I think climate change, coupled with different war-over-resources type scenarios imply non-negligible existential risk. The most compelling argument I'm aware of for switching from environmental science (or military tech/strategy/intelligence, since those also impact the existential risk associated with climate change) is the marginal utility argument -- FAI research is so much smaller, making the relative contribution of one person so much larger (assuming you believe the law of diminishing returns should be applied to AI research and climate change).
This is a big issue, there's a lot of bright young people doing the equivalent of cleaning oil off seabirds because they feel they gotta do something about environmental risk. On the other hand, theres a lot of greens arguing against nuclear power and for growing tomatoes in greenhouses to save on aviation fuel, so maybe there isn't enough brainpower being dedicated to the topic....
Anyway the flipside of marginal utility here is comparative advantage: what skills do you have that can help with AI research?
What does the community here think when it comes to climate change as a potential existential risk? While strategies for combating climate change are fairly straightforward, the seeming lack of political capital behind meaningful climate reform and legislation seems to indicate that the problem is going to get substantially worse before it gets better, and the potential consequences of ignoring this issue look to be quite severe indeed!
Should the rationality/x-risks community be spending more effort on evaluating this idea and exploring potential solutions? It certainly seems like a big problem, and the current trajectory is quite worrisome. On the other hand, the issue is a political minefield and could risk entangling the community in political squabbling, potentially jeopardizing its ability to act on other threats. What do you guys think?