Will the project "‘Nuclear Climate Change’: Mainstreaming New Science on the Systemic Environmental and Human Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Use in Established Nuclear Weapons Policy Circles" receive any funding from the Clearer Thinking Regranting program run by ClearerThinking.org?
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Below, you can find some selected quotes from the public copy of the application. The text beneath each heading was written by the applicant. Alternatively, you can click here to see the entire public portion of their application.
Why the applicant thinks we should fund this project
Scientific research and climate modelling developed over the last 40 years demonstrates that there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war, with even relatively small-scale nuclear exchanges triggering large-scale and often long-term impacts on Earth’s systems. This research has remained siloed and has failed to drive appropriate security policy change – in other words, it has been seriously neglected.
Yet, just as climate change science has slowly but steadily undermined the fossil fuel paradigm, this research on the systemic environmental and humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use appears to have the potential to radically challenge and reframe traditional thinking on the perceived security benefits of nuclear weapons. In doing so, it would make a rare, evidence-based contribution to a long-standing theoretical debate on the morality and utility of nuclear weapons. It would do this by demonstrating that a nuclear exchange would be far less ‘survivable’ than is generally imagined, create far more collateral damage to non-targeted human societies, and cause long-lasting harms to Earth’s systems that could take us beyond our planetary boundaries – with important consequences for nuclear planning. In other words, it has the potential to show that an attack on one would in many cases be an attack on all, including the attacker themselves, even in the absence of a second strike (returned fire).
Such opportunities to reframe the narrative are few. Nuclear risk reduction and disarmament are typically discussed within a narrow national security frame, such that decisions about whether to pursue further measures are taken only if they are considered to enhance the security interests of a given state. Since security officials in Nuclear Weapon States take a relatively zero-sum approach to these matters, in practice most measures are presumed to degrade state security interests (at the national level) and are therefore not pursued. This makes the opportunities to make serious progress on these agendas extremely limited, as has been evidenced by the last 30 years of inaction and backsliding within these agendas.
Flipping the conceptual underpinnings of nuclear deterrence are therefore the most valuable approaches that can be taken to achieve high-impact change. Indeed, informed decision and policy makers are generally well-disposed to accepting the methodologies that underpin the science of climate change. We feel that we are therefore pushing at an open door, particularly at this moment in history. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in light of the failure of the step-by-step approach in the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in August 2022, many states are looking for more radical ways to reduce nuclear weapons risks.
As we explain in our answer to Project-Specific Question 3, there are powerful political and psychological forces resisting the advancement of policy work that takes this science into account. This too bears a striking similarity to the resistance against climate change action. The majority of well-funded states, especially those in alliance with nuclear-armed states, have avoided this subject altogether; even traditional non-governmental funders have not put serious resources behind it.
Nevertheless, the EA community is finally starting to shine a new spotlight onto these risks due to their existential nature, and this movement creates the first real opportunity in decades to address them. A recent blog on the Effective Altruism Forum lists research on the ‘Climate, agricultural, and famine effects of nuclear conflict’ third in its list of priorities for work on nuclear risk reduction. The Clearer Thinking Regrants program should therefore support our project, because BASIC has the drive, networks, and reputation – with 35 years of globally-recognised research, policy, and dialogue behind us – to drive the shift that is needed to deliver this change.
Here's the mechanism by which the applicant expects their project will achieve positive outcomes.
These groups will benefit from this project through the following Theory of Change:
By translating their research from scientific journals into easy-to-understand, evidence-based narrative stories, targeted at a policy audience and accompanied by a new shared vocabulary, we will help make the work of the LSU / Rutgers / Colorado research group more comprehensible to within the global nuclear weapons policy community and global climate change policy community.
By actively disseminating these stories through a series of targeted policy reports, op-eds, minilateral/bilateral briefings, and multilateral diplomatic statements, BASIC and its partners will build up literacy of the global nuclear weapons policy community on the impacts of nuclear climate change.
By increasing the literacy of non-nuclear weapon state officials and non-governmental professionals, and convincing them of the validity of the research, we will build a transnational coalition of formal and informal partners that will subsequently help make the case for the work and its implications to the nuclear-armed state governments. The purpose of engaging with the global climate change policy community is to educate and recruit them to the same cause, strengthening a shared sense of purpose to prevent global climate crisis and positive feedback loops between their work and our own.
By increasing the literacy of nuclear-armed state officials, we will put greater pressure on these governments to: a) present persuasive science-based counter-arguments, including by undertaking and publishing transparent, replicable studies of their own (ideally in partnership with non-nuclear-armed states and NGOs); b) reshape their nuclear deterrence doctrines in order to reduce or even minimise nuclear climate change risks, both in their own interests and due to pressure from other stakeholder groups. These may include strengthening self-deterrence and restraint by decision makers in a nuclear crisis; reducing deployed yields or changing targeting options to minimise target burning, such as by eschewing counter-value (i.e. city) targeting; declaratory statements to signal restraint; or even electing to disarm altogether.
By reducing the risks that their nuclear deterrence doctrines will trigger nuclear climate change impacts through risk reduction measures, the nuclear-armed states will reduce the potential harms to the identified beneficiaries.
N.B. We note that perspective change work is an iterative and not-always rational process. We will factor that knowledge into the models of engagement we implement, considering both the ‘hearts and minds’ of the stakeholders with whom we engage.
How much funding are they requesting?
$500,000 USD over 24 months.
What would they do with the amount specified?
Here you can review the entire public portion of the application (which contains a lot more information about the applicant and their project):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBe85O3myPZZjbMjTIVfLZJh8nlfIklt/edit
Sep 17, 1:18am: Will we fund "Mainstreaming Nuclear Winter Science"? → Will we fund "Nuclear Climate Change"?
Sep 20, 3:34pm:
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It seems implausible that world leaders willing to launch nuclear weapons are going to change their decision based on climate effects, even potentially radical ones.
The project seems to heavily favor reducing deterrence, and last I checked it was non-obvious that is the ideal policy. The project also doesn't bother targeting authoritarians because it (correctly) expects they are beyond its ability to influence.
So in practice the project involves making a lot of NATO officials sit through meetings while you petition them for unilateral disarmament (or to please be gentle if they do nuclear retaliation), which they will refuse.
Doesn't really strike me as effective altruism, sorry. I'm surprised BASIC got two projects in here, going to be disappointed if this makes the cut.
Oh dear!!! This application is flawed and soaked in naivety. The scientific data is heavily contested, and I fail to see from the application how they propose overcoming this and not falling into the trap of using dubious selective “evidence”? What's the screening process and sample selection criteria? How will the project translate disputed research from scientific journals into easy-to-understand, “evidence-based” narrative stories? Simplification will inevitably dilute substance and lead to flawed understandings that are more likely to antagonize an already dived group of people – polar opposite effect to the stated objective to build bridges. The application also omits outlining the strategy for “winning hearts and minds”, which is fundamental to this kind of project.
The engagement risks with this application are very high and I seriously doubt that officials from any of the nuclear armed states will want to associate themselves with this project. I mean, why would my colleagues and foreign counterparts want to? What strong incentive is given for us to do so? I’m afraid informal chats won’t work and quite simply a ridiculous answer. On this basis, this project is firmly in the low impact zone.
This application discusses the advances made in climate modelling but conveniently omits the important FACT that nuclear weapons technology is also vastly different from the 70’s. Why is this not mentioned at all? BIG RED FLAG. In the United States, technological advances in remote sensing (higher counter-force target accuracy) and lighter yields means that counter-value targeting is superfluous. This application also considers counter-value. Really ? WTH, with the exception of maybe 2, the nuclear armed states are all modernizing their arsenals – take this as a clue!!! Looking at the impact to climate change in the context of modernization makes more sense than attempting to influence nuclear doctrines with new stories and lingo. Given that this project skips discussing this key dimension altogether leads me to conclude that whoever wrote this application is heavily biased or lacks even rudimentary understanding of what the nuclear armed states are shooting for as well as the technical details of nuclear weapons.
I also find some of the language in this application troubling; labelling certain countries as “quasi democratic” is inaccurate and highly offensive. I just don’t get their logic on this. Also, “nuclear winter is coming” is alarmist and non-aligned with FTXFF search for non-confrontational opportunities.
I could go on with what’s wrong with this project, but I want to take a look at some of the other projects. My main takeaway is that this project is a straw man and needs to drastically reconsider key aspects mentioned.
The other climate change application is definitely the stronger of the two.
@NuñoSempere Agree, my tone was unfair and unkind. My apologies to the authors. Clearly a reputable organization that know how to run these sought of projects.
@Jacob9bb4, I hope you are well.
I am the Director of BASIC and lead author of this application, and I would be happy to respond to a few of your comments, if I may.
The scientific data is not heavily contested in the open-source scientific literature. We go into this in some detail elsewhere in the application, but unfortunately that is not shown here. There is really just one serious counterproposal to the prevailing scientific consensus as to how nuclear exchanges would affect Earth's systems, and that is a single study produced by Los Alamos National Lab in 2019 which does not share its model. There is a detailed rebuttal of the paper from some of the key scientists in this area here: Robock, A., Toon, O.B., Bardeen, C.G., 2019. Comment on “Climate Impact of a Regional Nuclear Weapon Exchange: An Improved Assessment Based on Detailed Source Calculations” by Reisner et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (124), pp.12953–12958. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030777. There's certainly room for more science, but with the data and modelling that we have, there's more than enough evidence to support the claims we've made and to encourage further study.
In relation to writing stories, I'd just say that if you want to engage with policy makers, you have to translate datasets and models into a language that they understand. Inevitably you lose some of the nuance in doing so – how a scientist or a computer sees the data is radically different to how a policy maker will. But that's the trade off you have to make – if you don't, the policy makers simply won't engage with the subject at all, which is what has happened for the last 30 years in this case and is the problem that we are trying to solve. There is lots of evidence that policy change is driven by stories rather than evidence, so a key part of the project is to find stories that both resonate and are true to the science (compared to the scare-mongering 'nuclear winter' stories that abound and have no impact at present).
I'm afraid I don't agree with you at all that informal chats are not a good way to engage with policy makers. In fact, they are the optimal way to engage with them; that is how most of our work in nuclear policy gets done. It is a heavily relationship-based field, and requires high level of trust. BASIC is an organisation that has that kind of trust from policymakers – hard won over decades – and is able to bring progressive ideas into an otherwise conservative and distrusting space. If I can picture the ideal space to influence a policy maker on this subject, it would be sitting on a sofa together.
There was no deliberate omission of the fact that nuclear weapons technology has changed; obviously it has. But simply because the technology has changed does not mean that doctrine has. The fact of the matter is that we don't actually know what the nuclear doctrines of any of the nuclear weapon states is, so declaring that counter-value (city-targeting) strikes are obsolete and declaring that they are not doctrine in reality are completely different things, and I would humbly suggest that we should be under no illusions about that.
Thanks for your engagement and happy to continue this conversation,
Sebastian
Same concern as other BASIC grant https://manifold.markets/clearthinkbot/will-we-fund-nuclear-offramps#4UN13vEweqjiZIbadRhB
This one is even more problematic, it'd amount to wading into contested scientific findings in a domain FTXFF prefers to stay neutral in.
As with https://manifold.markets/clearthinkbot/will-we-fund-nuclear-offramps
BASIC has 2 applications in the running, I am not aware that this is an established EA org; presumably, if we were to fund them at all, we would test their outputs on a single project first.
Hence it seems appropriate to apply a ~0.5x multiplier to your probabilities here.
The comments I made on the other market apply:
- 35yo org, yet they haven’t mentioned tangible accomplishments in this time.
- They do not appear to struggle for funding outside of EA (35yo, are currently hiring, have multiple projects, relationships with many wealthy institutions etc) -> The counterfactual impact is not great
- They do not seem equipped with useful EA frameworks to do appropriate prioritization, argumentation, strategy, cost effectiveness analysis etc.
Tractability seems low vs other stuff. Like eg improving countries nuclear cyber security (NTI suggest 47% of countries have no response plan to cyber incidents. Tho I confess I have not looked deeply into nuclear cause area.)
- And as Nuno/Misha have indicated, Clearer Thinking not as well positioned as other funders for these two particular applications. If we have cause specific funders, we should redirect relevant applications to them, this is good practice & makes sense in VC as much as in EA.
If even considering funding 500k. This seems like a case where you'd be much better off spending a tenth of it on red teaming the project/org. To see if its actually worth the other 9/10ths (or improve likelihood of actually achieving anything).
Tho the better option would probably to focus on the more promising projects/orgs in this space that could be scaled instead of this.
Hi @GeorgeVii, hope you're well. I am the Director of BASIC and lead author of this application, and I'd be happy to respond to a couple of your points if I may. Thank you so much for your engagement.
You're right that we are not especially well known in the EA community at the moment, as is true for most established nuclear weapons organisations, as our issue area has not typically been a priority within the community. However, BASIC has been engaging intentionally within the EA community since 2017, and I have personally been engaging with EA since 2014. In recent months we have been trying to implement EA principles more intentionally into our work; for instance, we are in the process of overhauling our monitoring and evaluation approach to be directly in line with EA principles and frameworks, and I have been reaching out into the EA community for input on this. This application is also evidence of our intention.
We have been guided in our choice of subjects by this blog on the EA Forum, which outlines key issue areas / projects on nuclear weapons for EA to support (see the third row in the table):
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/N4oG4jMZRkbaKuPZF/nuclear-risk-research-ideas-summary-and-introduction
Our understanding from the application guidance is that applications do not need to be related to Clearer Thinking's mission, and since this is a regrants programme, we read that to mean any of FTXFF's mission / funding areas would be appropriate.
Happy to keep talking!
Sebastian
I made a strong bet against because even if this project is worth funding, ClearerThinking is not the optimal funder for this, because it isn't in a position to hold the group accountable, have a relationship with the org, do enough background research, etc. Probably a better fit for OpenPhilanthropy.
“there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war,”
Basically false. There have been lots of atomic tests, a nuclear-weapon-concluded war, and all kinds of nuclear weapons less powerful than conventional weaponry.
—
Leaving aside everyone on the planet understands a global superpower 10k warhead scenario is not great.
Neither capable of impacting in any material way the odds of such a catastrophic war, nor right on the facts or that most people already fear nuclear anything.
Another “maybe effective, maybe not, campaign” instead any effort to do anything new or move any needle in any way.
@Gigacasting Completely agree. I recently learned the yield of a tactical nuke is actually much less than you would think, as low as 0.3 kilotons to 170 kilotons. For reference, Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. Plus don't forget we have never tested nuclear weapons in a urban setting, which radically dampens the blast radius of even a strategic nuke that is exploded at ground level. When I worked in the Capitol building in DC they did a nuclear drill one day and we learned that if a 15 kiloton devices was detonated between the White House and Capitol complex (1 mile from each) the buildings along Pennsylvania Ave would absorb most of the blast and both structures would survive as would most people in both. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/tactical-nuclear-weapons#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20has%20about,Hiroshima%20bomb%20was%2015%20kilotons.)
@Gigacasting, hope you're well. I am the Director of BASIC and lead author of this application, and I would be happy to respond to a few of your comments, if I may.
When I wrote that there is no such thing as a 'limited' nuclear war, I was paraphrasing Alan Robock, one of the lead authors in this area of study:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2inyRSbFyqgD4MqgvAtQKq?si=alpVZ7WlSDiAY0ghK-xupw
You are correct that there is a little overlap between the smallest nuclear weapons and the largest conventional weapons, but the overlap is extremely slight (+/- 1 ton) when viewed in perspective. According to a leading historian, Alex Wellerstein, 'The smallest U.S. nuclear weapon ever developed, the W-54, had a minimum yield of “only” 10 tons of TNT equivalent (0.01 kilotons) and could be carried by a single soldier in an (awkwardly large) backpack.' (https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/low-yield-nukes-are-still-dangerously-destructive). This weapon was retired in 1979. In contrast, the modern-day MOAB is the largest conventional weapon, with a yield of 11 tons. For the US military's perspective, this means that they can accomplish the same military objectives without breaking the nuclear taboo.
You can imagine a scenario where a single W-54 is used and does not precipitate a wider nuclear war, but that's not really what I was getting at. What I'm really talking about here when I say 'limited nuclear war' is a smaller-scale nuclear exchange, such as 100-250x Hiroshima sized bombs being exchanged (see: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478). Even this is an extremely conservative use-case, given that most modern nuclear weapons today are 1-4 orders of magnitude larger than the Hiroshima bomb.
Robock's original point is rhetorical: it can be convenient for policy makers from nuclear-armed states to try to make a distinction between strategic/tactical or all-out/limited nuclear war, but that distinction is far blurrier than they would generally make out, because the second-order effects of the blast – not to mention the uncontrollability of the escalation – are likely to be much worse than typically discussed in security policy circles.
Happy to continue the conversation,
Sebastian