A little thought game

source

This isn't new, but I was reminded of it via a Bishop Hill post. 

Below is a section of the transcript for a BBC Radio 4 current affairs show Are Environmentalists Bad For The Planet? First broadcast 25.01.10.

TOWNSEND*: I was making a speech to nearly 200 

really hard core, deep environmentalists and I played
a little thought game on them. I said imagine I am the 

carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid 

of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to two 

hundred fifty parts per million and I will ensure with my 

little magic wand that we do not go above two degrees 

of global warming. However, by waving my magic wand 

I will be interfering with the laws of physics not with people 

– they will be as selfish, they will be as desiring of status. 

The cars will get bigger, the houses will get bigger, the 

planes will fly all over the place but there will be no climate 
change. And I asked them, would you ask the fairy to wave 
its magic wand? And about 2 people of the 200 raised their hands. 

ROWLATT: That is quite shocking. I bet you were shocked, weren’t you? 

TOWNSEND: I was angry. I wasn’t shocked. I was angry 

because it really showed that they wanted more. They didn’t 

just want to prevent climate change. They wanted to somehow 

change people, or at very least for people to know that they had to change.

* Solitaire Townsend Co-founder and Chief Executive of Futerra Sustainability Communications.