Week 1: Scope Sensitivity & Fish Welfare
IN THIS LESSON
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We only have so many resources to distribute among the many causes that could plausibly alleviate suffering. This means we have to prioritise: we have to choose to put more effort and resources into some areas over others. This reading introduces some core concepts to consider when prioritizing in order to have the most impact for animals.
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To help the most animals, it’s important to have a good working understanding of population scales. Some populations are much, much larger than others, yet remain highly neglected. This reading offers a quick overview of the scale of various animal groups impacted by humans. (Disclaimer: this reading completely leaves out farmed invertebrates, the largest group of farmed animals – as well as wild animals not impacted by humans, the largest group of suffering animals by far; we’ll discuss both of these in later weeks).
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This tool allows you to set your priorities in order to rank consumption of different animal species according to contributions to climate change and farmed animal suffering. Spend a couple minutes playing with this tool, keeping scope sensitivity in mind as you think about the implications and what goes into a tool like this (this fellowship will help you dive into the data and considerations behind such a tool!).
