This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, December 16th, 2022. I'm Caleb Brown.

Many environmental problems have solutions that exist on a micro level.

So says Todd Myers, author of Time to Think Small,

how nimble environmental technologies can solve the planet's biggest problems.

We spoke earlier this year.

When you talk about environmental technology and removing power from politicians and giving

it back to people, my first thought is giant machines that suck all of this carbon dioxide out of the air and like large scale industrial projects aimed at solving environmental problems.

Is that what you're talking about?

I am actually talking about the exact opposite because so many of the environmental problems that we have are actually not grand scale

or the solutions to them are actually better done at a very small level. So when people think of environmental solutions they tend to think of the 1970s right they think of the EPA the Clean Air Act the Clean Water Act and I think that if we are going to break out of the cycle where environmental problems are simply a catalyst for more big government solutions,

which is why I think so many people are skeptical of environmental concerns because they just simply see it as a Trojan horse for big government.

The only way to get out of that is to recognize that there are lots of small solutions that are more powerful actually than the big types of projects that you talk about that are the stereotype.

And it's not just climate change, it is protecting wildlife, it is reducing ocean plastic.

And the reason that we have these opportunities is because technology, small technology,

has become so ubiquitous, we now can tackle problems using, you know, sort of the theories

of Eleanor Ostrom and a more libertarian approach rather than saying okay government you know here we're granting you power go solve the problem

Give me a case the one of the most dramatic cases ocean plastic so more and more plastic is

washing into the ocean it's not happening in the United States primarily where

it's happening is places like the Philippines like Indonesia Brazil

Haiti so how do you solve the problem like Indonesia, Brazil, Brazil, Haiti.

So how do you solve the problem of ocean plastic,

of plastic going into the ocean,

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