Hmm. I think once we get into the territory of "plan to use", though, you end up with the same types of criticisms that apply to carbon credits and RECs, no? I really think that a nonzero price is not a good enough signal here! Polluters don't have perfect information about future climate regulations, future technologies, future market demand for their products, or even necessarily the future of the cap per Ville's point below. I read Making Climate Policy Work recently, which is a really thorough critique of the compliance markets; could be useful to see which of their criticisms apply to retiring allowances.

Giving Green hat on: if you want relatively certain and near-term emissions reductions at this price point, we usually recommend Tradewater. However, generally we would argue that unconstrained donors (i.e. not meeting some kind of net-zero reporting requirement) should donate to nonprofits working on policy or other systems change; GG's cost-effectiveness analyses land about an order of magnitude lower in $/ton than most allowances or credits, and I think also Founders Pledge's climate fund's analyses do as well. 

I think people should keep re-releasing this idea because this community dynamic very much still exists! I've also seen extremely smart and motivated friends engage with and then "bounce off" EA because of this.

Gotcha. Since you're already in the UChicago network I think it's definitely worth getting in touch with someone about Climate Vault, as in the early days they were aiming at permanent retirement - I don't know the specifics of why they pivoted away from that model but I imagine you'll learn something useful. 

Giving Green briefly looked into some brokers with similar models here as well; ultimately we're pretty skeptical. Even if your marginal additionality is 1 for small purchases, it's inherently not a scalable model. If the core of what you're doing is funding public goods and not selling carbon allowances, you should pitch that more! There are more cost-effective ways to just reduce emissions :) 

Inside baseball comment here but what's the relationship between Ultra Civic and Climate Vault? Assuming that as a recent UChicago econ grad you're familiar with them. (I used to work for Levitt, my team briefly explored working with Greenstone on Climate Vault when the model was purely about retiring allowances, before they pivoted to combining this with removal tons)

suggestion along the same lines: Fight for the Future has been sounding the alarm about consolidated corporate control of communication spaces and the risks that poses, especially to pro-democracy movements and to queer & trans folks. Haven't done a deep dive but have followed them for a while and they seem to be consistently ahead of the curve (alongside EFF) on the wonky things like Section 230, ID checks, net neutrality

hi sarah! yeah i think that's true as well. i think in my head it was already obvious and therefore not realization-worthy that engaged EAs believe AW is underfunded, but i also probably talk to people with this belief disproportionately often due to the climate/AW funding overlap bc i am learning elsewhere on the internet that people think this is weird

hahaha no I know, more seriously I just don't want to vote for a marginal funding post that I wrote! feels like it's not the point of the endeavor, I'd rather support other orgs in the community in a small way~

hmm not sure it's fair to make claims about what "consensus EA" believes based on the donation election honestly

• "consensus EA" seems like it is likely to be something other than "people who are on the Forum between Nov 18 and Dec 3"
  • I only pay attention to climate, but as a cause area it tends to be more prominent in "EA-wide" surveys/giving than it is among the most highly-engaged EAs (Forum readers)^[1]
• people are literally voting based on what OP is not funding

1. ^{^}

   I didn't even vote for GG bc I know it won't win, but it does warm my cold dead heart that four whole people did

I think Siobhan (hi! correct me if I'm wrong!) is primarily trying to say that the assumption of a given set of resources doesn't really hold anymore, and that acting like it does, at least from a comms perspective, can be harmful: i.e. EAs spending a lot of energy criticizing donations to food pantries is causing potential donors to be turned off from EA and therefore not give effectively or not give at all, regardless of whether the criticism is correct or not^[1].

This feels to me like part of the broader growing pains of "EA in a world where people actually listen to us" (which is a phrase I'm stealing because I think it applies even though the motivation for that post is entirely different) -- EA is used to assuming a given set of resources (how should we allocate the amount of money that exists "within EA"?), but for a movement increasingly in the public eye that aims to grow, that's actually no longer the best way to think about good strategy for the movement.

So what Brad is saying here is rightish^[2] for a given set of resources, but not really relevant to the point OP is making as I understand it, which is that EA as a public movement is not just influencing a given set of resources anymore and should stop acting like it. The next marginal bednet dollar is more likely to come from your friend in tech who eats out 5 times a week than it is to come from your grandma who donates to the food pantry (or from a philosophy major doing a bunch of first-principles research on how to donate most effectively, because that audience is already spoken for).

1. ^{^}

   i think this is true fwiw

2. ^{^}

   i say ish because i think everything is warm fuzzies and that food pantry, bednets, and luxury goods are all in fact in competition