EA - Why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment (Hannah Ritchie on the 80,000 Hours Podcast) by 80000 Hours

Welcome 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: Why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment (Hannah Ritchie on the 80,000 Hours Podcast), published by 80000 Hours on August 16, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.We just published an interview: Hannah Ritchie on why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment. You can click through for the audio, a full transcript, and related links. Below are the episode summary and some key excerpts.Episode summaryThere's no money to invest in education elsewhere, so they almost get trapped in the cycle where they don't get a lot from crop production, but everyone in the family has to work there to just stay afloat. Basically, you get locked in. There's almost no opportunities externally to go elsewhere.So one of my core arguments is that if you're going to address global poverty, you have to increase agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. There's almost no way of avoiding that.Hannah RitchieIn today's episode, host Luisa Rodriguez interviews the head of research at Our World in Data - Hannah Ritchie - on the case for environmental optimism.They cover:Why agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa could be so important, and how much better things could getHer new book about how we could be the first generation to build a sustainable planetWhether climate change is the most worrying environmental issueHow we reduced outdoor air pollutionWhy Hannah is worried about the state of biodiversitySolutions that address multiple environmental issues at onceHow the world coordinated to address the hole in the ozone layerSurprises from Our World in Data's researchPsychological challenges that come up in Hannah's workAnd plenty moreGet this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world's most pressing problems and how to solve them: type '80,000 Hours' into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript.Producer and editor: Keiran HarrisAudio Engineering Lead: Ben CordellTechnical editing: Milo McGuire and Dominic ArmstrongAdditional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa RodriguezTranscriptions: Katy MooreHighlightsWhy agricultural productivity is so low in sub-Saharan AfricaLuisa Rodriguez: How does labour productivity in sub-Saharan Africa compare to other regions?Hannah Ritchie: So if we use a metric for it as the amount of value you'd get per worker - so the economic value per person working on the farm - the average for sub-Saharan Africa is half of the global average. [and] it's 50 times lower than you'd get in the UK or the US. If you look at some countries within sub-Saharan Africa, they're like half of the sub-Saharan Africa average. So there you're talking about 100 times less than you'd get in the UK or the US.Hannah Ritchie: So you put that in context: the value that an average farmer in the US might create in three to four days is the same as a Tanzanian farmer for the entire year.Luisa Rodriguez: Why is it so low in sub-Saharan Africa?Hannah Ritchie: I think there's a couple of reasons. One is that the farms are really small, so often the amount of crop or value you get out is quite low. And maybe we'll come onto crop yields. So with low crop yields, you get not that much out, but also, as you said, you can't afford machinery, or you can't afford fertilisers or pesticides, or things that would basically substitute for human power inputs. So it just means you need lots of hands on deck to keep the farm going and keep it at that baseline level of productivity. So you don't get much out, and you just need lots of people working on the farm.Luisa Rodriguez: OK, and then the other thing that seems to be really low here is land productivity. Which feels a bit more intuitive to me, is that basically how much crop yield you'd get from, for example, an acre of land?Hannah Ritchie: Yeah, exactly. So it's like what most...