by Ross Tieman

Link to original articleWelcome 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: 2022 ALLFED highlights, published by Ross Tieman on November 28, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Executive SummaryLike many others, we are reeling from recent FTX news, and what it means for ALLFED and the whole EA Community. Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters was an FTX Future Fund grantee. Taken the current landscape, we were debating whether we should include it in these highlights. We have decided to do so in the interest of transparency and integrity, so as to accurately report on our January-November 2022 position.We would like to start with massive thanks to Jaan Tallinn, whose generous support last year through the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($1,154,000) is a major reason why we are able to weather this storm (also a huge thank you to all our other donors, we appreciate each and every one).2022 marks ALLFED’s 5th anniversary (2017-2022). Being a fully remote team, we now have team members on all continents except Antarctica. By the end of the year, we will have a presence in New Zealand due to David Denkenberger accepting a professor position at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.In these 2022 highlights:To start with, we give updates on ALLFED’s 2022 research, including our papers and Abrupt Sun Reduction Scenario (ASRS) preparedness and response plans, including a recent proposal for the US government.Next, we talk about financial mechanisms for food system interventions, including superpests, climate food finance nexus, pandemic preparedness, and our policy work.We then move to operations and communications highlights, including our media mentions.We next talk about events, workshops and presentations we have delivered this year.We then dive into some major changes to our team (including at the management level), ALLFED’s internships and our volunteering program, and also give key statistics from this spring’s research associate recruitment (you will also find there imminent PhD opportunities as well as a temporary researcher position with David in New Zealand).Finally, we thank those whose support we wish to especially recognize this year and talk about our funding needs for 2023, which range from dedicated funding to establish an ALLFED UK charity, to resilient food pilots, to support to continue key priority research projects on the topic of resilient foods for nuclear winter-level shocks, and to support preparedness and response plans (essential if we are to be able to present to decision makers within the current policy window).There is no escaping the fact that, rather unexpectedly, our funding situation has worsened due to the FTX developments. We will therefore be especially grateful for your donations and support this giving season (please visit our donation webpage or contact [email protected] if you are interested in donating appreciated stock).Since our inception, we have been contributing annual updates to the EA Forum. You can find last year’s ALLFED Highlights here, and here is our last EA Forum post EA Resilience & ALLFED's Case Study.ResearchIt’s been a good year for research at ALLFED.PapersWe have submitted 4 papers to peer review, one of which has now been accepted and published.Authors: David Denkenberger, Anders Sandberg, Ross John Tieman, Joshua M. PearceStatus: Published (peer reviewed)Journal: The International Journal of Disaster Risk ReductionThis paper estimates the long-term cost-effectiveness of resilient foods for preventing starvation in the face of a global agricultural collapse caused by a long-lasting sunlight reduction, and compares it with that of investing in artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety. Using two versions of a probabilistic model, the researchers find that investing in resilient foods is more cost-effective than investing in AGI safety, with a confidence of ...