Over-Optimism in Technology

In discussions around climate change, solutions are often thought of with long time-frames, whether because of the long time scale associated with possible changes in the climate or earth system or because of the long life of infrastructure that provides some inertia or delays in the implementation of effective measures.

Nevertheless, there is consensus among scientists that we must drastically reduce the emission of CO2 and other GHGs in order to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of our century and we must stop the destruction of the great forests and oceans, which represent important sinks in the carbon cycle. In fact, the question today is not so much what we should do but how we should do it. In fact, we live in an epoch in which it is necessary to answer the challenge of how to govern the Earth as a whole [ 21 ], which allows managing and protecting the common parts, like a big condominium [22]. Otherwise, as Hardin wrote in his well-known article ‘Tragedy of Commons’, the free use of the commons brings ruin to all, to the extent that “each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited” [23] (p. 1244).