David Hart: Dream World of Magic Blues

Nov 9, 2016 9:20 AM ET
David Hart

Audio File

If you had a functional magic wand wouldn’t you use it to reverse climate change? A quick flick of your wrist and, presto change-o, our troubles would be over! But, as our guest this week on Sea Change Radio, David Hart, rightly points out, that’s not how the world works. Hart, a professor at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the Information, Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), summarizes his recent report on the need to avoid overly optimistic, simplistic solutions to climate change, or what he calls “magical thinking.” He argues that environmentalists and science-deniers may both be guilty of this enchanting oversimplification, and posits that instead we need to devise complex strategies to address the multi-faceted dilemma that is climate change.